Obama Summons Dems to WH for Late-Night Health Reform Talks

Obama Summons Dems to White House for Late-Night Health Reform Talks
FOX News
President Obama summoned House and Senate Democratic leaders to the White House late Thursday to discuss an apparent breakthrough in health care reform negotiations — on the make-or-break issue of taxing high-value health plans and other issues.
After enduring months of criticism that he was too detached from negotiations — criticism mostly expressed in Democratic cloakrooms on Capitol Hill — Obama has jumped in with both feet. He has personalized a marathon push to land a health care deal this week or early next week, telling lawmakers and key stakeholders that he will not tolerate failure and that compromises, even hard ones, must be achieved on a tight schedule.
Obama began meeting with twelve top Democrats at 9 p.m., and the meeting has no scheduled end time. This comes after most of the same lawmakers spent more than eight hours at the White House on Wednesday trying to hammer out a deal.
The breakthrough announced Thursday was a biproduct of the previous days talks: a deal on so-called “Cadillac” insurance plans. The White House and top union leaders heralded the agreement, which shields all union workers for five years from significant taxes on health benefit packages that non-union workers will face starting in 2013.
On Tuesday, Obama told union leaders who came to the White House to express their opposition to the excise taxes that they would not deter him and they must accept the tax in some form. Under those conditions, union leaders sought various exemptions, even though some in their membership adamantly opposed any tax on health benefits.
Republican critics called the union deal another back-room favor handed out in secret talks that violated Obama’s promise of transparency.

Wild Thing’s comment……….
Some late night arm twisting and knee-capping, the Chicago way! Good grief, how many many end of week, late night, wear down sessions does it take to pass a deeply flawed, socialist agenda?!! And isn’t it wonderful how Obama has eliminated partisanship by only talking to Democrats.