Health Care Will Pass – A Brief Summit Review

For those of you who missed the White House Health Care Summit, you missed three important things: First, the issues were discussed openly and in a forum of dialog as opposed to the unanswered back-and-forth of talking points. The standard, by contrast has been that most folks hear the issues from whichever side they already kind of agree with. This time you got to hear both sides. Second, the President moderated the discussion in a way which presumed moving forward with the current bill. This is key. You bring everyone to the table and say, “We’re doing this, now let’s discuss details,” as opposed to, ”Can we do this?” which demoralizes the whole effort. Whenever folks pulled back to talking points of starting over, and they did often enough, the President pulled them back in, saying the floor was open to discussion about the specifics, but that the idea of scrapping what’s already been under discussion was not productive.

The third thing you missed is the general precedent such a summit has engendered. Meetings like this, where the president spends seven hours in a room with more than thirty members of congress don’t happen. This is a real first. The level of civility, of engagement, and of clear, productive boundaries in dialog which this process created is really an ideal for Americans to get a feel for how their government ought to work for them, and how they ought to perceive the issues that will affect them as legislation passes.

Summary: I think Health Care Will Pass. There were a lot of areas in the discussion .where Republicans seemed willing to move closer in, and where they seemed already to agree. But, as Obama said, there are a lot of political reasons, outside of the debate, that they might not have any motivation to move together and agree. On the other hand, I think Democrats will come out of this feeling recharged. The momentum this will create will push the issue into law, whether it’s through Reconciliation or otherwise.