STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Democrats, Republicans spar before bipartisan health care summit
* Olympia Snowe, who voted for health care reform plan in Senate, declines invite
* Democrats discuss possibility of reconciliation to move legislation; GOP warn of backlash
Watch the summit LIVE on CNN.com, starting at 10 a.m. ET.
Washington (CNN) — The day before the White House’s bipartisan summit on health care reform, there didn’t appear to be much mood for compromise on Capitol Hill.
Sen. Chris Dodd, a key author of the Senate health care bill, told reporters flatly Wednesday that if Republicans continue to demand that Democrats scrap their health care proposals and start over, “then there’s nothing to talk about.”
“If you expect me to start all over on this, there’s really not much point in this, ’cause we’re not going to start over,” Dodd said.
But Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell argued that’s exactly what Republicans want.
“Unless they’re willing to do that, I think it’s nearly impossible to imagine a scenario under which we can reach agreement because we don’t think we ought to pass a 2,700-page bill that seeks to restructure one-sixth of our economy,” McConnell said.
Dodd said Democrats and Republicans could find some common ground in some areas, such as a Republican push to allow insurers to sell insurance across state lines. Dodd called the GOP proposal “a legitimate issue” but added that Democrats already have a version of that proposal in their legislation.
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Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennesee, will give the opening statement for the Republicans at the summit, according to two GOP sources.
However, Sen. Olympia Snowe, the only Republican to have voted for a health care reform plan in the Senate Finance Committee in October, will not attend.
Spokesman John Gentzel said the Maine senator turned down a White House invitation to attend because she understood the rules of the summit were that the Democratic and Republican leadership would select summit participants.
“The Republican leadership had long since selected their team and therefore, it would have been inappropriate for Sen. Snowe, under those circumstances, to accept the invitation,” Gentzel said.
The invitation for Snowe infuriated Senate Republicans.
One senior GOP official said that as recently as Tuesday, the White House told Republicans the room was full but then went behind their backs on Wednesday and invited two more senators. The official said there are “some real credibility issues” plaguing the health care summit.
House and Senate Democrats participating in Thursday’s summit met in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to game out their approach for the meeting. Republicans held their own strategy session in McConnell’s office later Wednesday afternoon.
Pelosi told reporters she had “great optimism” about the meeting.
But she declined to give any specifics about how Democrats will proceed on health care reform. She also sidestepped questions about Democrats’ plans to use a controversial parliamentary shortcut to bypass GOP opposition and pass a health care bill.
What to watch at health care summit
“I’m going there to talk about substance,” she said. “We agree that we should have universal access to coverage, with affordability for the middle class and accountability for the insurance companies. That, to me, is what the subject is about tomorrow.”
But Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota, admitted that Democrats did talk Wednesday morning about using “reconciliation” to move health care legislation. He said Democrats anticipate the issue will come up at Thursday’s summit.
Reconciliation is a process, limited to budget-related bills, that bypasses the Senate rule on 60 votes being needed to end debate. By using reconciliation, only a majority vote would be needed to advance a bill.
McConnell warned the political consequences would be severe if Democrats moved forward without GOP support.
Pointing to the backlash over the special deal in the Senate bill for Nebraska’s Democratic senator, Ben Nelson, to cover his state’s Medicaid costs, McConnell said, “If they think the American people are mad at them now, they haven’t seen anything yet.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this week pointed out that reconciliation has been used more than 20 times since 1981, by both parties.
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