Transcript from The Situation Room aired March 2,2010
The road for health care reform has so many twists and turns, you need a political navigational system just to keep up. Tomorrow, President Obama will map out how he hoes to arrive at the final destination passing a health bill.
Today, we learned Republican ideas could come along for the ride. President Obama wrote a letter to the Congressional leadership, saying he's open to four GOP proposals. And they are allowing undercover investigations of health providers receiving Medicare, Medicaid and other federal programs; $50 million for grants to states for resolving medical malpractice suits; increasing Medicaid reimbursements to some doctors and insuring that certain high deductible health plans will be offered in the health exchange.
Let's bring in our senior political analyst David Gergen to assess what the president has done today. I read that her, I'm sure you did as well. Is it just for show, or will it really bring Republicans into the fold?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Wolf, President Obama today offered the velvet glove. Tomorrow he brings the steel fist. This was an outreach to Republicans that they quickly brushed back. But that does not mean we're supposed to support four amendments and now come around to support a 2,000 page bill. So, the leaders -- Republican leaders of the Senate and the House both said no to this. Everybody knew they were going to say no, but it does give the president some talking points to the country and to Democrats saying, look, we tried to be reasonable, we listened, we've taken some of their proposals and we're trying to incorporate some of them. We're not trying to jam this through. It gives him more political talking points than a substantive change.
BLITZER: I like the way the president sort of finessed that in the letter, mentioning names. He said I like the ideas that Senator Coburn, Senator Bure, Senator Ensly, Senator Grassley, Senator Barasa, Senator McCain. He kept mentioning Republican's names. They made good points in that discussion, and sort of trying to win them over, as you say with a velvet glove although it's probably not going to be enough. In fact, is there anything the president can do right now short of starting from scratch that would win over Republicans?
GERGEN: No. The Republicans have made it I think abundantly clear that it's the bill is so fundamentally flawed as Lamar Alexander, the senator who has argued from Tennessee on several occasions now, this is a car that could be recalled and can't be fixed. So that's their view, and we're heading into a bruising battle. Tomorrow, I think, Wolf, you've been hearing, I've been hearing, the president will come out swinging with a steel fist, and he's going to make it clear, look, if you guys aren't coming along, we will use this process of reconciliation, and I think as we get closer to that day, we're learning it will be messier than anybody might have predicted, and it could easily be a long battle, Wolf.
BLITZER: I'm told the president will make that statement in the 10:00 A.M. Eastern Hour. We'll have live coverage, of course, here on CNN. David, thanks very much.
GERGEN: Thank you, Wolf.