Three Reasons Health Summit Could Kickstart Reform (and 3 Barriers that Remain)

At Thursday's healthcare reform summit meeting in Washington, President Obama and selected members from the House and Senate came to either agree—or disagree—with the current state of healthcare reform.

Basically, they came, they sat, and they talked and talked. But will it move healthcare reform to the next level?

Here's how the summit could actually kickstart health reform:

1. A sense of urgency was created.

"We cannot have another year long debate about this," Obama said near the end of the summit. "So the question that I'm going to ask myself—and that I'll ask of all of you is—is there enough serious effort that in a month's time or a few weeks' time or six weeks' time we could actually resolve something?"

Obama made it clear that he would not be attempting a summit of this magnitude again.

"I thought it was worthwhile for us to make this effort. [But] we've got a lot of other things to do. I don't think that we're going to have another one of these because people don't have seven, eight hours a day to work some of these things through."

And if the Republicans decline to give bipartisan support?

"Then I think we've got to go ahead and some make decisions," Obama said. "That's what elections are for. [When] we have honest disagreements about the vision for the country, we'll go ahead and test those out over the next several months till November."

2. Underscored that the parties had more in common with each other than the public might perceive.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), who is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said at the summit, "We may be closer together than people really think in actually getting agreement [so] that we can move forward."

"Of the 10 key elements in the House [Republican's proposed] bill, we have nine of them in our bill. That's not bad," Harkin said.

"This includes provisions on not being excluded from coverage for pre-existing conditions, no lifetime caps, no gender-bases ratings, and keeping children on a parent's health policy after they become young adults.

"The only one that's missing is the health savings accounts," Harkin added. "I think we're very close on this."

3. Could add fresh ideas into the current debate.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) suggested the two parties consider "real reform that would ... change the incentives that drive the system and empower the consumer." His plan would "build on the exchanges that we have today" that are used by the federal employee system.

"I think we can resolve a lot of our differences," he said.

But on the flip side, the dialogue may have indicated that stronger differences exist between the parties—and that agreements may be difficult to achieve.

Here are three barriers that impede the Democrats in moving forward with a large health reform program:

1. The continued push to start over.

A common theme voiced by many of the Republican attendees was that they wanted to push aside the bills already approved by the House and the Senate in favor of a new one.

As Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said: "Let's start over in the sense that we change the vision and work together to do the things that we agree upon—but do it in a way that doesn't destroy the fundamental market system that's made the American healthcare system the best in the world," he said. "And if we do that, we can make a deal."

This is a move, however, that the president indicated at the end of the summit that he is unlikely to take.

2. Disagreements over individual mandates versus insurance reform.

Mandating that individuals obtain insurance "is a significant issue across the country," said Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), the ranking minority member on the House Ways and Means Committee.

"The American people are telling us that the individual mandates—the requirements to buy insurance—are something that they want us to scrap and start over on," Camp said. "That's why you're seeing state legislatures around the country passing resolutions saying, our citizens are going to have a choice on whether they buy health care."

However, Obama and many of the Democrats said that it would remain difficult to reform the healthcare marketplace and keep costs down if individuals did not have to purchase healthcare insurance.

3. The size and complexity of the bill.

Throughout the summit meeting room, copies of the current 2,700-page reform bill sat next to several Republicans who cited the size of the current legislation—and said they would not vote for something this large.

Obama appeared unmoved by the request. "I did not propose—and I don't think any of the Democrats proposed—something complicated just for the sake of being complicated. We'd love to have a five page bill. It would save an awful lot of work."

He said the reason they didn't do it is because "it turns out that baby steps don't get you to the place where people need to go," Obama said.

"[People] need help right now. And so a step by step approach sounds good in theory, but ... we can't solve a preexisting problem if we don't do something about coverage," he added.