Eric Cantor says it's the Republican way or they're not buying:
After going it alone on health care reform for nearly a year, President Obama has decided he wants to bring Republicans into the conversation. Here’s the problem: unless the President and Speaker Pelosi are willing to scrap their government take over and hit the reset button, there’s not much to talk about.
Republicans believe the status quo is unacceptable, but so is any health reform package that spends money we don’t have or raises taxes on small businesses and working families in a recession. To that point, House Republicans have offered the only plan, that will lower health care costs, which is what the President said was the goal at the start of this debate.
I'm very interested to see how this televised summit goes. I simply can't imagine that the president will take seriously anyone who's position includes the Luntz words "government takeover." It's an insult and a distortion, and I don't see any real negotiations happening with this sort of language in the mix. And of course that's fine with me, but we'll see how the president deals with it.