On the surface, it appeared that this was a good idea - a health care summit to solve the problems of misunderstandings between Democrats and Republicans.  But was the divide too great to span, and were the differences in philosophy too deep to to compromise?

After a very cursory effort, it looks like the President has given up on the bipartisan Health Care Summit accomplishing anything.  Even before the summit ended he was sending signals that cooperating with Republicans was impossible, and that just too many differences exist between them to work together.  Apparently, regardless of opposition, the push is still full-throttle ahead for his, House Speaker Pelosi, and Senator Reid's massive health care takeover.  The current health care bill may be slightly changed to get enough votes, but it is doubtful the present bill will be scrapped and restarted, as the American people want. 

During and following the President's much-touted listening summit, Republican ideas were largely discounted by the President and Democrat leadership.  On the surface, each of the Democrat speakers hailed a few of the Republican ideas as being already included in the bill.  This is interesting, since Democrats have repeatedly said over the past year that Republicans had no plan.  It became obvious that Democrats had agreed on their talking points and strategies ahead of time.  Each one came prepared with a tragic story of someone whom the health insurance industry had failed.  Each Democrat tried to sell the point that "we agree with the Republicans and have their ideas in this bill."

However, this event was as much a matter of trying to convince the American people that Democrats were listening and being reasonable as it was to hear the Republicans.  While a level of cordiality existed, not many believed at the end of the day that the Democrats were actually listening or would change the bill.  (Only 5% of the respondents in a FoxNews poll thought the summit would change anything..)

President Obama was the self-proclaimed moderator of the meeting, and he was clearly in charge.  The Republicans did prove that they had some good ideas that had not been heard before.  They came prepared with medical doctors ready to speak out with plenty of facts and insights.  They had their incremental plan ready.  But the President was quick enough to cut them off before they could fully present their best points.  On at least one occasion he wrongly accused them of skewing the facts. "You are entitled to your opinions, not your facts," he told Lamar Alexander.  Later, though, after an aide handed him a note, Obama had to admit he had made a mistake on the percentage of premium increase the Congressional Budget Office had estimated. 

This was not really a listening conference or summit (which needed to be done at the beginning of the process of writing the bill, not at the end).  This was a carefully crafted, timed event that gave the President his platform to shove through government health care.  He was clever in taking the bully pulpit.  He controlled the time given each Republican according to his own stopwatch, and it conveniently allowed him twice the time of anyone else, because, as he said, "I am the President."  He could decide to cut anyone off with his own rebuttal whenever he chose. 

It is clear that the President has much bigger ideas for the size and nature of government health care in America than the Republicans or the people of America in general.  That is the major issue - a great philosophical divide on what the government's role and outreach should be.
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Part Two will address whether Americans have been fairly informed about how far-reaching the government takeover of their lives would be if this Health Care bill is passed.  Did the Health Care Summit accomplish that?  Part Three will address what Republicans said (or tried to say) at the summit, and in Part Four I hope to look at some of the provisions that the Democrats have included in their massive bills.  These may surprise you.