House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat and lead author of the bill, brushed aside the complaints by the small-business group and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which had proclaimed their support for a health care overhaul in the earlier phase.
"They are against everything," Waxman said. "They don't want a health care bill." Waxman's comment reflected the fact that, as lawmakers push to get bills through the House and Senate by the time they leave for their August recess, liberal Democrats are becoming less tolerant of dissent from their supposed allies in the health care industry.
On Wednesday, senior Senate Democrats took aim at insurers, threatening to assess them a new fee to help offset the cost of covering millions of people now without coverage. Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, the Senate's No. 3 Democrat, said the Finance Committee - which is at work on its own legislation - could seek as much as $100 billion from the industry.
And Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, a West Virginia Democrat, said, "The insurance companies are the people who are just rapaciously, greedily, unstoppably making money by underpaying the patient, underpaying the provider and by overpaying ... themselves."
Obama continued to lobby for Republican support, meeting privately Wednesday with a group of GOP senators that included Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia.
But after months of stressing the need for negotiation, the president also hit back at critics for a second straight day, saying the public insurance option "would make health care more affordable by increasing competition, providing more choices and keeping insurance companies honest."
And the president's independent political operation upped the ante by launching television ads against members of his party who have expressed skepticism about his approach to health care.
On Wednesday, Organizing for America, a vestige of the formidable grass-roots operation that helped Obama win the 2008 election, began running a 30-second TV commercial in eight states that are home to such Democrats.
At a news conference, Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat who has expressed worries about the public insurance option and is being targeted with the ads, brushed them off. "The ads won't affect me," he said. "It helps the broadcast industry."
Rep. Mike Ross, an Arkansas Democrat speaking for the New Democrat Coalition, said the group has enough votes to thwart action in the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
"A lot of this could have been avoided if they started listening to us three months ago," he said. Despite meetings with party leaders and a session with Obama on Monday, the bill "does not reflect many of our concerns," he said.
The Washington Post contributed to this article.
