Republicans would be foolish to let Democrats stake the fate of this zombie of a bill on a televised publicity stunt. For a year, Democrats have built this trillion-dollar entitlement — every sweetheart deals, every kickback and every carve-out — in the cloakrooms of Washington. Now, at the moment when transparency is at its most valuable as politics and its least valuable as policy, the administration has found religion, complete with much public wailing and teeth-gnashing about how openness was sacrificed at the altar of efficacy.
Republicans shouldn't let Obama get away with this. The time for Republicans to demonstrate the superiority of a conservative approach for lowering health-care costs and expanding coverage is after Obamacare is defeated, once and for all.
So then... Obama holds his discussion with Democrats and some empty chairs where the Republicans were supposed to sit, and notes that they refused to attend any health care discussion. I don't think that exactly complicates Obama's argument that the GOP lacks any solutions to the problems of the uninsured, discrimination against the sick, and runaway costs.
