Yesterday’s health care summit may well come to be seen as an important turning point in the health care debate. While the future of health care reform remains in doubt, the debate yesterday helped demonstrate to the American people the sharp differences in ideology and substance that form the gap between liberal and conservative solutions to our current healthcare problems.

For those who did not watch all seven hours, we have compiled the day’s highlights into one video.

One of the best kept dirty little secrets of Obamacare is that over half of the health insurance expansion obtained by Americans through the bill is accomplished by putting them on the welfare program Medicaid. Rep. Pete Roskam (R-IL) not only made this point yesterday, but also highlighted a great quote from Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) on why Medicaid is “one of least effective programs in terms of health care in the history of the country.” From the Blair House health summit transcript:

“And I think one of the problems, to get to this coverage issue, is that the premise of this bill is that coverage is expanded through Medicaid, welfare. Speaker Pelosi a couple of minutes ago — or a couple of hours ago, actually said that health care reform is entitlement reform.”

SPEAKER PELOSI: “Yes.”

REPRESENTATIVE ROSKAM: “Yes. I would put a brighter light on that and say it’s entitlement expansion. Think about what we’re doing. The CBO when they wrote to Harry Reid — wrote to Senator Reid a couple of months ago, they said, look, there’s about 15 million people that are going to be put on Medicaid. And Medicaid is a house of cards. Medicaid is not something that is serving the public very well.”

“The state controller in Illinois — and we all come from states with real trauma — the state controller in Illinois recently wrote that as bond rating agencies continue to downgrade Illinois rankings to the lowest in the nation, the state can’t afford further jeopardizing.”

“This bill, section 2001 of the Senate bill, takes away all of the flexibility as it relates to changes in Medicaid. That is making our states I think ultimately hidebound in how they approach these things. This is something that in my view isn’t sustainable.”

“Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana said — let me give you a quick quote — ‘One of the least effective programs in terms of health care in the history of the country is called Medicaid. About 20 percent of America is on a Medicaid program and they would like to shift’ — ‘they’ meaning Washington — ‘would like to shift it and grow it to somewhere around 25 or 30 percent.’”

“Now, Medicaid is a system that isn’t working. Almost everyone agrees. But what Congress intends to do is to increase the number of people on Medicaid so that they can do it on the cheap. It isn’t working for anybody.”

“Look, the foundation of the expansion is Medicaid. And in my view, and I think the view of folks in my district and I think many, many people across America, it is a flawed foundation. And we can do much, much better. A Republican proposal that’s out there would reduce the number of uninsured by 3 million people.”

“So, look, you heard it today in many, many forms — this — you remember the old — in closing, you remember the old game you used to play as a kid, Etch A Sketch, and you’d start out with the Etch A Sketch, that little thing where you try and draw something and you dial the dials and over a period of time the more you dialed the more crazy it looked and then finally you’d say, oh, let’s just go like that and do the Etch A Sketch.”

“I’ll tell you what, a year’s worth of work and this is what has come up with? The American public, as far as the ones that I have heard from, are vehemently opposed to this. And they say, look, take the Etch A Sketch, go like this, let’s start over, let’s do incremental things where there’s common ground. I yield back.”

The President’s new version of Obamacare, and his method of passing it, are not popular with the American people. Dubbed the Health Care Nuclear Option, this tactic will only further anger the American by sidetracking the filibuster in the Senate and creating an even more highly charged partisan atmosphere in Congress. The content of Obamacare, and the strategies being employed to pass it, violates one of our nation’s core first principles: the consent of the governed. Our Republic is not a democracy where bare 51 vote majorities rule. Throughout our nation’s history most major legislative changes in Washington have historically been bipartisan and President Obama’s effort clearly falls short of that tradition.

As we reported late last week:

“The Health Care Nuclear Option, also known as reconciliation, is being considered by liberal politicians to insure that Obamacare makes it to the President’s desk by Easter. According to The New York Times, the plan is to have the President submit reconciliation legislation to be posted on the internet this weekend. The legislation will be crafted in a manner so that it can be passed using special reconciliation procedures created solely to enact laws to reduce the deficit as part of the annual budget. The next step is for the President to conduct his half day bipartisan summit at the Blair House on February 25^th. With that faux-bipartisan stunt over with, the President will be free to pass legislation in a partisan manner that tosses aside the regular rules of business in the Senate.”

Americans treasure the idea that our Republic was set up so that the power of the federal government is derived from the consent of the people. The extraordinary state power to pass legislation that puts the government in control of more private health care decisions should only be done with the clear consent of the American people. The Mount Vernon Statement released on February 17, 2010, a document defining the conservative movement’s first principles, states:

We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.

The Mount Vernon Statement argues that “at this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed.” President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) must seek consent of the governed to move forward on Obamacare. But they are not.

There is no consent of the governed for Obamacare. As a matter of fact, there is a consensus that the President’s top down approach to reforming health care has the explicit opposition of the American people. Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) was elected to represent the liberal state of Massachusetts in the Senate by running against Obamacare. The left likes to say that this was just one election. But so was the 2008 elections. The Founders never intended a change in policy as sweeping as Obamacare to be decided by just one election. That is why Senators are not up for reelection in every cycle. The Senate is designed to slow down the passions of the moment in favor of a more deliberative and settled policy.

That is why all of the major policy changes in our nation’s history have been enacted with strong bipartisan support. When Medicare passed in 1965 there was bipartisan support for the bill. Democrat Senators supported by a 57-7 margin and Republicans supported by a 13-17 margin (final Senate vote 70-24). In the House, Medicare passed by a 307-116 margin with House Republicans splitting 70-68 in the vote. President Johnson signed the bill into law after bipartisan majorities supported this controversial new safety net program.

And President Ronald Reagan got strong bipartisan consent for his revolutionary Tax Reform Act of 1986. The House approved the measure 292-136 and the Senate passed it by a landslide 97 to 3 vote. More recently Republicans and Democrats worked together to enact a major reform of our nation’s welfare system in 1996. President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law after over 20 Democratic Senators joined with the Republican majority to pass the bill by a 74 -24 margin. That is the kind of bipartisan reform the White House should be pursuing.

Real Clear Politics (RCP) has links to Obamacare polls that indicate that more Americans oppose Obamacare than support it. The average RCP poll indicates that 38% are in favor of the President’s health care reforms versus 53% who are against it (an approximate 15% deficit). It is clear that the American people do not consent to Obamacare. The only bipartisan action on Obamacare will be Democrats voting against the measure. There is broad bipartisan agreement that the government’s treatment of health care needs serious reform, yet there is not bipartisan agreement that Obamacare solves these issues. The President’s strategy to pull and end around the opposition of the American citizens and the filibuster in the Senate is a true affront to the ideas of the consent of the governed and comprehensive reform efforts need strong bipartisan support to get passed. It is time for President Obama to scrap Obamacare so as to proceed with negotiation between Republicans and Democrats starting from scratch.