The White House summit has started. Follow it live here:

Yesterday, Republican leaders finally confirmed that they weren't going to bring a health care bill to the President's summit tomorrow. Why? Because they don't actually want to reform health care (emphasis added):

The Senate GOP leadership is brushing off Dan Pfeiffer’s demand this morning that Republicans clarify whether they’ll produce a bill in advance of the summit, and won’t put forth a “comprehensive proposal,” aides say.

This morning on the White House blog, Pfeiffer challenged GOP leaders to say whether they’d be bringing a bill to the summit. “The Senate Republicans have yet to post any kind of plan,” Pfeiffer wrote, adding that “we continue to await word from them.”

Asked for comment, a senior Senate GOP aide emailed:

We fundamentally disagree with a comprehensive proposal to reform health care. We think a step by step approach on areas where we agree is the best path forward. We will not be posting a comprehensive alternative to commence a staring contest.

Of course, health care advocates have known this all along. Republicans have no solutions to the crisis in our health care system because they don't view it as a system in crisis.

However, the position that health care in this country doesn't need fundamental reform is a dangerous position to take. Never mind that every day we go without reform, 6,821 more people lose their health insurance [pdf], 2,548 more people file for bankruptcy because they got sick, and 60 more people die [pdf] because they don't have the coverage they need. Declaring that as a party Republicans "fundamentally disagree with a comprehensive proposal to reform health care" is radically out of step with the American people.

The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll is only the latest in a series showing the elements of health reform are popular:

Other parts of reform are really popular too, like the public option.

And majorities want comprehensive health reform passed:

And even more will be disappointed or angry if reform doesn't pass:

If Republicans think going with nothing is going to win them broad support, they haven't been reading their polling.

Democrats need to work to make sure the reform that passes works for everyone in America and has the popular elements in it - they must pass health care that works for us and pass it now. Today, we're helping to put in 1 million message to Congress to send them that message, and Melanie's March is arriving in DC to a huge rally with Senators attending the summit, so we'll get to tell that message to these Senators in person.

Getting health reform done right is more than good policy for the country, it's popular, too. And it will show America that Democrats won't accept the party of NO's strategy.

Over the past few weeks, House and Senate Democratic leaders have been working to craft a compromise between their two health care bills that were passed over the last few months. Today, President Obama has released what Dan Pfeiffer, Communications Director at the White House, is calling the administration's "best shot" at bridging the differences between the House and Senate.

The proposal comes in advance of the planned health care summit on February 25th where Republicans and Democrats will meet and talk about the health care proposals on the table. The White House thought it would be most productive to "come to the table with one proposal," as Pfeiffer put it.

Over the last few months, we've been fighting to finish health reform right under the rubric of two main goals. By making health care affordable we mean making sure insurance is affordable for individuals, making sure insurance is affordable at work, and making sure middle-class health plans aren't taxed. By holding insurance companies accountable we mean giving regulators a national exchange so insurance plans in the exchange are subject to the same stringent rules and creating a public health insurance option to hold private insurance companies accountable.

So, what does the President's plan do?

(Note: The plan starts from the Senate bill as a foundation so any changes listed in the overview of the President's plan [pdf] are changes to the Senate bill.)

Every passing day brings more Senators saying their open to using the budget reconciliation process for finishing health reform. So far, nobody has compiled these statements into a comprehensive list, so here they are.

Senator Specter (D-PA) came out strong:

I believe we ought to pass comprehensive health care reform and we ought to do it now and there is a way to do it. I provided the 60th vote. We passed it in the Senate. Let the House accept it, simultaneously with a bill to make certain changes through reconciliation and 50 votes. There will be no disagreement about taking away the giveaway to Nebraska and Louisiana and the other inappropriate measures but let's move ahead and let's move ahead now.

Senator Franken (D-MN) was also pushing for the move:

The best way for that to happen, and as far as I can see – the only way for that to happen – is what I’m calling 'pledge and pass. If we in the Senate pledge to fix those elements through reconciliation – a budget process that requires only 51 votes, the House of Representatives should pass the Senate Bill.

Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) walked back his earlier critisisms of the process and is open to reconciliation:

I’ve been asked about whether I’d support using the process known as reconciliation now. So, I want to make it clear: If I support a bill, then I will vote for it regardless of whether it takes 50 votes to pass or 60 votes to pass. My position doesn't change just because the House or Senate decides to change the process.

Senator Baucus (D-MT), who chairs the crucial Senate Finance Committee, says it's the only way:

Approving the Senate bill through the procedure, known as reconciliation, “is the only solution,” Baucus said, adding the Senate “was close” in getting enough votes to pass it.

Senator Conrad (D-ND), who chairs the other crucial commmittee in the process, the Budget Committee, says he would be open to fixes:

If the House passed the Senate bill, could reconciliation, that process, be used to fix things that might be improved upon? Yes. Would I support it? I can’t know that without knowing what would be included in the package.

Senator Bingaman (D-NM) said in a recorded call with reporters that reconciliation is an option (click for audio):

10:01 – Bingaman says that using the reconciliation process is an option for getting portions of the health care reform bill passed in the Senate.

Senator Carper (D-DE) has been reaching out to moderates in the House to convince them that the reconciliation "sidecar" option is the way to go:

Sen. Tom Carper, a centrist Democrat from Delaware who played an active role in Senate healthcare talks, said he would reach out to House Democratic centrists to persuade them to vote for the Senate-passed bill along with a sidecar.

“We’ve had some conversations with some of them already,” he said.

Senator Durbin (D-IL), the Senate Majority Whip, said reconciliation is an option:

We could go to something called 'reconciliation', which is in the weeds procedurally, but would allow us to modify that health care bill by a different process that doesn't require 60 votes, only a majority. So that is one possibility there.

Senator Pryor (D-AR) said he's open to it:

According to the Arkansas News, Pryor said reconciliation was not his first choice but "he was not necessarily opposed to the idea."

Someone familiar with Senator Feingold (D-WI) has said the Senator is open to the idea:

I spoke to someone from Feingold's campaign about his position on reconciliation in light of the Massachusetts special election. She informed me that while Sen. Feingold is no fan of reconciliation, now that it's reconciliation or nothing (apparently), he would be willing to support reconciliation if that's what it took to get a good bill passed. It wasn't the slightest bit equivocal or hedgy; it was a straight "yes". So that's a bit of good news. Hopefully the House can get their act together.

Senator Kerry (D-MA) says reconciliation is his preferred route to passing health reform:

Senator John Kerry said today his preferred route to completing health care reform is for the House to pass the Senate bill, and for the Senate to make it more digestible to the House by approving fixes through the reconciliation process, which allows legislation to pass the Senate by a simple majority instead of 60 votes.

Senator Klobachar (D-MN) is also open to the move:

Whether it's going to be [reconciliation] or whether it's going to be taking some of the main initiatives for the self-employed and small business to allow them to get better rates of insurance, and insurance reforms and prevention, and the Medicare cost reforms — which, some of us can't even imagine voting for health care without having some Medicare cost reform — the bill will move forward, and I think something will get done….

Senator Sanders (I-VT) definitely supports it:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said he favors using a parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation to get health care reform passed. Such a move would require only support of a simple majority of the Senate, not the 60 needed to prevent a filibuster threatened by Republicans.

"I support the reconciliation process or any other way we can get the votes we need to go forward," Sanders said in a statement.

Senator Menendez (D-NJ) supports it as well:

I’m not sure how we get where we want to be if reconciliation is not the process.

More statements will no doubt come in as the process moves forward, but for now there is building support for finishing health care reform using the reconciliation process. Of course, we need to encourage them not just to finish reform, but to finish it right by making health care affordable to all and holding the insurance companies accountable.

Update

@ProgressOhio points me to Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and his support of reconciliation:

Brown said didn’t yet know for sure whether Reid would commit to the reconciliation fix approach, but added that there’s a widespread sense in the caucus that this is probably the only workable route forward.

