The bi-partisan conference about how to overhaul the nation's health care system just opened at Blair House, across the street from the White House, with President Barack Obama telling the Republican and Democratic lawmakers gathered there that it is "absolutely critical" to tackle the problem because it is "one of the biggest drags on our economy ... (and) one of the biggest hardships that families face."

Update at 2:45 p.m. ET. Our Shots colleague Scott Hensley is live-blogging the afternoon session of the summit in a new Cover It Live player. Just click "play" and his updates should roll in automatically:

Update at 10:34 a.m. ET. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee has been giving the Republicans' opening statement. After going through the GOP's objections to the president's ideas and the plan OK'd by the Democratic-controlled Senate, Alexander said that health care is just too big a part of the economy and the nation for the federal government to overhaul in a comprehensive manner. Here's a short clip from his remarks:

Update at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here's a short clip from the president's opening statement:

Our colleague Scott Hensley is doing some live-blogging of the event over at Shots. He'll be on top of the news throughout the day. You can also follow his updates in this post. Just click the "play" button in the box below:

As we said earlier, the event is being webcast by the White House, C-SPAN and several others.