President Barack Obama had hoped to pass healthcare reform by the end of 2009, but the last major action Congress has taken on the effort came on Christmas Eve when the Senate passed it's overhaul package by the slimmest possible margin.
Since then, negotiations have come to a standstill.
In a pre-Super Bowl interview with CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric on Feb. 7, Obama announced his plan to call Congressional leaders to the White House to take another crack at healthcare reform. The president said he would facilitate a live discussion on healthcare to be televised before the American public.
"If we can go step-by-step through a series of these issues and arrive at some agreements, then procedurally, there's no reason why we can't do it a lot faster than the process took," Obama told Couric.
When questioned about the earmarks used to sway enough support to pass the Democrats' healthcare reform bills, Obama said they "frustrated" him and did not help to build the public's confidence in Washington. Recently, he proposed that Congress post their earmarks online for the public to view.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) indicated that the Republican caucus welcomed the president's invitation to meet, but added Republicans would only consider working on healthcare if the current bills are scrapped.
"Setting these proposals aside would be a sign that the administration and Democrats in Congress are listening to the country and are truly interested in a bipartisan approach," he said.
The Democratic plan to push a healthcare reform package through both chambers of Congress without Republican backing was halted in January with a surprising Republican by-election victory in Massachusetts. Dark horse Republican candidate Scott Brown defeated Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley to fill the vacant seat of long-time Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy, who passed away last year.
Kennedy was a strong voice for healthcare reform throughout his tenure in the Senate, and before his illness had been expected to help shepherd Obama’s reform measures through Congress.
The election of Brown took away the supermajority that the Democrats needed to curtail a Republican filibuster of the healthcare reform package currently on the table.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said the Democrats will find a way to pass healthcare reform, despite Brown's election, although that appears increasingly unlikely, unless significant changes are made to the bills in both houses of Congress.