First Edition: February 26, 2010

It's the day after the White House health summit and the headlines are focused on what went on yesterday and what will happen next.

Health On The Hill: After The Summit Kaiser Health News staff writer Mary Agnes Carey and the Kaiser Family Foundation's Jackie Judd discuss the  health care summit between President Obama, Republicans and Democrats. The forum ended with the president laying out some areas of consensus between the two parties but many disagreements remain (Kaiser Health News). Watch the video.

Uniting Democrats Is Challenge At Health ForumAfter more than six hours of extraordinary debate on Thursday over health care policy, President Obama had not won over any of the Republicans, and he seemed to end the day largely where he started, with little choice but to try to rally his Democrats to act on their own. (The New York Times).

President Urges Focus On Common GroundIf there was any question about how deeply divided Republicans and Democrats are about how to reshape the American health care system, consider that they spent the first few hours of President Obama's much-anticipated health care forum on Thursday arguing over whether they were in fact deeply divided (The New York Times).

At Health-Care Summit, Obama Tells Republicans He's Eager To Move AheadPresident Obama declared Thursday that the time for debate over health-care reform has come to an end, closing an unusual seven-hour summit with congressional leaders by sending a clear message that Democrats will move forward to pass major legislation with or without Republican support (The Washington Post).

Dems May Take Shortcut In Passing Health OverhaulDemocrats struggling to enact President Barack Obama's health care overhaul may take a seldom-used Senate shortcut. That prospect has infuriated Republicans who, it turns out, have used the process far more than Democrats (The Associated Press).

Bottom Line On Health Care Summit: Dems Push AheadPresident Barack Obama strongly signaled that Democrats will move forward on a health care overhaul with or without Republicans, preparing his party for a fight whose political outcome will rest with voters in November (The Associated Press).

Obama Eyes Democrats-Only Endgame At Healthcare SummitPresident Barack Obama closed Wednesday's healthcare summit by stating his willingness to use controversial rules to pass healthcare with a simple majority vote (The Hill).

The Aftermath Of The Health Care SummitDemocrats wake up after Thursday's health care summit staring down another deadline to get their bill done, exactly four weeks to Easter break (Politico).

Bipartisanship Runs Aground At Health Care SummitPresident Obama's face-to-face effort to forge a bipartisan agreement on health care overhaul appeared to fall short Thursday, as differences that have plagued the process for months re-emerged during a meeting at Washington's historic Blair House (NPR).

Healthcare Summit Reveals Chasm Between PartiesFacing unbending Republican opposition to a healthcare overhaul, President Obama confronted a stark reality Thursday as his televised summit ended: If he and his Democratic allies in Congress want to reshape the nation's healthcare system, they will have to do it by themselves (Los Angeles Times).

Analysis: Common Ground At Health Summit Stays BarrenThe extraordinary televised summit between President Obama and congressional leaders at Blair House Thursday was less conversation than illustration: a stark depiction of a gulf between the Democrats and Republicans on what to do next about health care (USA Today).

More Talk, No Deal At Health SummitAfter hundreds of hours of congressional debate, a summer of rowdy town hall meetings and a Massachusetts election that upended all political calculations, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders spent Thursday talking still more about reforming the U.S. health care system (The Wall Street Journal).

A Bit Of Drama, A Test Of Patience At Healthcare SummitThe healthcare summit had reached the point on the agenda where discussion was supposed to center on medical insurance (Los Angeles Times).

Truth-Squading The SummitObama exaggerated. Boehner lied. Reid was incorrect. Ryan is wrong. An army of partisan fact checkers bombarded the media through seven hours of the health care summit with such deep thoughts — replete with cherry-picked data — confirming the adage that there's lies, damn lies and statistics (Politico).

Healthcare Summit Ends: GOP Scores, But Both Sides Still Far ApartThe long-awaited healthcare summit is over. Republicans and Democrats aired their views, and some areas of agreement on specific issues emerged, but at the end of the day, deep philosophical differences on approach mean slim prospects for bipartisan accord (The Christian Science Monitor).

The TV Watch: Parties Jousting With Dire WarningsThe Democrats told insurance company horror stories, including a tale of an old woman forced to wear her dead sister's dentures. The Republicans countered with scary metaphor, likening the Democratic health care bill to the ailing auto industry (The New York Times).

Talks Suffer An Outbreak Of AnecdotesThursday's health-care summit revealed a new malady: call it anecdote-itis. Squeezed around a square table at Blair House, President Barack Obama and about 40 members of Congress scratched around for stories that would score political points (The Wall Street Journal).

Immigrants Sue State Over Exclusion From Health CareMassachusetts' exclusion of thousands of legal immigrants from state-subsidized health coverage is unconstitutional and should be struck down by the courts, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday by several of the affected immigrants (The Boston Globe).

Radiation Bills Raise Question Of SupervisionTo help ensure that medical radiation is safe, Medicare insists that certain highly technical cancer treatments be administered only when a patient's radiation oncologist is present or nearby (The New York Times).

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