Congressional Democrats on Thursday began their push to unify their ranks behind President Obama’s outline for health-care legislation, hours after the president laid out that plan in a speech that was met with loud protests from some Republican lawmakers.

House Democrats held a meeting of their top vote-counters in the morning, and they scheduled a pair of key meetings later Thursday. One was to gather a group of centrist Democrats who have been opposed to a key plank of the legislation and the other was with party liberals who have been the loudest proponents of that proposal, known as the “public option,” a government-funded insurance program that has served as the biggest fault line in the debate so far.

In addition, Vice President Biden is coming to the Capitol on Thursday to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus, which has joined the liberal call for a “robust public option.”

“It’s probably the most important initiative any of us have ever been involved with in Congress. Members are ready,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday at her weekly press briefing.

Biden predicted Thursday that Congress would complete a health-care reform bill “before Thanksgiving.” He added in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show that Obama is “willing to sign a bill, any bill, by whatever mechanism, that in fact guarantees that there is a choice for people that is affordable.”

The Senate, meanwhile, paused to pay tribute to the chamber’s leading proponent of the health-care legislation, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who died last month after a 15-month battle with brain cancer and whose memory Obama invoked Wednesday night.

Most Senate Republicans said Obama’s address fell short of what they were hoping for, particularly with his continued support of the public option, but they took to the floor Thursday to hail Kennedy’s efforts at bipartisan legislation over his nearly 47 years in the Senate. The GOP tone in the Senate echoed the tone in the House chamber last night, when most Senate Republicans either remained silent or gave nods of approval and applause at lines in Obama’s speech they supported. That contrasted with House Republicans who shouted catcalls as Obama spoke, including Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who has since called the White House to apologize for shouting that Obama was lying about how the Democratic legislation treats illegal immigrants.

Wilson stuck by his contention Thursday that the president was wrong to say that illegal immigrants would not be covered. A nonpartisan evaluation by the Congressional Research Service, he said, “has indicated that indeed the bills that are before Congress would include illegal aliens, and I think that this is wrong.”

But he told reporters that his outburst was “spontaneous.”

Obama said Thursday after a meeting of his Cabinet that he appreciated Wilson’s apology. “We all make mistakes,” the president said.

Democrats made an effort to prevent discussion of Wilson’s actions from drowning out a substantive debate on health care. “It was stunning,” Pelosi said, but she called for no further recourse. “It’s time for us to talk about health care and not Mr. Wilson.”

The organizations with the most at stake in health-care reform — the health-care industry and related interest groups — say that they remain open to the idea of big changes in the availability, financing and regulation of health insurance, as Obama called for Wednesday night.

Leaders of the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association and AARP all agreed that Congress must push through a health-care overhaul this year.

But Democrats still have a long way to go in terms of building party unity toward that goal.

Liberals sat silently when Obama cited “constructive ideas” that could take the place of a government insurance plan, but cheered wildly when he vowed to hold insurance companies “accountable.” Afterward, many congressional liberals said that, rather than paying attention to Obama’s olive branch to party centrists, they were pleased to hear Obama’s praise for the public option. “I thought in every way he supported the public option,” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said.

As Congress proceeds, the template Obama provided will help to guide Democratic leaders through the minefield that lies ahead. The president even widened the cast of potential supporters by endorsing provisions that are popular among Republicans, including pilot programs to test whether medical malpractice reform could lower health-care costs and an expansion of special-risk pools that allow people with preexisting conditions to buy insurance.

And yet the road to a White House signing ceremony remains difficult terrain. In both the House and Senate, Democratic leaders must combine several bills, factoring in Obama’s priorities but also the proclivities of internal factions. The middle road is usually the path of least resistance, especially in the Senate — but already Baucus, the only Democratic chairman seeking to forge a bipartisan consensus, has sparked a liberal backlash by tweaking certain provisions to satisfy moderate Democrats, along with the three Republicans helping to draft his bill.

In the Senate, the spotlight will remain on the Finance Committee, where Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is prepared to release a bill next week, in advance of a formal debate now set to begin the week of Sept. 21. If Baucus can’t produce, Democratic leaders will be forced to contemplate procedural maneuvers to bring reform legislation to the floor on a party-line vote. But if the Finance process unfolds smoothly, the committee would approve the legislation — with or without Republican support — by the end of the month.

At that point, Reid would take over, melding the Finance bill with the legislation produced by the Senate health committee and bringing the massive package to the Senate floor for debate. Senators would then have the opportunity to test support for controversial ideas such as the public option, malpractice protections and an individual insurance mandate.

Because the House has more authoritarian rules than the Senate, Pelosi can reshape the pending House bill with input from a dozen or more key lawmakers, including those from competing ideological caucuses.

Once the House leadership thinks it has a bill that can garner at least 218 votes, the minimum for a simple majority, the legislation will be dropped into the House Rules Committee, the body that will formally draw up a bill and dictate how the debate will unfold. Democratic sources said the House bill could come to the floor late this month. Reid’s tentative goal is to produce a Senate bill by Oct. 15.

Republicans are calling for a streamlined bill that addresses the problem of the uninsured, rising health-care costs and insurance industry abuses, and some GOP lawmakers welcomed Obama’s speech as an opportunity to bring some of their ideas to the table.

“I stand ready to work with the president and congressional Democrats on a bipartisan common-sense health-care solution,” said Sen. John Thune (S.D.), a member of the GOP leadership.

Sen. Robert F. Bennett (Utah) was one of many Republicans who applauded vigorously when Obama proposed medical malpractice reforms. “That was one concession we were all delighted to see,” he said.

Baucus said he would continue to negotiate with the three Republican members of the Gang of Six until he released his bill. “A bipartisan bill is much more durable, much more sustainable,” he said.

But Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the senior liberal on the finance panel, ticked off a list of provisions in the Baucus bill that he doesn’t like, adding: “I think we’ve got a long way to go.”

Staff writers Debbi Wilgoren, William Branigin and David Brown contributed to this report.

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