On Thursday this week the White House will host a "summit" for health care overhaul, featuring both Republican and Democratic congressmen.  In doing so, Obama touted the needs for extending health care coverage, how the problems with health care have to be confronted now, and how enacting this legislation will actually help the economy.  If all this sounds familiar, it's because these are the same arguments the President has been pushing essentially since he came into office.  The only thing is, nobody's buying them.  After Democrats got squarely hosed in races in Virginia, New Jersey, and even Massachusetts, Obama faulted himself for not better explaining to the public why his ideas, particularly health care reform, were such grand innovations.  Of course, the problem had to be that he wasn't walking us meager, confused voters through every step of something we were too stupid to understand, not that we do understand and simply think it's a bad idea.

Unfortunately, the best the President can do to enlighten the masses is to repeat the same tired rhetoric that voters have already rejected.  Obama has instead tried to get Republicans on board this time around, showing that he truly can be bipartisan and that this health care bill should be a reflection of what different ideologies think is best for America.  I cannot believe for one moment, however, that the President honestly thinks he will be successful in this endeavor.  First, there is really no reason why Republicans should try to further this legislation.  Almost all conservatives are adamantly opposed to it, and now that the Democrats lack a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, Republicans don't have to strive to un-suck the bill as much as possible before its inevitable passage.  Much of this bill represents the antithesis of conservative ideals: huge entitlements, government spending, and heavy-handed bureaucratic intervention in the private sector.  With these principles as the building blocks for the plan Obama is pursuing, it isn't hard to see why Republicans aren't tripping over each other to be a part of it.  In addition, voters seem more conscious than ever about the dangers posed by a mounting federal debt, and fiscal conservatives are unlikely to sign on to anything that is guaranteed to raise federal spending.  As Republican Whip Eric Cantor put it, his party his not going to embrace "a Democratic bill that's tanking in the polls."

President Obama isn't stupid, so given all these reasons why no one should expect Republican support of health care legislation, his invitation to the summit seems fairly disingenuous.  Couple this with the fact that Obama has lambasted Republicans in several recent speeches, and it becomes very hard to see why he would expect them to work together with him and other Democrats on this legislation.  In the end this is really nothing but a facetious attempt to demonstrate the President's commitment to bipartisanship, while also giving him the out when Democrats inevitably go it alone at any sort of reform: "Hey, I tried to get the other side involved, they didn't want to, so don't blame me for whatever comes out of this process."  Unfortunately for the President and other Democrats, voters aren't buying it, and blaming them is exactly what they will do come November.