“I can’t imagine another scenario,” Brown said. “We can’t start anew, and we can’t do piecemeal.”

The mainstream media has been speculating whether President Obama and Democrats will fail at reforming our hopelessly broken health care system since the reform process began. And they've been speculating whether that failure, like President Clinton's before it, will mean another election like 1994, which gave Republicans control of Congress for the first time in decades and curtailed the rest of Clinton's term. The latest in this storyline is a piece today in Politico from Carrie Budoff Brown and Chris Frates, complete with interviews from operatives around back then examining statements by Members of Congress that seem to say health care is moving to the back burner.

It's not 1994 all over again right now, but it could be if things go in a certain direction. What Ezra Klein said last week is true:

It is very, very, very important to be clear on what the death of health-care reform looks like. It is not a vote that goes against the Democrats. It is not an admission that the White House has moved on from the subject. It is continued statements of commitment from the key players paired with a continued stretching of the timetable. Like everything else in life, policy initiatives grow old and die, even if people still love them.

The danger is there, and the parallels of 1994 are an important warning. Things are different right now then they were. We don't have to go down that road again.

It's incumbent on Democrats to finish health reform and finish reform right, but it's also worth remembering that Republicans still have no health care plan.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama told lawmakers that if they had a health care plan that met his goals, they should speak up:

As temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we've proposed. There's a reason why many doctors, nurses, and health care experts who know our system best consider this approach a vast improvement over the status quo. But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Here's what I ask of Congress, though: Do not walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people.

Predictably, House Republican minority leader John Boehner piped up and claimed that the Republican alternative health care bill his caucus offered last year when the House was passing their health care bill fit the requirements.

Of course, Boehner's wrong. The bill doesn't fit the requirements, not even close.

First, the plan, according to the CBO [pdf], doesn't nearly cover the uninsured:

By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people without health insurance would be reduced by about 3 million relative to current law, leaving about 52 million nonelderly residents uninsured.

Unlike the House plan Democrats passed, it doesn't hold insurance companies accountable. It would still allow denials of care based on pre-existing conditions, and because these abuses aren't reigned in, premiums for the sickest Americans will skyrocket.

The Republican "alternative" also saves less money, because it fails to really tackle the health care crisis.

Democrats still must finish the job right, but judging by the ideas Republicans have offered thus far, they'll have to proceed on their own.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi led the charge yesterday:

The quote is so good it's worth repeating in writing:

We'll go through the gate. If the gate's closed, we'll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole-vault in. If that doesn't work, we'll parachute in. But we're going to get health care reform passed for the American people, for their own personal health and economic security, and for the important role that it will play in reducing the deficit.

Pelosi was joined by a chorus of Democrats yesterday saying the same thing. House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller:

We're going to get it done this year.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman:

I think we will pass a big health care bill. I think the president will insist that we keep the promise. We're going to have to figure out a different route now that we dont have 60 Democrats, but the Republicans are not helping us.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:

We're going to do health care reform this year. The question is, at this stage, procedurally, how do we get where we need to go.

Senator Max Baucus:

We're not going to put it down. We're moving expeditiously. And expeditiously means quickly, solidly, thoughtfully.

President Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod:

There were plenty of people who said before the speech last night, just stand up there and say 'It's over.' Say 'We tried,' and move on because it's too politically difficult. And that's not what he did and we are working closely with folks on the Hill to develop the way forward and get this done and that's all we're focused on, on health care, is getting it done.

These are the leaders who have the power to pass health reform. Now, it's our job to make sure they finish reform and finish reform right.

Both houses of Congress must pass comprehensive health care reform by majority vote as quickly as possible. They have the tools to make it happen. As Axelrod said, "Reconciliation is a tool that is there to be used." And the human toll of waiting is simply to high. Health reform must be finished, and it must be finished right.

