The just person “delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night,” the psalmist informs us this Sunday. Republicans responded with anything but delight this week to President Barack Obama’s invitation to discuss health-care legislation in a half-day, televised gathering on February 25.

House and Senate Republican leaders said Obama and his fellow Democrats must first shelve their long-debated health care bill, which was on the verge of becoming law until Republicans won a special U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts last month. “Why are we going to talk about a bill we can’t pass?” asked House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

The White House says Obama, who has made health-care reform his top domestic priority, has no plans to start over but is willing to hear Republicans’ ideas on providing millions of Americans with medical insurance and other aspects of the health program. “Let’s put the best ideas on the table,” he said. He also stated that his goals continue to be expanding health insurance coverage for most Americans, eliminating abuses by insurance companies, and lowering the costs of health care.

“I am going to be starting from scratch in the sense that I will be open to any ideas that help promote these goals,” Obama said during a brief Tuesday press conference “What I will not do, what I don’t think makes sense and I don’t think the American people want to see, would be another year of partisan wrangling around these issues.”

Republicans may have little incentive to cooperate with Obama on health care. They won the Massachusetts seat campaigning against Obama’s plans and hope to use the issue to score big gains in the November congressional elections.

Source: Articles by David Jackson for USA TODAY and the Associated Press