So who won in the Health Care Summit?

President Obama maintained his cool the whole seven hours and managed to spare with the Republicans and score some points. The Washington consensus is that John McCain came off the worse; most commentators wondering why he was there at all since none of his committees have anything to do with the subject. My bet it was the Senate Republicans hoping to highlight John for his primary struggle. He didn't come off well;instead he looked and sounded old and cranky. Tan Man Boehner ,I thought, came off second best, simply repeating his talking points.

In the end, Republicans said the same thing, "Scrap it all and begin again." But there was no sense of any give by the Republicans, even when Obama conceded some points.

The media was hilarious. CNN had all Republican commentators on, as their paid analysts, to say how wonderful the Republicans did. MSNBC decided the day was best spent on the Olympics, where we still retain the medal lead against the Germans. The print media blogs had responses basically fifty-fifty on impressions. For a day or so that may benefit the Republicans. There is a sense that this is such a complicated issue that maybe it's best to let it be--that's if you have insurance. If you are dying from health bills, then you don't believe Congress will do anything anyway.

What came across to me was how mediocre our elected leaders are. It's no wonder Obama feels he has to act as a teacher because some of those in the room were thick as stout. Republican commentators thought Obama came across as condescending. If you were called Hitler and a socialist by Republicans in the House, wouldn't you like to slug these people? I thought he was much too patient. I thought it took courage to meet with your own assassins.

It's interesting that I disagree with Anthony Weiner's statement that the Republicans are a subsidiary of the insurance companies. In some of the detailed discussions, which favored the insurance companies, I got the impression the Republicans did not comprehend how the insurance companies would play the situation to their advantage. Rather, I got a sense that the Republicans at the Blair House had a warped view on free-market economics and a genuine sense that health care is not a right but a responsibility. That's why they love Pat Ryan because he seems absolutely reasonable until you realize that the implications of his position are the privatizing of medicare and social security.

If you are for social justice and believe that health care is a right, then the Democrats took the day by all accounts. I thought Obama did an effective job of undercutting some Republican arguments by pointing out that the very poor in our country have better health care than working families because they qualify for Medicare, while the others don't. It was his job of diffusing the "race card"--the poor equals minorities and , like Rush Limbaugh said, this is all about the redistribution of wealth. He also did well be attacking Senator Barasso's position that people should just have catastrophic insurance and health savings plan for the rest. As Obama pointed out, that's great for people who earn what Senators do but not for people who earn $49,000.

This exchange only re-enforced my position that elected leaders in Washington have no clue about the real world. From Barasso's look, you could tell he couldn't imagine anyone not earning more than $49,000--which happens to be the mean income for Americans. That is the problem in this town. They do not have a clue that there is a Depression going on for persons earning $50,000 or less--unemployment rates far above 20%. The same applies for our talking heads on the media--they can not imagine nearly 40 million people without health insurance. These people must be lazy or something. This very closed universe produces these strange reactions. In a way, you can imagine why Republicans have been successful over the past few years just lying about everything. What was the number 1 media issue when the health care debt began--"Why should people earning over $250,000 be taxed more?" It's because all the talking heads all earn more than that and they are simply "getting by".

There were some Democrats who did shine. Dick Durbin, Charles Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi. The end result was that Obama basically told everyone a couple more weeks and then we move. In Washington speak, that means reconciliation. While Republicans bark about this, they have used reconciliation twice as much as Democrats. Both Bush tax cuts, the Bush Medicare B plan, the estate tax waiver were all done though reconciliation. The CHIPs program for children health, COBRA health insurance and Medicare itself, I believe, were done by reconciliation.

Republicans fear the health care reform bill because like Social Security and Medicare they know it will be popular. This might hurt their political chances in the mid-term but I also believe the more serious of them fear we can never pay for the obligations on the entitlements we already have. I would be sympathetic to this position if Republicans care at all about generating revenues for the government--which, alas, means taxes. As one wag said, "The Democrats are the tax and spend party; the Republicans the spend and no tax party."

Meanwhile, Congratulations to Bob Dylan,Clint Eastwood, Elie Wiesel and the Oberlin Conservatory for Music for being awaited the Medal for Arts and the Humanities by President Obama. Oberlin Conservatory is the oldest, continous music conservatory in the United States.