Bipartisan health proposal doubted

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Thursday he "would love to have more Republicans engaged" in the health-care negotiations under way in Congress but expressed doubt that a bipartisan compromise could be reached.

"I think early on, a decision was made by the Republican leadership that said, 'Look, let's not give him a victory,' " Obama said. As the president prepared to leave for vacation today, he sought to allay concerns about his health-care agenda from both sides of the political spectrum, hoping to clear up what he called "a lot of confusion."

He appeared on a conservative-leaning radio talk show and later rallied his own network of supporters in an effort to push forward on remaking the health-care system.

"You know," Obama said, "passing a big bill like this is always messy."

The president did not close the door to reaching a bipartisan deal, saying he was "happy to make sensible compromises." But he added that Democrats would not "give up on the core principle that Americans who don't have health insurance should get it."

His comments came hours before six members of the Senate Finance Committee began consulting in a conference call on the state of their negotiations toward a bipartisan health-care agreement.

The leaders of the talks, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chairman of the panel, and the senior Republican, Sen. Charles Grassley, of Iowa, have said a deal could be struck this week. As the negotiators prepared to discuss a bill that almost certainly would not include a public-insurance plan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in San Francisco that legislation without such a public plan could not win House approval.

The president took a handful of questions Thursday on the radio talk show, hosted by Michael Smerconish, of Philadelphia. Obama renewed his support for a public-insurance option, seeking to quell the uproar among some Democrats that he was abandoning his position to make the plan more acceptable to moderates.

"The press got excited, and some folks on the left got a little excited," Obama said, referring to the reports this week that the administration was leaning toward health-care cooperatives as an alternative to a government-run program to compete with private insurers.

Still, the president added that the public option was merely "one choice of many choices," adding that no one should be "obligated to go into a public plan."

Asked by one caller what elements needed to be included in a health-care plan, Obama listed four points: reducing the cost of health care; protecting consumers from insurance abuses; providing affordable coverage to uninsured Americans; and not adding to the deficit.

One caller said he sensed the president's "knees are buckling a little bit" on his pledge to overhaul the nation's health-care system.

"I'm confident that we're going to get it done," Obama said.

Later, Obama spoke to a gathering of Organizing for America, activists who supported his candidacy, telling them, "The best offense against lies is the truth. All we can do is just keep on pushing the truth."