President Obama’s bipartisan health care summit begins later this morning, but the bickering started weeks ago. Arguments between Republicans and Democrats over what kind of table will be used, the seating arrangements, the frequency of coffee breaks and other minutiae are starting to take center stage even before the conversation about whether or how to reform health care.
Darrell West, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, talks about the importance of pageantry in events like this, and whether President Obama can hope to repeat the success he had at a House Republican conference last month in Baltimore. We also have Jonathan Cohn, senior editor for The New Republic, to talk about what he’s expecting from this summit, and what President Obama and the Republicans need to do to actually get things done.
The story you just read is accessible and free to all because our listener community contributes to our nonprofit newsroom. We go deep to bring you the human-centered international reporting that you know you can trust. To do this work and to do it well, we rely on the support of our listeners. If you appreciate our coverage, if there has been a story that made you pause or a song that moved you, would you consider making a gift to sustain our work? All donations between now and June 30 will be matched 2:1, tripling your impact.