The President's announcement of a Health Care Summit with Republicans is undoubtedly an election year trap. Here's the road map on how to navigate this issue successfully.

Barack Obama's announcement of a televised Health Care Summit with Republicans on February 25th should be approached with caution. After being thwarted for an entire year on this issue by his own party; Barack Obama has to find a way to twist this. Obama's choices are reduced to two: Either turn the momentum (literally impossible), or discover a way to blame this failure on the opposition prior to the upcoming November elections.

It is conventional wisdom that both current Democratic plans would eventually stifle personal choice; add to the deficit, and ultimately result in the rationing of services as costs continue to spiral upward. Since announcing this summit during a pre-game interview on Superbowl Sunday we've already received a preview of the kabuki theater in store.

Barack Obama himself was quoted as saying; "…what I want to do is to ask them to put their ideas on the table. And then after the recess, which will be a few weeks away, I want to come back and have large meeting with Republicans and Democrats to go through, systematically, all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward."

Democrats in both Houses of Congress have been excoriating Republicans for months as the ‘party of no' when it comes to health care. Insisting they have no plan of their own and no good ideas regarding this legislation. This has always been the reasoning behind them going it alone without any bipartisan support. Now in February we're supposed to believe that Democrats are suddenly ready to negotiate? Please! I was born at night, but not last night!

If Republicans show up without preconditions and with anything less than a complete bill ready to simultaneously go to committee and to the CBO for scoring, will cause the President to run out in front of the camera and say; "See, I told you this would be a waste of time." The Republicans do have proposals, but they've been marginalized for months by progressive rhetoric.

It's highly likely that Democrats have assessed the potential political landscape after this November and realize how much institutional power they are poised to lose. They know they have to make inroads into this wave of popular support that is building against them.

Let's face a fact here people; Republicans never had a prayer of stopping health care legislation. It began as a boulder rolling downhill. Republicans have been effectively locked out of this process since its very inception. The only reason Olympia Snowe was tolerated in the Senate discussions is that in the mind of Harry Reid, a single Republican vote could have been spun as bipartisanship. What brought health care to a screeching halt was the inability of the Democratic leadership in either house to keep their own troops in line. That they're still attempting to discover legislative methods to move this bill to the President's desk is proof enough of how determined they've become to complete this power grab prior to their potential political exile.

Barack Obama's problem with health care is the same he has had with every other piece of legislation conceived since his administration began; he doesn't have a bill! He never has! Don't ever expect this president to lead from the front because he doesn't know how.

President Obama didn't have a stimulus bill. He didn't have a plan to create jobs and free up credit. One day his staff opined; "Somehow we need to stimulate the economy." And Obama agreed. He called Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid together and said; "Write me an economic stimulus package. I don't care what's in it; just write it." Barack Obama had no intention of doing any of the heavy lifting on this issue. He didn't feel as if he had to; he had a phalanx in each federal legislative body to do his bidding for him. After all; what are majorities for?

With no direction from the President; the Stimulus Bill was written by progressives in both Houses. The primary aim was to provide patronage to favored constituencies first; and if anything else remotely positive came out of it, so much the better. It was nothing more than pure theft. They loaded up $787 billion of deficit spending in a thinly disguised attempt to transfer money to the progressive's favored constituencies. This culminated in the administration attempting the impossible, to count jobs saved. The political equivalent of an astronomer divining the amount of intelligent extra-terrestrial species that exist by counting stars on a clear night.

The important thing to note here is that, not only wasn't the President personally engaged in authoring stimulus legislation, he wasn't engaged in any part of the process. And he's not been personally engaged in the health care legislative process either. He was content to allow progressives in both Houses of Congress to define what national health care should be. He was content to defend literally anything that came out of sessions; counting on his popularity to seal the deal. Ultimately He always intended the majorities in Congress to make it happen. The process boils down to; "I decree. You create. America accepts." This is why he's spent the last six months or so making the same points in his numerous speeches about health care. It's as if he's saying to us; "Look, I'll explain this once again, even more slowly so you can follow along this time." He thinks WE don't get it!

This aloof, academic approach was most recently criticized by the Junior Senator from Minnesota, the Honorable (God forgive me) Al Franken, who accused the White House of failing to provide clarity or direction to the health care debate.

Apparently a former comedian turned senator innately understands more about the power of the Oval Office than the President himself does. How embarrassing for Obama! Who could have ever imagined the likes of Al Franken taking the "Anointed One" to the woodshed? You can't make this stuff up! I laughed until my ribs hurt!

Republicans need to somehow take control of this debate before Democrats begin hanging this failure their necks as an election issue. Conservatives cannot afford to allow the progressives to turn this debacle to their own advantage by attaching the aborted attempt to achieve universal health care to conservative obstructionism as opposed to a breakdown in progressive policy. I believe the Republicans do have some political clout here; but they need to tread carefully. This is what I think that they should do:

  1. Insist that the existing versions of health care legislation be withdrawn. We begin with a clean slate, or we don't begin at all. Call us what you will; but we'll not begin by somehow trying to make this existing train wreck workable.

  2. All negotiations regarding this debate will be held in front of C-SPAN cameras.

  3. Insist that each and every component of this legislation must be deficit neutral; either through waste reduction, fee increases, or budget cuts. And I mean real budget cuts, not a reduction in predicted annual increases in spending, but actual cuts in future dollars allocated.

  4. Reduce all components of the legislation to their lowest common denominators. This would take the form of short descriptive statements reduced to bullet points. For Republicans; examples would include tort reform, or allowing the selling of policies across state lines. For Democrats, affordable portable coverage, or guarantees of acceptance of existing conditions. Any statements longer than 50 words will be excluded as unwieldy. Brevity is the soul of wit. If you cannot describe an idea in 50 words or less, you need to rethink your idea.

  5. The bullet points from both sides should be presented to the American Public, via the internet, for debate amongst themselves and with their representatives during the upcoming recess. Town hall meeting would be the perfect venue for this. Not the call-in meetings where representatives talk to a selected few, but real live events where the legislators actually (GASP) face the people, for hours if necessary. Last time I checked they still do work for us.

  6. When Congress reconvenes; a truly bipartisan commission will be formed to flesh out the surviving points. This commission should be of EQUAL representation. This is too important an issue to tolerate a series of seven to eight votes. However; all ties will be included as "provisionally' accepted.

  7. The resulting legislation will be scored for neutrality by the CBO. Items that cannot meet the neutrality standard will be rejected at this juncture. The resulting legislation will then be offered to each House for a straight up-or-down vote; just like the BR(a)C.

For those of you who don't know; BR(a)C (Base Realignment and Closure) is the method we use to decide how to close military bases. An apolitical group, with no dog in the fight, analyzes the situation and makes a series of recommendations. Those resulting recommendations are bundled and either totally accepted or totally rejected by the Congress. No earmarks, no adjustments, no horse-trading allowed. That's the way it should work with health care.

Democrats realize their problem here. They've tried to shove an institutionalized, "one-size-fits-all', centrally controlled, bureaucratic health care system down the collective throats of the American people and have failed miserably. It is now up the Republicans to prove they can work from a minority position. If they fail to insist on setting the tone of the future of this debate, then this will turn into just another D.C. finger pointing session. One that cannot help but take the edge off the threat squarely aimed at Democratic incumbents.