President Barack Obama has invited Republican congressional leaders to join him, along with his Democratic colleagues, to discuss and agree on health care reform measures. Obama has proposed a televised meeting which would be held on February 25th.
Having expended much political capital on health care reform and coming within a hair’s-breath of passing new legislation until Scott Brown, the new Republican Senator from Massachusetts recently derailed the super-majority in the Senate, President Obama is reaching across the aisle to garner support.
“I want to come back [after the Presidents Day congressional recess] and have a large meeting — Republicans and Democrats — to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward,” Obama said in an interview with Katie Couric during CBS’s Super Bowl pre-game show Sunday.
“If we can go, step by step, through a series of these issues and arrive at some agreements, then, procedurally, there’s no reason why we can’t do it a lot faster than the process took last year,” he said.
So far, GOP members have reacted coolly to Obama’s invitation.
