Obama Admin To Jettison "Death Panel" Provision as Part of Scaled Back Compromise

No surprise, either the retreat after being politically routed by the grassroots revolt or the fact that Obama will refrain from laying out possible policy details in lieu of vapid platitudes. What we have here is the Presidents team looking at the domestic politics and deciding it simply isn't worth pounding a round peg through a square hole.

Administration officials said Wednesday that Mr. Obama would be more specific than he has been to date about what he wants included in the plan. Doing so amounts to an acknowledgment that the president’s prior tactic of laying out broad principles and leaving Congress to fill in the details was no longer working and that Mr. Obama needed to become more personally involved in shaping the outcome.

But the officials said Mr. Obama was unlikely to unveil a detailed legislative plan of his own. And they insisted that Mr. Obama had not given up on the provision that has attracted the most fire from the right, a proposal for a government-run competitor to private insurers, although many Democrats say the proposal may eventually be jettisoned.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said Mr. Obama would be “more prescriptive than he has been to date.” And he added, “We have a tremendous amount of consensus in Congress to build off of.”

In his address, Mr. Obama is expected to emphasize areas of potential agreement. One is the need for federal regulation of health insurance companies to prohibit them from denying coverage, or charging higher premiums, because of a person’s medical history or current condition. Another is the need for federal subsidies to make insurance affordable to millions of lower-income people.

Interestingly enough, the Obama admin would concede on the "Death Panels" provision being stripped as well as school based clinics to collect nationwide data.

To avoid some of the most heated criticism voiced in recent weeks, White House officials said they would have no objection if Congress scrapped proposals to have Medicare pay for counseling on end-of-life care.

Critics said such counseling could lead to pressure on patients to forgo expensive treatments for terminal illnesses. Mr. Obama has said it is ludicrous to suggest that “we want to set up death panels to pull the plug on Grandma.”

White House officials said Congress could also drop proposals requiring the government to create school-based health clinics and collect nationwide data on health and health care by race, sex, sexual orientation and “gender identity.”

So why the olive branch next week, one they are desperate to pass a bill and two they want to paint the GOP as obstructionist if this alleged compromise is rejected.