The Obama administration held a summit last week, officially titled the “White House Forum on Health Reform,” involving 150 participants including members of Congress, hospitals, doctors, business groups, insurance companies, consumer organizations and labor unions.

The summit, structured similarly to the economic summit held the week prior, was an opportunity to bring groups together and begin discussing the initial plans to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

The president provided opening and closing remarks to attendees who spent the remainder of the day in five break-out sessions focusing on a variety of topics, including health care cost, quality, coverage and access.

During his remarks, Obama notably indicated some flexibility on the reform plan he introduced during the campaign saying, “I put forward a plan for health care reform.  I thought it was an excellent plan.  But I don’t presume that it was a perfect plan or that it was the best possible plan.”

Obama indicated that there is room for discussion on the specifics, and doesn’t believe that an entirely public nor entirely private reform plan will work and said, “If there is a way of getting this done, where we’re driving down costs and people are getting health insurance at an affordable rate…and we could do that entirely through the market, I’d be happy to do it that way.  If there was a way of doing it that involved more government regulation and involvement, I’m happy to do it that way as well.”

President Obama had said that he would like Congress to act on health care reform by the end of this year.

Details on upcoming health reform regional forums are available on the newly launched HealthReform.gov website, managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.