Obama spars with McCain on healthcare reform: ‘We’re not campaigning anymore’

The back-and-forth between the president and the man he
defeated to win the White House in 2008 also underscored the unlikelihood that
Obama and congressional Republicans will have a meeting of the minds at the
six-hour summit.

As McCain criticized the legislative process Democrats used
to write their bill as “unsavory,” citing the White House’s deals with the
pharmaceutical and hospital industry and special Medicare and Medicaid funding
favoring individual Democratic senators, Obama curtly interrupted. (Watch the VIDEO here)

“We’re not campaigning anymore. The election is over,”
Obama said.

{mosads}McCain responded: “I’m reminded of that every day.”

In a morning dominated by well-worn talking points and wonky
discussions, the moment pitting Obama versus the man he defeated to become
president in 2008 reminded Republicans — and the public — that while Obama is
willing to sit down with the GOP, he and his party are in charge.

Obama also cited presidential prerogative when Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) complained that Democrats were
dominating the discussion. Obama acknowledged McConnell’s observation but
pointedly commented, “There was an imbalance on the opening statements because,
well, I’m the president.”

Obama also took aim at House Minority Whip Eric Cantor
(R-Va.), who was wielding a printout of the 2,400-page Senate healthcare bill
as he spoke. “These are the kinds of political things we do that prevent a
conversation,” Obama said.

Coming into the much-anticipated summit meeting that Obama
hopes will get his healthcare initiative back on track, the president pledged
to keep an open mind while Republicans voiced skepticism that the event would
be anything more than a dog-and-pony show.

“[What] I’m hoping to accomplish today is for everybody to focus
not just on where we differ, but focus on where we agree, because there actually
is some significant agreement on a host of issues,” Obama said.

The president and Democratic lawmakers focused their remarks
on the contention that their legislation would provide sweeping new consumer
protections for health insurance customers and expand insurance coverage. They
also peppered their statements with personal anecdotes, including Obama’s
recounting off the troubles his mother had with her insurance company as she
was dying of cancer.

Republicans criticized the Democratic proposals as too big,
too expensive and too much of an expansion of government and said the only way
to achieve consensus is to start all over.

“We think to do that we have to start by taking the current
bill and putting it on the shelf and starting from a clean sheet of paper,”
said Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.).

The GOP also hammered away at Democrats for the process they
used to win House and Senate passage of legislation. They highlighted special
deals offered to individual lawmakers and interest groups, and sought
unsuccessfully to get Obama to disavow the Democratic plan to advance
healthcare reform on a simple majority vote in the Senate via budget
reconciliation rules.

Obama, seeking to draw attention away from the difficult
yearlong debate, refused to be drawn into an argument about congressional
process. “We can have a debate about process or we can have a debate about how
we’re actually going to help the American people at this point,” he said.