Health Care Reform Summit Feb 25th

Insuring Resurces Commentary:

This summit creates a next step for health-care reform. The House and the Senate have not been able to agree on a path forward. The president is bringing the two houses together, but not starting over. The basis for the discussion will be the two bills that have already passed, but the discussion is aimed at leading a way forward which means there may be some alterations in hopes of getting a few Republican votes.

The President, I presume will also use the occasion to change the perception on the back room Senate deals for multiple conservative Democratic Senators. But by setting this summit, he's bought them a few weeks to figure out how to hold a vote themselves. That won't be easy, but it'll be easier with the White House summit giving some structure and narrative to an effort that had collapsed into murky chaos.

Hopefully a way forward will highlight cost efficiency and quality which the GOP has been touting. Now's the time to play that card in front of a television audience.

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From the Wall Street Journal- 2/8/10
President Barack Obama, seeking to give new momentum to his languishing health-care legislation, said he would sit down with Republican and Democratic lawmakers to exchange ideas on an issue that has deeply divided the parties.

With the GOP united against the Democratic bill, Mr. Obama said Sunday he would ask Republicans "to put their ideas on the table." The half-day meeting will be Feb. 25 and broadcast live, the White House said.

"I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward," the president told CBS in an interview broadcast Sunday.