The human toll of delaying health care reform is shocking. Every day we delay health care reform:

• 6,821 more people lose their health insurance [pdf]
• 2,548 more people file for bankruptcy because they got sick
• 123 more people die because they don't have the coverage they need

Yesterday, President Obama told Congress to continue their work:

Here’s what I ask of Congress, though: Do not walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people.

But as we know, it'll take more than just words to finish health reform and finish it right. It's going to take leadership by the President and leaders in Congress.

There is growing consensus on the way forward. The Senate bill needs to be improved before reform is finished in many ways. The way to improve the Senate bill is with majority rule, otherwise known as reconciliation.

The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has a report on reconciliation, it's history, and its process. Their conclusion is the same as ours:

…using the reconciliation process now for health care reform would not represent a dramatic break with the past. The sharp break with past practice occurred in 2001, when reconciliation was used for the first time to pass legislation that was not paid for and greatly worsened the nation’s fiscal position.

Prior to 2001, every major reconciliation bill enacted into law reduced the federal deficit. Until then, reconciliation had been reserved for legislation that met this standard of fiscal discipline. But the standard was tossed aside in 2001. In both 2001 and 2003, the reconciliation process was used to pass costly tax cuts that were not paid for and that have substantially increased deficits and debt.

In response, at the start of the new Congress in 2007, the House and Senate formally adopted rules to restore a fiscal discipline standard to the reconciliation process by barring the process from being used for bills that would increase deficits and debt. If the reconciliation process is used in coming weeks for health reform legislation, that legislation will need to adhere to this standard — rather than to continue the sharp departure from it that the 2001 and 2003 reconciliation bills made.

…

Because rising health care costs represent the single largest cause of the federal government’s long-term budget problems, fundamental health care reform must be part of any budget solution. The foregoing examples indicate that using the budget reconciliation process to enact health reform in 2010 would be consistent with the ways in which Congress has used reconciliation in the past. Many major policy changes, including welfare reform, large tax cuts, and new health programs, have been included in past reconciliation bills. Moreover, if health reform is pursued through the reconciliation process this year, the resulting legislation — unlike the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 — will need to be designed so it does not add to the deficit. Any legislation also is likely to include provisions, such as an independent Medicare Commission and demonstration projects to identify ways to deliver health care more efficiently, that could lead to further reforms that slow the growth of health-care costs and contribute to longer-term deficit reduction.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has predicted she could get the votes in the House to pass a health care bill if the Senate passes a reconciliation fix. Senators Reid, Baucus, and Conrad are open to the approach.

This is a way forward. The only question now is whether Congress will do it. Leadership is required to move both houses of Congress down this road together, the road to passing a real health care reform bill and passing it quickly.

The President asked Congress to finish reform. His call has been echoed, from Senator Al Franken to AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka. The human cost of health care is too high to not finish reform and finish it right.

The news today is full of analysis and commentary against incremental reform.

As I explained yesterday, Democrats won't win politically by scaling back (have you seen even one Republican who's said they're interested in a bipartisan health care bill in the Senate?), and they won't solve the crushing moral and economic problem that is our health care system without systematic change. But I'll let others take up the argument.

The Associated Press' news analysis is almost all you need to read:

Trimming back the 2,000-page, trillion-dollar Democratic health care bills to the parts that average folks understand and like may not be as simple as it sounds.

A complete ban on insurance companies denying coverage to people with medical problems would be out of the question. Forget about guaranteed health insurance for all Americans - it costs too much. Still, Congress might be able to craft legislation that takes some rough edges off today's coverage problems and makes progress in controlling costs.

That's if Democrats and Republicans can call a truce.

Republicans, who for months have been urging "commonsense" alternatives to the Democrats' sweeping overhaul plan, may still be unwilling to help pass anything that lets President Barack Obama claim an election-year victory. They'll have 41 votes in the Senate to block it once Massachusetts' Scott Brown is seated.

Yet the nation's health care system is unlikely to heal itself. The number of uninsured will rise above 50 million unless government steps in, while ballooning costs could leave the baby boom generation with a bare-bones Medicare.

