Via the White House blog, spokesman Dan Pfeiffer has just released a statement about the summit. It talks about the meaningful discussion and the common ground explored. But if you're looking for hints as to what the White House will do next, pay attention to last three paragraphs:

Phew:

In a conference call today with Congressional staff, the White House communications director, Dan Pfeiffer, said that President Obama would reiterate his commitment to a comprehensive overhaul of the nation’s health care system in his State of the Union address on Wednesday night.

A new Associated Press report says the White House and members of Congress are contemplating a vastly scaled-down health care reform plan:

Chastened by the Democratic Senate loss in Massachusetts, President Barack Obama and congressional allies signaled Wednesday they will try to scale back his sweeping health care overhaul in an effort to at least keep parts of it alive.

Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown is reporting that the White House is encouraging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to cut a deal with Joe Lieberman.

The White House is denying the report, in fairly strong terms: "The White House is not pushing Senator Reid in any direction," spokesman Dan Pfeiffer says. "We are working hand in hand with the Senate Leadership to work through the various issues and pass health reform as soon as possible."

But one of TNR's Capitol Hill sources is saying the same thing that Politico's is. According to the source, the message came directly from Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: Lose the Medicare buy-in, reach an accommodation with Lieberman, and pass legislation as soon as possible.

According to Politico, Reid, frustrated with Lieberman's antics, is inclined to wait at least until the Congressional Budget Office delivers its formal cost estimate, most likely in the next two days.

What's really going on here? Who knows.

Conservatives have already begun stoking fears that the new mammography recommendations that screenings should begin at 50 years instead of 40 will inevitably lead to “rationing,” particularly if Obama’s health-care reform bill passes. “I absolutely believe this could be a form of rationing," Representative Phil Gingrey told Fox News yesterday. “It scares me.” A private physician quoted in the story said the guidelines issued by the federal task force were “at the top of a slippery slope toward rationing,” claiming that “the government-run insurance companies are definitely going to be using these federal guidelines.”

But to what extent will recommendations from the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force actually dictate what’s covered under the new reform bill? Over at FireDogLake, Daniel Dayen flags the White House’s attempt to push back against the “rationing” meme. On the White House blog yesterday, Dan Pfeiffer explained why the government and insurers weren’t automatically going to adopt the task force’s findings:

The USPTF would have no power to deny insurance coverage in any way…They are an independent scientific body that makes recommendations based on scientific evidence; however they do not set official policy for the federal government. Under health reform, their recommendations would be used to identify preventive services that must be provided for little or no cost.

To clarify: in its effort to regulate the insurance market and expand preventative coverage, the health-care legislation would require insurance companies to provide a certain set of preventative services for free or at little cost, according to a minimum benefits package determined by the Department of Health and Human Services. Medical treatments outside of this prescribed set of preventative services could be subject to cost-sharing--i.e. a co-pay that the patient has to contribute--but would hardly be automatically excluded from coverage. As Dayen concludes, findings by the USPTF--an independent group compromised of medical authorities and primary-care experts--would serve as a guide for HHS to determine which treatments should be part of preventative services and which are subject to co-pays, but coverage is by no means limited to what the task force recommends.