WASHINGTON
If there was any question about how deeply divided Republicans and Democrats are about how to reshape the American health-care system, consider that they spent the first few hours of President Obama's much-anticipated health-care forum yesterday arguing over whether they were in fact deeply divided.
The forum played out with Obama serving as moderator, MC and chief defender of Democratic policy prescriptions. He and his fellow Democrats tried to make the case that the two parties were closer than they thought, with the implication that their bill was centrist and would be acceptable to mainstream voters. Republicans countered that the gap was vast, the bill out of touch with what the country wanted, and that Obama should throw it out and start over.
"A dangerous experiment," warned Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader.
By day's end, it seemed clear that the all-day televised session might even have pushed the parties farther apart. Republicans said that there was no way they would vote for Obama's bill, and Democrats were talking openly about pushing it through Congress on a simple majority vote using a controversial parliamentary maneuver known as reconciliation.
As he wrapped up the session, Obama chided Republicans for advocating "baby steps," and rejected their call to start over, declaring that Americans "don't want us to wait."
Obama said that if he does not see any significant movement toward bipartisan cooperation, Democrats would push ahead on their own and leave it to voters to render their judgment.
"That's what elections are for," the president said.
The forum, at Blair House, across the street from the White House, was in many respects an extraordinary sight -- the president, with Vice President Joe Biden at his side, engaging in a spirited and detailed policy debate with Republicans about one of the most compelling and ideologically polarizing issues facing the nation.
Obama's mastery of the intricacies of health policy was impressive even to some Republicans.
"It was sort of his classroom," Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who gave his party's opening statement, said in an interview. "I was glad we did it, because the president's megaphone is the biggest one, and when he shares it with Republicans like he did, that gives us several hours to make our case, and I thought we made it well."
The session did produce hints of potential agreement on some issues, but in each case Democrats and Republicans differed over important details.
They agreed on the need for more regulation of insurers, for example, but clashed over the question of whether the federal government should replace states as the primary regulator. They agreed that the federal government should help individuals and small businesses pool their purchasing power to buy insurance, but disagreed over whether the government should specify minimum benefits, as Democrats proposed.
Beyond the question of government intervention in the private-insurance market, their most profound disagreement was over expanding coverage to the uninsured. The Democrats want to cover more than 30 million people over 10 years; Republicans said that the nation could not even afford the entitlement programs, such as Medicare, that already exist, much less start new ones.
But the biggest clash of the day involved Obama's 2008 Republican rival, Sen. John McCain. Reminding Obama that both of them had run for office "promising change in Washington," McCain delivered a lengthy talk deriding the Democrats' bill as being produced "behind closed doors" and stuffed with "unsavory deal-making."
Obama finally tried to cut him off. "John, we're not campaigning anymore; the election is over," he said.
McCain laughed and shot back: "I'm reminded of that every day."
Later, though, Obama credited McCain with making a valid argument in a discussion over federal payments to private Medicare Advantage plans. McCain criticized a provision of the Senate bill that would carve out special protections for people enrolled in the plans in Florida and a few other states, while people in his own state of Arizona would not benefit. The president called it a "legitimate point."
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