The White House created some confusion on Friday when it issued its invitation, particularly with this part:
Since this meeting will be most productive if information is widely available before the meeting, we will post online the text of a proposed health insurance reform package. This legislation would put a stop to insurance company abuses, extend coverage to millions of Americans, get control of skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket costs, and reduce the deficit.
It is the President’s hope that the Republican congressional leadership will also put forward their own comprehensive bill to achieve those goals and make it available online as well.
Did this mean that the White House was going to proposed a watered down plan with just those four elements included? Was it going to be some truncation of the existing legislation? Apparently not, according to what Ezra found out over the weekend.
I spoke to the White House over the weekend and they indicated that the president's package will not be a new White House plan, but a compromise between the House and Senate bills. That is to say, the White House expects that the House and Senate will have a compromise plan by February 25th.
That's not necessarily surprising: The two chambers were pretty close to agreement on a compromise package before Scott Brown's election threw everything into chaos. Presumably, that'll be dusted off for this meeting.
According to Tom Harkin, the two chambers weren't just close on the compromise package, they had pretty much sealed the deal.
It would seem that the question now that both chambers still have to work out is how much of that compromise could be put into a reconciliation side-car fix. Because, significantly, the package will reflect the compromise which suggests that the White House recognizes that the Senate bill as is won't pass in the House. Whatever the summit is likely to achieve, it isn't going to result in Republicans supporting reform, unless Obama has become a hypnotist.
So, since the existing compromise package is the plan, the big picture hasn't really changed--there has to be a reconciliation fix passed that allows for passage of the Senate bill in the House.