Standing before a room of Republican leaders, President Barack Obama urged progress over politics on a number of issues facing Americans, including health care reform.

Barack Obama

Speaking at a retreat of the Republican Party in Baltimore, Md. today (Jan. 29), the president urged collaboration between the parties, a point he made two days earlier during his State of the Union address.

“We need to close the gap between rhetoric and reality,” Obama said at the meeting.

Responding to a “Better Solutions” document provided to him by Republicans detailing their ideas on issues including health reform, the president said that at its core, the goals of both parties are the same.

The president noted similarities between the Republicans’ document and the House and Senate bills currently embroiled in debate. Common issues, he said, include having small businesses and self-employed individuals buy into a pool and greater competition.

Those two ideas, Obama noted, were at the heart of a plan by former Sens. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), Tom Daschle (D-Iowa) and Bob Dole (R-Kan.) unveiled last summer as a bipartisan health reform plan.

Obama said Republicans have been characterizing his administration’s health reform plans “as some Bolshevik plot.

“That’s how you guys presented it,” he said.  “It is actually pretty centrist. If you look at the facts …most individual observers say what [we’re proposing] is similar to what Republicans proposed to President Clinton when he did his debate on health care.”

Need room to negotiate

The president added that Republicans have pitched health care reform as “some wild-eyed plot” and by opposing it so staunchly, “you guys don’t have any room to negotiate with me.”

Obama added that by telling constituents, “this guy is doing some crazy stuff to destroy America,” it is hard to then support Democratic measures, even if they mirror Republican ideas.

Responding to a question on the current divide among the parties on health care reform, Obama said that he has received Republican ideas to improve the system, but some “come with a caveat.”

As an example, the president noted support among the Republican party for the sale of insurance products across state lines, a point mentioned by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in his response to the president’s State of the Union address.

“We need to do that with minimum standards because you can have insurance companies circumvent state regulations on benefits,” he said, using coverage of mammograms for women as one such benefit. “[Insurance companies] can cherry-pick and get the healthiest individuals and leave the less healthy behind. It’s not that the idea is unworkable, but it needs to be refined.”

Echoing his call at the State the Union, Obama said if Republicans have ideas that health care experts can confirm will work and achieve the goals of reducing costs and increasing coverage, “I’m game.”