House Minority Leader John Beohner said Monday that President Obama’s health-care proposal “jeopardizes” the bipartisan public meeting at the White House Thursday.
It was not clear from Boehner’s statement whether the Ohio Republican meant that he and other Republicans would refuse to attend the televised, day-long summit because of dissatisfaction with the Obama proposal.
A Boehner spokesman clarified that the Republican leader meant the president had endangered “any chance of a productive summit.”
The Boehner statement went out to reporters under the headline, “President’s Health-Care Proposal Jeopardizes Summit.”
“The president has crippled the credibility of this week’s summit by proposing the same massive government takeover of health care based on a partisan bill the American people have already rejected,” Boehner’s statement said. “This week’s summit clearly has all the makings of a Democratic infomercial for continuing on a partisan course that relies on more backroom deals and parliamentary tricks to circumvent the will of the American people and jam through a massive government takeover of health care.”
The White House has said that calling their plan a government takeover is “absurd.”