President Obama said Thursday he hopes it will take "a month or a few weeks" for the deep divisions between Democrats and Republicans to be reconciled and actual legislation move forward toward health care reform. If the two sides can't agree, Obama made it clear it's too late to start from scratch, and the Democrats will press ahead.

Obama's bipartisan health care summit may not have represented progress toward new legislation, but the lively discussion offered Obama and Democrats a forum to discuss the urgent need for reform and to call on Republicans to offer alternatives to a Democrat-backed bill.

Nevertheless, both sides indicated they are more entrenched in their philosophical differences than open to compromise. Several Republicans said one, comprehensive piece of legislation was too broad to be a solution and too unpopular with Americans.

Obama countered that a majority of Americans are for reforming what he said are unfair practices by insurance companies -- such as denying policies to those with pre-existing conditions.

Obama used the seven-hour summit to emphasize the urgency of the issue -- often turning to anecdotal cases in which patients have been turned away from health care due to pre-existing conditions or gone without insurance because of the high costs.

"We need help right now," said Obama. "We can't have another year-long debate over this."

"If you look at the issue of how much government should be involved, the argument that Republicans are making really isn't that this is a government takeover of health care, but rather that we're regulating the insurance market too much," he said. "And that's a legitimate philosophical disagreement."

He said a compromise bill needs to be ironed out and urged opponents of the legislation to "do some soul searching" and come up with solutions to insuring 30 million Americans without insurance.

Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Patty Murray of Washington spoke in favor or health care reform.

"All of us should be able to fire our insurance companies, as far as I'm concerned," Wyden said at the summit. "We need to have that right." He backed the idea for "interstate shopping" of different health insurance policies.

Murray brought up the case of a mother of three who did not qualify for health insurance due to a pre-existing condition, and said the mother not long after had died due to lack of health care.

Obama, clearly frustrated by Republicans' claims that health care reform would mean "death panels" to decide who gets care and who does not, said Republicans had repeatedly given "misrepresentations" of proposed legislation.

The Republican proposal would insure only 3 million additional people over the next 10 years, compared with 30 million more in the Democratic proposal.

He conceded that the reform will be expensive, and defended the proposal to tax Medicare recipients who earn more than $250,000 to help pay for the program.

"Sick people are scared, and they're not Republicans or Democrats -- they're Americans," said Rep. Charles Rangel of New York.

"We've got to get this done," Obama concluded.