Barack Obama’s bipartisan summit on health policy accomplishes more than meets the eye
IT IS tempting to dismiss the bipartisan health-reform summit convened by Barack Obama on Thursday February 25th as a colossal waste of time. After all, the gabfest involving senior Congressional leaders from both parties lasted well over six hours, with no tangible results. Neither side moved one jot on any issue of substance and not one vote is likely to have changed on either side as a result of the summit.
And yet, the televised gathering was not pointless. For one thing, the sight of America’s leading politicians sitting together amiably for an entire day to discuss a matter as inflammatory as health reform (think “death panels”) was itself heartening. Surprisingly, given the bitter partisan wrangling of late, they did so in a manner that was mostly civil and substantive. Towards the end of the long day, Joe Barton, a House Republican from Texas, even declared that he had never seen “so many members of the House and Senate behave so well for so long before so many television cameras.” …