As published for The National Review on February 25th, 2010:

The machinations leading up to the Blair House summit have resembled a chess match in which one side – the Democrats — can’t decide who gets to move the pieces on its side of the board. Both theHouse and Senate passed health-care bills about two months ago, yet President Obama’s plan, released earlier this week, did not have the support of either chamber’s Democrats when it was released. In fact, congressional Democrats had been asking to see an advance version of the plan but were rebuffed by the White House. In addition, as the New York Times reported, the main reason that President Obama had to — finally — release a White House plan is that the Democrats in the House and Senate could not come to an agreement, and the president had promised that he would post a Democratic proposal 72 hours before the summit. As a result of this new, third proposal, we now have even less Democratic unity than we had before Obama stepped in. When the summit takes place, this could lead to the awkward spectacle of Obama arguing for his plan, Reid and his Democratic colleagues arguing for the Senate bill, and Pelosi’s people arguing for the House bill.

Another problem with the president’s proposal is Congressional Budget Office’s inability to score it before the summit. CBO’s explanation for this was pretty devastating: They said that the proposal did not have enough detail to be scored, and even if there had been enough detail, they did not have enough time to come up with a score. Given that we have known the summit was coming for about a month, this appears to be inexcusable. Yet the White House may have waited so long because they feared the score they were going to get. Budget experts I have talked to think CBO is likely to find that the president’s proposal will cost considerably more than the $950 billion the White House claimed, likely over a trillion dollars. It is not clear why “under a trillion dollars” has become a Democratic standard for frugality, but that appears to be the standard President Obama has set, and not having a CBO score in time for the summit avoids potential awkwardness on that front.

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