President Barack Obama (center) hosts a bipartisan meeting to discuss health-care legislation at Blair House, across the street from the White House, on Thursday. AFP/Getty Images


At the Table

Who sat where, and what was said


The president tried to project the sense he was searching for a middle ground. "We might surprise ourselves and find out that we agree more than we disagree," Mr. Obama said at the start, before adding what seemed like a judgment rooted more in experience than hope: "It may turn out, on the other hand, there's just too big of a gulf."

Republicans, only emphasizing the gulf, said they'd like to wipe out the last 13 months from the record and start over. "This is a car that can't be recalled and fixed," Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) said.

The partisan divide was revealed in a stark, if gently amusing, exchange between the president and the man he defeated in the 2008 election.

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) ticked off what he called "unsavory" deals in the Democratic health-care bills. Mr. Obama snapped: "We're not campaigning anymore. The election's over." Mr. McCain, his 2008 presidential rival, laughed: "I'm reminded of that every day."

At the end of the session, the president suggested that if no deal was at hand, Democrats would press forward alone and let voters be the ultimate judge. "That's what elections are for," he said.

Thursday's health-care summit featured scores of talking points, as well as substantive debate that laid bare the sharp philosophical differences between the parties over how to reshape an industry that makes up 17% of the U.S. economy.

Mr. Obama led a discussion that was, at turns, wonky and combative. Nearly 40 members of Congress sat shoulder to shoulder at tables arranged in a square inside Blair House, across the street from the White House.

The president defended the sweeping Democratic legislation and tried to focus on areas of agreement. He offered to add provisions to curb medical malpractice lawsuits, one of Republicans' top proposals. But, again and again, the bipartisan session only emphasized the gulf between the two sides.

The top two Democrats on Capitol Hill said they would press forward on health overhaul legislation with or without bipartisan support, which would mean using a legislative process known as reconciliation. "We need to have the courage to get this job done, and we will," Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said after the meeting. She said she was hopeful that Republicans and Democrats would work together, but added she was "not overly optimistic."

Journal Community

Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Republican whip from Virginia, said the president's olive branch on issues such as malpractice wasn't enough. "An ounce of sugar does not make bad medicine go down," he said in an interview. "The bill is a fundamentally flawed bill."

Republican lawmakers highlighted the messy yearlong health-care overhaul effort. They carried 2,000-page stacks in the room showing the huge size of bills passed by Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. They bashed the ruling party for threatening to pass the bill through a simple-majority vote in the Senate. And they insisted that it was time to start over.

The exchange between the president and his political opposition was unusual. Congressional leaders from both parties were there, but Mr. Obama mostly parried the Republicans alone. Heading into the meeting, Republicans suspected they were being set up—caught between either agreeing with the president or appearing intransigent. Mr. Obama called on lawmakers not to let the health-care summit descend into "political theater."

Health Reform, Point by Point

Compare the proposals

Lawmakers, indeed, spoke at length. Many detailed the much-publicized problems with the health-care system, often with personal stories to underscore the point. Mr. Obama recalled his mother's battle with cancer and her struggle to get insurance. Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) described his wife's bouts with chemotherapy for her breast cancer.

One of the White House's central goals was to defend the Democratic legislation and its goals of creating a new marketplace for insurance, expanding coverage to some 31 million people through Medicaid and new subsidies, tightening rules for insurance companies and trying to control spiraling costs.

Republicans were aware of polls showing Americans in favor of changing the health-care system and were determined to show they, too, have ideas. They laid out a six-point plan that included curbs on malpractice lawsuits, allowing small businesses to band together to buy insurance and an expansion of high-risk pools to cover the sick.

Mr. Obama offered a concession on one GOP priority—limits on malpractice suits. He agreed with a Republican proposal that would allow states to experiment with alternative ways to resolve such lawsuits. But the president conditioned his approval on Republicans agreeing on a broader package to reduce health costs.

But Republicans weren't looking to have their ideas incorporated into the Democratic bill.

When it was over, leaders from both sides followed the president back across the street to the White House, where they held separate news conferences that made it clear they were no closer to an agreement than they were at the start of the day. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) said the same thing he's been saying for weeks: "The bill needs to be scrapped."

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) said that Democrats would move ahead even without Republican support.

—Greg Hitt contributed to this article.

Write to Laura Meckler at and Janet Adamy at