Andrew Sprung praises the health care summit:
The Feb. 26 date creates a deadline for Democrats to get their negotiation for a "reconciliation sidecar" the Senate bill finished, while the summit itself sets the stage for them to pass that fix after Obama demonstrates Republican bad faith to the country one more time. It's been increasingly plain that Democrats are not going to pass HCR legislation before then. With the meeting between Obama and House Republicans as template, Obama has structured this "exchange of ideas" as a debate he can't lose. He's going to show that nation that that "plan" Republicans have been waving around is an empty book.
Brendan Nyhan is less sure:
Obama is raising expectations for genuine bipartisanship, but it's not going to happen -- the odds of important policy changes coming out of the meeting are virtually nil. If House Democrats then go ahead and pass the Senate bill plus a reconciliation package on a party-line vote, the press will again surely note the contrast between Obama's rhetoric and the realities of legislating in a highly partisan Congress. Is this stunt really worth a delay of more than two weeks?
Continetti doesn't think the meeting will change anything.