CentristNet

President Barack Obama Appears Bored as He Listens to Members of Congress Recite Scripted Speeches in the First Hour to Today's Health Care Summit

The health care summit between the Congressional GOP, President Obama and Democratic Congressional Leadership is off to an entertaining but generally unsubstantive start, with scripted speeches the norm and a few interesting interactions. Sadly, it appears that actual negotiations over a incremental centrist health care reform bill appears to be out of the question so far as all the Democrats are condemning any talk of an incremental approach while focusing on anecdotal examples of individuals who are without health care instead of the legislation under debate, despite stated agreements over the Medicare fraud sanctions database and enforcement (see #5 of OPINION piece) concept and the stated agreements about the need for substantial medical malpractice reform (see #2 of OPINION piece). At least for now, the Democrats, led by President Obama, are sticking to the “big bill” gameplan and we expect the remainder of the summit to proceed as the first hour did: scripted speeches and a few testy interactions but little substantive progress on a bipartisan deal.

One interesting testy interaction that just occurred was between President Obama and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) over the issue of the time allotted to each party. McConnell noted that the GOP had received a fair amount less time than the Democrats so far, and the President agreed that there was a time imbalance and quipped that it is “because I’m the President” and his speaking time didn’t “count” toward the pledged equal division of time between parties. Politico reports on the exchange:

McConnell interrupted the discussion at Blair House Thursday, over an hour after it began, to note that Republicans had only spoken for 24 minutes compared with 52 minutes for the Democrats.

“I don’t think that’s quite right, but I’m just going back and forth here, Mitch,” Obama said. “I think we’re just trying to go back and forth, but that’s okay.”

A few moments later, Obama noted the session was running long and acknowledged – with an explanation – that Republicans hadn’t spoken for quite as long.

“You’re right that there’s an imbalance on the opening statements, because I’m the president,” Obama said. “I didn’t count my time in terms of dividing it evenly.”

Such quips from Obama are sure to rile the GOP, who considered the equal time pledge by the White House binding.

Another interesting talking point Obama continues to return to is the comparison of shoddy car insurance to what Obama claims is shoddy health insurance as sold now without the benefit of the federal regulations that Obamacare would impose. House Member Paul Ryan (R-Mi.) made the point that conservatives and moderates are rejecting the Obama Health Plan because of disapproval of the increased federal regulatory power and mandates that will be imposed if Obama’s comprehensive plan is passed. Obama used his car insurance analogy to respond to Ryan’s point, claiming that the federal health rules are necessary to stop shoddy health insurance from being sold. However, there are no federal car insurance regulations, such regulations are handled by state governments, as are regulations over health insurance policy terms as of today. Obama’s proposal envisions bringing another set of regulations over all health insurance policies on top of the current state health insurance regulations, in essence creating a federal insurance commissioner on top of the already-existing 50 state insurance commissioners.

UPDATE: Realclearpolitics posts the video clip of the McConnell-Obama exchange.

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