As Summit Looms, Obama Keeps Health Care Options Open

In one breath, President Barack Obama invites Republicans to a Feb. 25 televised summit next week to find common ground on bipartisan ways to bring health care reform back to life.

In the next breath, Obama has Congressional Democrats working on a strongly Democratic version of a joint health care bill that no Republican in Congress would touch with a 10-foot pole.

In other words, Obama is playing it smart as the most important battle of his young presidential administration looms. He is keeping all his options open with a "carrot and stick" strategy to win over Republicans looking to stop health care reform legislation at all costs.

The carrot is honest negotiations on legislation. The stick is an all-Democratic version of health care reform that Obama will try to force down Republican throats, compromise be damned.

Obama has put a lot of his political capital on the line with the legislation that would expand medical coverage to 30 million Americans and force most Americans to keep some form of health insurance.

And the president has said that while he is willing to listen to Republicans for ways to change the legislation, it doesn't mean he will roll over on every sticking point.

Obama would not have needed to work so hard to reach agreement with Republicans if Democrats had kept the Senate seat in Massachusetts' special election won by Republican Scott Brown last month. With that victory, though, Republicans won the ability to filibuster or delay Democratic efforts to bring health care reform to a vote.

One way around the political roadblock for Democrats would be to use a backdoor tactic, known as "reconciliation," to pass health care legislation in a piece-meal way, without having to face a full vote that Republicans could filibuster.

The problem for Democrats is that using reconciliation would likely poison any chance for bipartisanship down the road. But that might be better for Obama and the Democrats than facing voters with nothing to show for a year of political fighting over health care reform.

Thanks to the vote in Massachusetts, the health care reform debate is looking like a high stakes game of poker, with both players calling each other to a showdown. The Feb. 25th summit and its outcome will show if either Obama and the Democrats or Republicans are bluffing.