President Obama and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill had sky-high hopes for last week's health care "summit." But it was clear by the end of the seven-hour summit on Thursday that those hopes were seriously misplaced.

The president has said that his health proposal has failed to find traction not because of its contents, but because he had not done a good enough job of explaining it. Thus, what better than a televised summit at which he and his fellow Democrats could dominate the microphone and the debate?

Well, it didn't quite turn out that way, even though the Democrats had roughly twice the "mike time" during the event as the Republicans.

There was little new offered during the event, which was so talky and so tedious that news channels soon switched back to their regular programming. We suspect that for most Americans, however, their minds were made up about ObamaCare before the first word was spoken at the summit. As has been the case all along, the more the American people learn about ObamaCare, the less they like it.

Obama and the Democrats tried to argue on Thursday that the two sides are very close; but the reality is otherwise. After all, one side is arguing for a government takeover of health care - of one sixth of the U.S. economy; while the other side is arguing for a free-market solution. There's a huge, possibly unbridgeable gulf between those two ideological positions.

And then there is the cost. Obama claims that passing his program will hold down health expenses. But the fact is that his $1 trillion proposal, and the higher taxes and higher premiums to pay for it, will come at a crushing cost to the public and will still leave millions and millions of Americans uncovered by health insurance.

The president tried to dismiss such matters during the summit as mere "talking points." In other words, anything he disagrees with is a "talking point," rather than something to be taken seriously. But the American people are taking such concerns seriously - even if he is not.

Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have indicated they are determined to pass their health plan regardless of what the public thinks. Pelosi now will try to round up votes to pass the bill that was passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve, while Reid will be trying to pass retroactive "fixes" to that bill via the politically toxic "nuclear option," or "reconciliation" process.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), had better advice at the summit for Obama: "This is a car that can't be recalled and fixed, and we ought to start over," he warned.

Amen to that. And if Obama and his Democratic allies persist in their health care cramdown of their deeply flawed plan, they will come to regret it - because a public backlash of epic proportions is continuing to build.