White House is determined to reach out to GOP, 'open' to suggestions to improve health law (WP)

[somone]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/18/AR2011011801318.html

White House 'open' to GOP suggestions to improve health law
By Perry Bacon Jr.

The White House is continuing what it started after the November elections: a determined effort to reach out to congressional Republicans and reduce the partisan divide in Washington.

As House Republicans prepare this week to hold a vote to repeal the health-care law that President Obama signed last year, the administration says it opposes that idea but is "open" to Republican suggestions to improve the provision. That is a marked shift from last year, when the president and congressional Democrats repeatedly blasted the GOP for not backing the law and cast as them as uncaring of the millions who would gain health insurance under it.

The president has invited rookie lawmakers, a group that overwhelming consists of Republicans, to a reception at the White House next week, as first reported by Politico. Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to again urge both parties to work together, and the White House has spoken favorably of the proposal by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) for Democrats and Republicans to sit together, as opposed to being grouped by party, during next week's State of the Union address....

Former vice president Richard B. Cheney, one of the leading critics of the Obama administration, predicted in an interview with NBC News on Monday that President Obama would lose reelection in 2012.

[Brickbat]

1. That's one hell of a chess game, there. One hell of a chess game.

[edhopper]

2. Yeah

turn over your king on the first move and give them the checkmate. Brilliant.

[williamson86]

3. Evil Obama! How dare you work across the aisle...

some people are just hopeless...

[Brickbat]

4. There's a difference between working across the aisle and leaping over it like a groupie at a rock

concert.

[edhopper]

5. Can you name

one thing any Republican has said about the health care bill that should be considered by Obama?
Since he already gave up every progressive idea (like the Government Option)to try to get a single Republican vote.
What now should he give up to show the bipartisan illusion?

[Better Believe It]

7. You're right! We need more collaboration with our right-wing friends in the Republican Party

We can start with big bi-partisan cuts in social programs.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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