Will the “Healthcare Summit” Be the Last Pretend Dialogue?

Tunku Varadarajan, writing at The Daily Beast, was unimpressed by yesterdays “healthcare summit” with President Obama and various members of Congress:

It became apparent from the very beginning—when a testy Obama said “Let me finish, Lamar!” to the courtly Lamar Alexander—that this was not to be an open-minded exploration of the issues in question. It was, instead, a simulacrum of a debate, a pretend-conversation, one in which Obama established, yet again, his command over fact and detail, but in which he also revealed reflexive superciliousness, intolerance of different opinions, and a shortness of patience unbecoming of a president.

a view echoed by David Brooks:

The third useful thing about Thursday’s forum was you got to see the Obama presidency encapsulated in one event. At the very end, the president summarized some possible points of agreement between the two parties, offered some concessions and asked Republicans to see if they could make some on their own.

As always with the Obama compromise offers, this offer seemed to be both sincere and insincere. Embodying the core contradiction of the Obama presidency, the president seemed both to want to craft a new package and also to defend the strictly Democratic approach. I think he’s a bipartisan man stuck in a partisan town, but maybe he’s an iron partisan fist in a velvet postpartisan glove.

Bob Shrum’s view of the proceedings notwithstanding:

On and on it went. The Republicans trotted out their tired hobby horses — Health Savings Accounts for the wealthy and healthy and, of course, tort reform, which CBO says would address one fifth of one percent of total health spending. CBO adds that the Republican version of tort reform is so ingeniously crafted that it would also reduce the pressure to avoid medical errors, resulting in 4,800 additional deaths annually. All told, the GOP’s token and total contribution to the debate is a plan to cover all of 3 million uninsured Americans while leaving the insurance companies to gouge their policyholders until the system collapses in a “death spiral” to the bottom.

To paraphrase Justice Brandeis, the television lights were the best disinfectant for Republican claims. With these televised, face-to-face exchanges, Obama has invented a new form of presidential leadership; he exercises it masterfully. The GOP knew what was happening — you only had to look at their sour faces.

most of the coverage of the event that I’ve seen has suggested that the “summit” didn’t have the outcome that the White House had anticipated. I suspect that, flushed with victory after the “question time” with Republicans, they anticipated another round in which President Obama would shine against a group of ill-prepared political opponents. That does not appear to have taken place. Otherwise, much of the commentary appears to be of the “where you stand depends on where you sit” sort.

Will the White House and President Obama see this “summit” as a thorough-going victory, a sure sign that the solution to every logjam is more Obama? Or will they see it as an event in which they lost as much or more ground than they gained? I hope it’s the last of these non-exchanges of ideas but I’m afraid it’s just the latest of many to come.