Gibbs Passes On One Last Chance to Make Health Care Negotiations Transparent - Political Punch

Gibbs Passes On One Last Chance to Make Health Care Negotiations Transparent - Political Punch: "On This Week this morning, I noted to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs that there was some deal-making that went on as the health care reform legislation hit the House and especially the Senate -- the kind of deal-making that was one of the reasons that President Obama, then Senator Obama, pledged on the campaign trail that 'we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so the people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.'

PolitiFact labeled that a broken promise but in the spirit of the Christmas season, I was more generous, noting that there remains one more step in the negotiation process, and in fact last week President Obama told PBS about this final reconciliation between the House bill and the Senate bill, 'We hope to have a whole bunch of folks over here in the West Wing, and I'll be rolling up my sleeves and spending some time before the full Congress even gets into session, because the American people need this now.'

So, with that in mind, I asked Gibbs, will the president open up the doors for this final negotiation?

He's in charge of it. It's going to be taking place at the West Wing.

The President will have Democratic leaders from the House and Senate negotiating this House and Senate bill.

Will he commit to opening up that process to C-SPAN cameras so we can see how this happens?"