No detail too small as plans are finalized for health care summit

WASHINGTON — Forget whether Washington can agree on a health care plan at the upcoming summit meeting. In recent days the real impasse has been over furniture.

As the president and congressional titans prepare to meet Thursday on one of the most pressing issues of the day, the White House
and legislative leaders are enmeshed in rolling rounds of diplomacy
about exactly how the high-stakes meeting will unfold. And no detail is
too trivial.

In face-to-face meetings in the Capitol, participants have been discussing the arrangement of tables: U-shaped or square?

Will everyone be able to fit? That has been a sticking point. A Republican aide said the White House
had planned to restrict the table to only the handful of officially
invited guests, which would have forced some other senators to sit with
staff at what the aide indignantly referred to as “the kiddie table.”

“We’re not going to have members (of Congress) sitting in staff seats,” said the aide, referring to the sideline seats often occupied by aides to powerful officials. The White House said Tuesday that it would find room for everyone.

There’s still the matter of where to sit. Should
Democrats and Republicans sit separately? Or in a show of bipartisan
comity, should their seats be intermingled? That question still is not
settled.

With a national television audience watching and a
major domestic initiative hanging in the balance, logistics are proving
to be almost as delicate as negotiations on the issue itself.

“Shades of the Paris peace talks,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., invoking Vietnam.

Toward the end of the Vietnam War, diplomats spent weeks in Paris
arguing over what they called “the modalities” of peace talks. That is,
the shape of the table and the placement of chairs — issues they
considered fraught with symbolism.

In Washington, each party is looking for an edge.

For President Barack Obama, the
summit is a chance to revive a health care bill that has languished
since the Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate last month. Republicans want Obama to scrap existing plans and start fresh.

At minimum, the GOP wants to ensure it is
on an equal footing at the summit. The party especially hopes to avoid
a repeat of the recent House GOP meeting in Baltimore, where Obama stood on stage and Republicans looked up at him from chairs.

Word came from the White House on Tuesday that tables would be in the shape of a hollow square — a design that appeals to the GOP.

“The White House is the biggest home-court advantage in the world, and President Obama does a very good job in this sort of setting,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio. “But my understanding is they don’t plan to have a President Obama-lecturing-schoolchildren format.”

Many points still are being negotiated, but the shape of the meeting is coming into focus. The White House said the meeting will last from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
and will be divided into four parts: Cost control, deficit reduction,
expansion of coverage and overhaul of the insurance system.

An hour will be set aside for each topic. A buffet lunch break of 30 to 45 minutes is the only intermission.

Obama will give an opening statement of five to seven minutes; Republicans will get a chance to respond.

Expect a free-wheeling discussion, with Obama playing the role of moderator.

Even so, Republicans aren’t happy about the location. Obama chose Blair House, the government guest house across the street from the White House.

The meeting is in a 1,600-square-foot room — small
for the occasion. About four dozen lawmakers and staff will attend, not
including the media. Republicans say the room will be needlessly
cramped.

Privately, GOP aides are calling the event, “The Blair House Project” — after the 1999 horror movie “The Blair Witch Project.”

“We pointed out that the venue shouldn’t drive the
summit. The summit should drive the venue,” said a Republican aide,
speaking on condition of anonymity. “If the room limits the ability to
have a discussion, then move. But they (the White House) are pretty excited to have it in Blair House. No one can explain why.”

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