And so it happened- the meeting between President Obama and the Republicans that was supposed to expose the crap and bring closure to the health care debate- or at least move it forward somehow- are we still talking about this? It has been close to a year and Congress couldn’t get anything onto Obama’s desk. Now the President is calling for the equivalent of health care American Idol in the middle of a massive recession and economic issues that do not by any means stop at our own borders?

As anyone could have predicted, the meeting did very little to move anything forward. Even in the weeks leading up to the meeting it was clear that there would be no shared starting point- Republicans want to start from scratch on this and Obama wants to keep going from where we are.

Obam invited around 40 Congressional leaders to listen to his plea (I wonder how they drew that line and what it was like trying to get into that party-…)

Obama said a comprehensive overhaul was “absolutely critical.”

My favorite quote?

"They (members of the health insurance industry) are terrible. They are in it for the money." - John Rockefeller (D-WV)

I have to give some points to Jon Kyl (R) who said, "There are some fundamental differences between us that we cannot paper over. We do not agree about the fundamental question of who should be in charge.”

Obama openy admitted that the meeting may not revive the Health Care reform effort, but he said: "I thought it was worthwhile for us to make this effort."

Where is the reporter that should be asking Why? As in, why was it worthwhile to make the effort again? What about this meeting is different from the others that have taken place between dozens of party leaders on both sides of the aisle over the pat 9 MONTHS. Obama, this it not the stage in the game to go back to brainstorming. You got screwed in the Senate on this last election, but you can’t scrap your strategy just because of that. You can’t start over- and if you do, it has to be the way the Republicans want it- You would have to start over.

In the end, didn’t do much good.

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell was "discouraged."

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid told reporters- "It is time to do something and we are going to do it."

McCain and Obama even exchanged words:  

McCain questioned if Obama had delivered on his campaign promises- Obama said: "We're not campaigning anymore. The election is over." McCain responded, laughing: "I'm reminded of that every day."

Senator Lamar Alexander (R) also spent a good deal of words talking about what his plan would be and said that unless the Democrats were willing to take the option to ram the health care reform bill through “like a freight train” that there would be no true starting point for a bipartisan bill to come out of that or any meeting. And to a certain point, he’s right. If the Democrats can always hold that over their heads the way Republicans hold the filibuster over peoples’ heads, well, there’s just no real deal making…

So what if none of this works out? Does President Obama have a Plan B? Obama said to a reporter: "I've always got plans."

Photo Credit: victoriabernal (via Flickr under CCL)