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Obama's Health Care Summit Shtick

By Philip Klein on 2.8.10 @ 11:06AM

Last March, President Obama held a health care summit at the White House in which the so-called "stakeholders" gathered together to discuss solving the nation's health care crisis along with a handful of Republicans and hand-picked "experts." The idea was to throw something up on C-SPAN to pretend that it would be a transparent process and that the White House was eager to solicit opinions from all sides of the political spectrum. In reality it was a staged event that excluded those who have pushed for free market solutions.

Now, almost a year later, Obama's top domestic priority is on life support, and he's again choosing to put on a show. Yesterday he announced that he was inviting Republicans to yet another White House summit on health care to discuss his own plan and Republican ideas. The half-day event is scheduled for Feb. 25, and he'll let C-SPAN cameras in. Yet like the first summit, this one is pure theater. In the weeks leading up to the event, which aims to show that Obama is being transparent and soliciting Republican ideas, House and Senate Democratic leaders will be meeting behind closed doors to resolve their differences and craft a strategy for ramming their bill through the House and Senate along purely partisan lines. In fact, even in announcing the summit, the Washington Post reports that White House aides are privately emphasizing that they won't be starting the process over to negotiate a deal with Republicans, but rather, still working to pass the merged House and Senate bills.

This is a classic Obama move. Create the appearance that he's doing one thing when in reality he's doing the exact opposite. Problem is, the public has already caught on to his shtick and can tell the difference between performance art and reality. I can't see this changing the dynamics of the health care effort.

View all comments (7) | Leave a comment

ggoblue| 2.8.10 @ 11:15AM

the republicans should demand tort reform. nothing on any other health care issue until the democrats move on tort reform.

Michael End| 2.8.10 @ 1:32PM

ggoblue, why do you think so-called tort reform is a good thing? It has been established that caps on damages, which have been enacted in the majority of states, has no effect on health care costs. Many states with caps on damages have much higher health care costs than states without caps. The people who win when tort reform measures are passed are the insurance companies, whose loss ratios are ridiculously low and profits excessive. Read "The Cost Conundrum" in The New Yorker of June 1, 2009, which can be downloaded online, and ask yourself why health care costs in McAllen, Texas, where a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages has been in effect since 2003, are double the costs in Rochester, Minnesota, home of the Mayo Clinic. Minnesota has never had any cap on damages in medical malpractice cases. The founding fathers of our nation believed in the common law principle that when a person is injured by the negligence of another person, the injured person should be fairly compensated for his or her injuries. Caps on damages punish the people injured the worst and accomplish nothing positive, other than to allow the insurance companies to make more money.

Gene| 2.8.10 @ 11:24AM

SURPRISE,, SURPRISE,, some out there still need to remember who they voted for,, the master of deceit who is unable to change because of what he is .

Tim| 2.8.10 @ 12:38PM

"The half-day event ..."
Mr Klein, ass is not spelled d-a-y.

Siegfried X| 2.8.10 @ 2:22PM

Yes, all Obama wants is spin, a long commercial, not any kind of summit. It would be like when Obama met with the House Republicans. He'd spend his time lecturing at them and smearing them, while he, Obama, lied out of anything the Republicans said about him.

Instead of simply turning him down, Republicans should publicly point this out and challenge Obama to prove that he is sincerely interested in health care, not filming a 4 hour attack ad.

IndyJohn| 2.8.10 @ 3:33PM

Obama knows that the so-called healthcare bill is a steaming, stinking pile of manure. He knows that if the Democrats continue to sell it as a fashionable potpourri, they are going to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail like the hucksters they are. Now he's trying to sell the Republicans a piece of the action, so that production and ownership of the product will be spread a larger investment group. Then, when the townspeople come after the swindlers with shotguns and pitchforks, the Republicans will be forced, in order to save themselves, to defend the manure pile with a new set of lies. Any Republican who participates in this confidence trick is a rube and should be laughed out of politics!

The Health Dude| 2.15.10 @ 10:06AM

While health is wealth most of our people no good health and it is the reality that they have no wealth to keep health well. To keep good health we also need wealth. Health is wealth? Not always that!