The headline in Friday's Butler Eagle was correct in suggesting that last week's televised health care summit featuring President Barack Obama and dozens of congressional leaders from both parties offered mostly politics and posing. But still, the forum was at times interesting and informative — even if it also was often partisan and discouraging.

On the positive side, the meeting made it clear that Republicans and Democrats agree that the health care system in America is broken. But the meeting also made it clear that their approaches to fixing it remain in conflict, due partly to politics and partly to philosophical differences over government versus market-driven solutions.

Democrats and Republicans are equally outraged by stories of people being denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions, or being refused health care because they could not pay the bill. Members of both parties agreed that insurance companies should not be able to drop a person's coverage once they become sick.

During Thursday's meeting, Democrats revealed that their priority is to expand coverage to the millions of Americans who do not have health insurance. The message from Republicans Thursday was that they prefer an incremental approach and want to see cost control addressed first, before adding 30 million more people to the system.

The meeting demonstrated that both parties understand the issues, but it also demonstrated that they are politicians — and unable to get past playing politics and posturing with the next election in mind.

Some speakers spouted party talking points, but at other times the participants engaged in serious, detailed discussions of insurance pools or ways to reduce waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid.

Televising the meeting provided an interesting glimpse into Washington, but the cameras also made it less likely that real compromise and deal-making would happen. Too often the politicians played to their bases, which might perceive a compromise as a sellout or a failure.

There still is a chance that the meeting created some possibilities for bipartisanship, but most analysts think it's unlikely.

Democrats made it clear that they want to stick with the 2,500-page bill that was passed by the Senate, possibly allowing a few minor changes.

Republicans, on the other hand, confirmed their desire to scrap the Democrat-passed bill and start over. They prefer an incremental approach, building on a foundation of areas where there is bipartisan agreement, such as banning insurance rejection for pre-existing conditions as well as cutting waste and fraud in the health care system.

Democrats, who read the same polls as Republicans, understand that millions of Americans are worried about the impact of such a major overhaul of the health care system, which represents nearly one-sixth of the U.S. economy. But politics — and maybe ego or pride of authorship — is preventing them from agreeing to start over. They fear that failure to pass health care reform at this time will be seen as political failure, infuriating the Democratic base while also giving Republicans a controversial issue for the next election.

Republicans have legitimate criticisms of the giant Democratic bill, but too often it appears they want to prevent passage for mostly political reasons — to deny Obama and Democrats a victory that could help them in next November's elections.

Thursday's forum was instructive and showed that members of Congress do understand the issues, even if they allow politics to get in the way of finding a solution. Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote, "If you thought Republicans were a bunch of naysayers who don't know or care about health care, then this was not the event for you. They more than held their own."

That was especially true when Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and two other GOP officials who are physicians spoke about their experiences in medicine and offered their views on how to improve the system while reducing costs. But, as has been evident for some time, this health care reform debate is more about politics than health care.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., was the leadoff speaker for Republicans and he offered a measured, sensible viewpoint. He also, along with other Republicans, asked that Democrats not resort to reconciliation, a seldom-used tactical maneuver, to pass their version of health care reform without GOP support.

Republican Sen. John Barrasso, an orthopedic surgeon from Wyoming, recalled getting his stethoscope in medical school and being told it was to listen, to hearts and lungs, but also to his patients.

Referring to Democrats' apparent plan to push through their massive reform bill despite fading public support, Barrasso said, "I have great concern that people around this table are not listening to the American people." That is a message everyone in the room understood.

Thursday's meeting might not have been much more than political theater, but it did offer a clear illustration of the problems and why they are so difficult to solve.