Anybody who expected Thursday’s Blair House health care summit to produce a dramatic breakthrough hasn’t been listening to the national debate on the issue during the past year. Two fundamental flaws guaranteed it would be nothing more than political theater.

The first flaw was the absence of a credible scorekeeper at the summit to keep track of any progress on specific issues of disagreement. A typical private sector business negotiation is based on identifying points of agreement and disagreement, listing them where everybody can see them, and then working them out one-by-one. When agreement is reached on one issue, it gets marked off the list and the discussion moves on to the next area of disagreement. Everybody knows where the negotiation stands and what the major obstacles are at any point in the discussion. The number of disagreements steadily gets shorter when both sides negotiate in good faith.