Did the Health Care Summit Accomplish Anything? Austin Lee

This was a PR stunt gone very bad from the Obama team.  The goal, in my mind at least, was to have the public discussion about healthcare that was promised during the campaign.  Unfortunately for President Obama, it came about  8 months too late.  This was all about Obama being able to say, "See, I told you we would have debates on C-Span and now we have."  The sad thing is that he and the Democrats got to talk twice as much as the Republicans.  (Interestingly enough no one really had anything substantive to say.)

So, Obama was the moderator of a very partisan discussion.  What did people expect?  It is allowing the fox to guard the hen house.  This should have been moderated by a third party with no skin in the game.  Obama couldn't give points to the Republicans because he would be undermining his own agenda and the agenda of his party.  He couldn't give points to the Democrats because he would have been accused of showing favoritism.  So, he basically talked a lot about nothing.

I am thankful that my job didn't require me to watch all six hours of the "debate" last week.  I feel sorry for the reporters and pundits that had to sit through it because they really didn't have anything to say except how boring it was and how long each side talked.  The big news of the day is that the President and Democratic leadership are still hell bent on pushing a large government solution to healthcare that the American people have already indicated they don't want.  I guess we will see how that plays out this December.  (By the way...good luck getting all those same votes now!  Long live the Tea Party!)

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