Bipartisanship at the Blair House

President Obama’s attempts to get some sort of healthcare reform passed over the past year have been full of public affairs opportunities and missteps. The topic reached a fever pitch last summer with town hall meetings across the country, but it is still a hot issue and something that President Obama and the democrats are desperate to pass. This has led Obama to hold a bipartisan summit with Republican and Democratic leadership at the Blair House on February 25^th and this meeting will be televised to encourage transparency.

This was obviously an attempt by President Obama to show his dedication to healthcare reform and reaching some sort of bipartisan agreement, and having the meeting televised was supposed to show the American people that there would be no backroom deals and that the negotiations would be open. This decision was likely inspired by the great success that President Obama had with the televised question and answers session that he did a few weeks ago with the GOP House.

However, the responses to the Blair House summit have not been nearly as warm or encouraging for the president. The press has been incredibly pessimistic about anything actually being accomplished at the summit since it was announced. They saw through this attempt at transparency and pegged it as an opportunity for President Obama to claims attempts at bipartisanship and then give him a reason to encourage passing a bill through reconciliation when discussions at the Blair House summit fail. This may partially because this is how the Republicans have successfully been able to frame this summit as a “trap” but it is surely also reinforced by how partisan these negotiations have been, and it seems unlikely that this will change just because the president calls for a bipartisan meeting be televised. It seems more likely that the Democrats will come in with a bill and the Republicans will insist in starting from scratch, and that little if anything will be accomplished, besides a possible reason to push forward with reconciliation.