…

Obama has suggested shifting the focus to popular proposals like banning denial of coverage to those with medical problems. That particular fix is unlikely because it would encourage people to put off getting insurance until they're sick, driving up premiums for everybody else.

"In health care, everything fits together," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. "It's very hard to say we can cut this out and do that." Banning pre-existing condition denials would have to go hand-in-hand with coverage for all.

As Washington grapples with the outcome of the election in Massachusetts this week, it’s important to remember one key thing: Congress can still pass historic legislation that will make health care a right, not a privilege, in the United States.  While the procedural route may be different, Congress still can do what it intended to do before Tuesday. It can enact a comprehensive bill that will make good health care affordable to tens of millions of people who are uninsured or underinsured and end the practice of denying people coverage or charging people more for pre-existing conditions. It can end the specter of medical bankruptcy, provide free access to preventive care, and more. None of these historic achievements can be done through “incremental” reform, and failing to accomplish these goals would put the Democratic Party in profound political peril.

While it may seem appealing to carve up the many facets of reform into smaller bites, that won’t get the job done. Take, for example, the promise that has most resonated with the public: stopping insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. You can’t do that without requiring everyone be covered because many people would wait to get covered until they needed treatment and that would drive premiums too high. But you can’t require people to get coverage without providing income-based subsidies to make coverage affordable. And you can’t raise the money for subsidies without finding savings in the system, like the proposed changes in Medicare, or raising new revenue. All that adds up to comprehensive reform.

The same logic applies to the other basic items Americans most want from reform, like relief from medical bankruptcy or stopping insurers from charging more to women or making the health insurance market work for small business.

At its heart, comprehensive reform is a simple guarantee that you will have access to good, affordable coverage whether you work for someone else, are self-employed, or are unemployed. The bills that have passed both houses of Congress achieve that goal through the same basic mechanisms: expanding Medicaid, establishing new health insurance marketplaces, providing income-based subsidies for buying regulated insurance within those marketplaces, extending tax credits to at least small businesses, and establishing some requirements for most businesses to offer coverage or pay for it. Both bills raise the money through changes in Medicare and new revenues. Taken together, that will mean that for the first time every American will have access to affordable health care coverage.

If we look at history, we see that once we have built such a foundation, Congress will improve on it. When Social Security was enacted, it left out major categories of workers and didn’t provide for surviving spouses or dependents. Those omissions got fixed later.

If we fail to pass reform or pass minor reforms that don’t really change anything, it will be at least 15 years before the nation tries again. If we enact the agreed upon reforms, Congress will continue to debate how to improve upon what’s in place. And it will defend the new right to health care against those who would tear it down – just like Republicans have been trying and failing to privatize Social Security since it was first passed.

This isn’t just a policy question; it’s a political one. Republicans are counting on stopping the Democratic agenda so that Democrats will fail and voters will give the Republicans another chance. The Massachusetts election demonstrated that Democrats need to deliver on the promise of change. After a year of getting within sight of the finish line on comprehensive health care reform, the only choice from a policy and political perspective is to get the job done.

As the national campaign manager of the nation’s biggest progressive health care campaign – one that has organized hundreds of thousands of people in all 50 states and spent $45 million fighting for reforms that go well beyond what now seems possible – I understand as well as anyone how frustrating progressives find this situation. But we should never lose sight of what Dr. King said about health care in this nation: “Of all the forms of injustice, inequality in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” Congress is on the brink of dramatically reducing this inequality even though the legislation has many imperfections.

So on behalf of the army of activists who have fought with us for more than a year, our message to Democrats in the House and Senate is simple: pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off, and enact the compromise plan you were set to pass before the Massachusetts election. You still have big majorities in both houses. Because of Republican obstructionism, you’ll need to use different procedures to get the job done. But just do it! And know that each and every year you will have saved tens of thousands of lives, rescued hundreds of thousands of families from medical bankruptcy, and proved to America you are up to the challenge of building a new and better future for our children and the generations that follow.