The recent health care summit-palooza was historical only in its impotence. It was supposed to be a momentous meeting of the minds and votes from both sides of the aisle. It was an opportunity to agree to disagree on some points, and to move forward reforms that both sides recognize as doable. Instead, we the people got a seven-hour view into the inane antics of those who seem to have forgotten who put them in office and how to legislate anything effectively.

Party lines, drawn in permanent ink, served to fuel the contradictions in facts, specifically when it came to the financial analysis of the costs of the health care bill. Each side had contradictory numbers. If a representative from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had been present, we might have had another "You lie!" moment. It's puzzling that the CBO, identified as the "referee" on budget issues, was missing in action.

At the summit, Rep. Paul Ryan R-Wis., said: "Medicare, right now, has a $38 trillion unfunded liability. That's $38 trillion in empty promises to my parents' generation, our generation, our kids' generation. Medicaid's growing at 21 percent each year. It's suffocating states' budgets. It's adding trillions in obligations that we have no means to pay for it." He also stated: "This bill does not control costs. This bill does not reduce deficits. Instead, this bill adds a new health care entitlement at a time when we have no idea how to pay for the entitlements we already have."

Since the CBO has not analyzed the 11-page proposal that President Barack Obama brought to the table, the Senate bill was the basis for Ryan's claim that the bill has 10 years of tax increases with 10 years of Medicare cuts to pay for six years of spending. This would bring the cost of the bill to $2.3 trillion over 10 years. He also claimed that the bill takes $52 billion out of Social Security taxes to offset the cost but that these funds are reserved for Social Security, so either the funds are being double-counted or President Obama has no intention of paying those benefits.

Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Los Angeles, disputed Ryan, saying, "The referee said that the bills that are before us reduce the deficit, the federal government's deficit, by over $100 billion in the first 10 years." He also said, "There are going to be some savings that we extract out of Medicare." I'm thinking that much like fee is the new word for tax, extract is the new word for cutting care.

Yet in December, the CBO stated that the savings would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of legislation: "To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government's ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government's fiscal position."

Written on the CBO blog is this: A cost analysis requires "very detailed specifications of numerous provisions" and President Obama's 11-page proposal "did not provide sufficient detail on all of the provisions." After a year of work and monopolizing the headlines, there aren't enough details?

Given the potential impact on one-sixth of our economy, how can we have any faith that this bill will elevate the health and financial security of any American?

If the CBO can't provide an accurate cost estimate, how can the Democrats justify their intentions come hell or high water, to ram through the health care bill using reconciliation?

The CBO's mandate is to provide Congress with "objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses to aid in economic and budgetary decisions on the wide array of programs covered by the federal budget." Therefore, they should actually act as a referee and immediately address the financial discrepancies with full transparency.

It's our money President Obama is throwing about, and I think we have a right to know the truth about how he intends to garner and spend it.