Major Garrett: WH Stops Playing Defense on Health Care

For the Obama White House, Thursday's health care summit is about getting back on offense after months of playing defense.

It's a hallmark of how badly things have gone that a White House that had a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a sizable majority in the House felt as if it was playing defense on Obama's signature domestic initiative.

By defense, the White House means Obama became a captive to secretive congressional horse-trading to win an under-whelming and ultimately futile Senate victory on Christmas Eve. The ensuing negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate health care bills became a more excruciating exercise in back-room negotiations between fractious lawmakers and Democratic interest groups.

Then came Democrat Martha Coakley's loss to Scott Brown in Massachusetts and the entire year-long effort collapsed of its own legislative weight (2,700 pages plus) and political backlash.

The White House felt on the defensive, unable to explain what would come next, how health care could possibly pass. A funereal air of resignation began to hang over the process.

To shake things up, Obama decided to write a new script - starting with a televised summit and six-hours of health care wonkery. The gimmick is simple: the only elixir for a country soured on secrecy and Democrat-on-Democrat policy wrangling is an all-the-way live, bi-partisan health care talk-a-thon.

The summit, as White House advisers readily admit, is not about cobbling together a bi-partisan deal to break the health care logjam. The point is to show voters that Obama will sit with Republicans for six hours and see if, in spokesman Robert Gibbs' words, engage in a "robust debate" with "open minds."

"We're always better when we're on offense," a senior official told Fox. "The summit is us on offense. At the end it will be painfully clear to American that Republicans have absolutely no intention of cooperating on health care."

The Obama dynamic that works, the White House believes, is one where he's seen as a facilitator, a leader on complex issues who can debate policy nuances without notes or a cadre of whispering aides.

Obama intends to put all of these skills on display. That's why he's set aside six hours (minus time for lunch) for the summit - a virtually unprecedented allocation of presidential time for bi-partisan policy talks.

A look at the White House agenda, meticulously designed to amplify Obama's role and voice, indicates Republicans will spar with Obama - still more popular than they are, rather than Democratic congressional leaders who are not.

Here's the agenda:

1. Discussion:

a. The President will offer opening comments, followed by Republican and Democratic Members chosen by their colleagues.

b. They’ll then move to discussions around four themes:

i. Controlling costs – introduced by the President

ii. Insurance reforms – introduced by Secretary Sebelius

iii. Reducing the deficit – introduced by the Vice President

iv. Expanding coverage – introduced by the President

2. Logistics

a. Participants will be seated at tables in a hollow square setup. They’ll be identified with name cards.

b. There will be a leadership staff walk-through on Wednesday afternoon.

3. Timing

a. The meeting will begin at 10:00 am and run until about 4:00 pm.

b. There will be a break for lunch. Buffet lunch will be provided for guests.

The White House believes if Republicans are perceived as stubborn holdouts, it and Democrats will have an easier time pursuing a fast-developing go-it-alone strategy on health care that includes a Senate maneuver called reconciliation that evades a filibuster.

Asked if the summit was "a theatrical prelude to reconciliation," a White House official said "I wouldn't call it theatrical."

Republicans believe as wholeheartedly as the White House that stubbornness is the key to the perception war. And they intend to stay stubborn, America.

As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday, the composite of health care polls shows Republicans and independents are opposed to Obama's approach to health care.

In response, Democrats Tuesday touted a new Kaiser Foundation tracking poll on health care found 76% support "reforming the way health care works"; 71% support health insurance exchanges; 70% support expanding "high-risk insurance" pools; and 58% would be "disappointed" or "angry" if health care reform fails.

Democrats and the White House cling to such polling data in that it reinforces their belief that voters support the essential concepts of health care reform.

But here's the bad news - the news Republicans are banking on making public policy stubbornness pay. That same Kaiser survey showed, in numbers Democrats did not trumpet, a nation divided on whether to pass the Obama plan: 43 percent for, 43 percent against.

By any measure, no matter the tactics, those numbers are offensive. And that means the White House may well still be on defense - even if it doesn't feel like it, or on Thursday look like it.

To get the Capitol Hill perspective on the summit read Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron’s piece, “Health Care Summiting Players to Watch.”