Obama's Speech to Congress Is Last-Ditch Effort at Bipartisanship

Published December 24, 2015

President Obama is giving bipartisanship one last chance. In an effort to revive a sickly health care reform bill, the president will make a primetime address to both houses of Congress next week -- a joint-session whose very gathering implies an issue of critical importance to the nation.

The joint session for a president will be one of only 13 since 1981 -- outside of electoral vote counts, inaugurations and State of the Union addresses.

The topic of Wednesday's address -- health care -- has already been tried in the same setting, by President Clinton in 1993. And, as was the case 16 years ago, the president hopes the joint session will avert the collapse of efforts to change the nation's health care delivery and payment system.

After a summer of brutal town hall meetings on health care reform, Obama will try to re-galvanize Democrats and recast the debate toward do-or-die bipartisanship.

White House aides say the president will not be very specific about details of a health care reform policy, but he will deliver the message that Democrats are willing to go it alone if they can't get Republican support. White House adviser David Axelrod also reportedly said Thursday that the president hopes to have a bill passed within the next month.

Vice President Biden said Thursday that he's not going to preview Obama's remarks but is confident the president can convince stalwart partisans to consider the alternatives.

"There's going to be a major speech laying out in understandable, clear terms, what our administration wants to happen with regard to health care, and what we are going to push for specifically," Biden said as he touted the impact of the $787 billion stimulus bill.

"We're going to get something substantial. ... It's going to be a whole lot of screaming and hollering before we get there, but I believe we're going to get there. I believe the president will lay out, I know the president will lay out very clearly Wednesday, what he thinks those pieces have to be and will be," he said.

Republicans have already said that they are not going to support any plans for a government-run health insurance system; Democrats have vowed to get a so-called public option into law.

Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., a key negotiator on the Senate Finance Committee, which has all but stalled on talks to find a compromise, said in a statement he's not walking away from his "shared goal" of health care reform, but he opposes the bills currently floating through the House and Senate, which have reached the next stage of consideration on largely one-sided votes.

"I have consistently said that I would oppose a government-run option. I believe we need to increase, not decrease, private competition and transparency, and if Congress is serious about reducing the cost of health care we need to look at some type of malpractice reform," Enzi said.

Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Xavier Becerra, the fifth highest-ranking Democrat in the House, said that "everything is on the table," but he suggested that many Democrats will not vote for a bill that lacks a public option, creating a standoff with Republicans.

"The president is supposed to be the leader. I think he's going to give us a far better roadmap. He'll give us a clear sense of where we can go," the California congressman said.

But where Congress can go is a message lawmakers got during this summer's town hall meetings, and it wasn't pretty.

"Clearly what happened this summer with the American people weighing in on the bills was not a happy scene, as many of us found," said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas. "We have pretty low approval ratings across the board in Congress, whether Republican or Democrat."

Becerra said he did not think Democrats lost control of the message during those town halls, but acknowledged that constituents held strong views.

"Americans began speaking. Americans spoke to be heard. Some spoke to drown out. Some spoke to delay. We're better armed with information from our constituents as to what to do," he said.

Whether the joint session will yield the kind of universal change that the president and his supporters demand could lie with the president's soaring rhetoric or alarmist prophesies.

Joint sessions are usually make-or-break opportunities for a president to craft his agenda and win support for his priorities. Requiring a concurrent resolution by the House and Senate, they are rarely called for run-of-the-mill politicking.

Outside of customary joint sessions, President Ronald Reagan gave four joint sessions during his eight years in office -- two in 1981 on economic recovery, one in 1983 on U.S. assistance in Nicaragua and Grenada and one in 1985 on the Geneva Summit.

President George H.W. Bush gave three -- a session shortly after his inauguration in 1989 was on his vision of America. Two more dealt with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the end of the Persian Gulf War.

President George W. Bush delivered two addresses to a joint session -- a budget announcement and notification about the start of the War on Terror.

And President Bill Clinton delivered two -- an economic address and 1993 remarks on what has gone down in history as "Hillary Care," the ill-fated effort to nationalize the health care system.

In February, Obama gave his introductory address as president. Wednesday's address will be his second joint session.

Becerra said that he thinks Obama will have much greater success than Clinton, whose speech was delivered nearly 16 years to the day earlier than Obama's.

"I was here 16 years ago. There's a big difference," Becerra said. "This speech comes under different circumstances. Clinton said I'm going to let you (Congress) put the meat on the bone. Obama will say this is my selection of meat. Now the president will weigh in and tell us how to get this across the finish line. And that's why this is different from 1993," he said.

Burgess suggested Obama may be unsuccessful in trying to spend his already weakened political capital.

"Fact is, the president could've passed anything he wanted in February. He chose to pass the stimulus bill, which was ill-advised at the time. He could've done his health care bill first and it would've been the law of the land today had he chosen different timing."

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