Cantor derides Obama's concessions to GOP on healthcare as 'political cover'

President Barack Obama's proposed healthcare concessions to Republicans are little more than "political cover," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Tuesday.

Cantor, the second-ranking Republican in the House, derided a letter from Obama to congressional leaders outlining areas where the president said he's willing to incorporate GOP ideas into his healthcare proposal.

"If the President simply adds a couple of Republican solutions to a trillion dollar health care package that the American people don’t support, it isn’t bipartisanship – it’s political cover," Cantor said in reaction to the letter.

In his letter, Obama said that his healthcare bill, which is set to be unveiled on Wednesday, could include Republican proposals to eliminate medical fraud, reform medical malpractice liability, and eliminate special assistance to certain states.

Cantor argued that people prefer an incremental approach to health reform, and reiterated GOP claims that as long as Democrats continue to keep the majority-vote, budget reconciliation process on the table to finish their bill, there was little to talk about.

“It's been reported that the White House will no longer use the term ‘reconciliation’ to describe the partisan process they plan to use to jam through a trillion dollar overhaul of our health care system, which indicates that the President himself understands the danger of changing the rules to willfully undermine the concerns shared by a majority of Americans," Cantor said. "Should the president, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid make the partisan decision to use reconciliation for transformational legislation of this size, scope, and cost, they do so against the will of the people."