President Barack Obama demanded that Congress end its bickering about a health care overhaul, implored Republicans to bring him their good ideas but warned he would not “waste time” with those who put politics ahead of the needs of the American people.

In a sweeping defense of changing a system that he and others contend could bankrupt the world’s largest economy, the president told a nationally broadcast joint session of Congress Wednesday night that a nasty political summer was over and “now is the season for action.”

Obama was fighting not only for a signature domestic policy campaign promise but battling, too, to win back flagging public support for revamping a system that has left millions of Americans without health insurance, drives thousands into bankruptcy each day and consumes nearly 20 percent of the country’s economy.

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The United States is the only developed country without a universal program of health care coverage. As many as 50 million Americans lack insurance. While many Americans are dissatisfied with the health care system, attempts to change it are politically explosive.

“I was very disappointed in the speech because it’s obvious the president hasn’t been listening to the American people,” Louisiana Sen. David Vitter said in a press release following the speech. “I’ve had 21 health care town meetings this summer, and it has been made expressly clear to me that Louisianians do not support anything like a government option. Yet the president is still pushing hard in that direction.”

Added Vitter: “The folks I’ve spoken to said that they don’t want this 1,000 page bill, and yet the president is still pushing this big government sort of option. Instead, people I’ve spoken to want a much more focused approach to the problems that do exist, like buying insurance across state lines, tort reform and lowering prescription drug costs through reimportation.  We need real concrete reforms and a real focus on those problems with a scalpel, not with a sledgehammer.”

Louisiana’s other senator, Mary L. Landrieu, a Democrat, also released a statement.

 “President Obama’s speech tonight was very much needed to keep Congress on track to find a solution for the health care challenges facing our country. It was a sincere and heartfelt effort to unify Democrats and reach out to Republicans to forge common ground and build a broader coalition. Moving this debate forward will take principled compromise and an approach that draws from the very best ideas – regardless of political party,” she said.

“The President rightfully focused on the need to lower health care costs for families, businesses and the government. If Congress does not find the resolve to pass health care legislation, people will not be able to afford the insurance they like or get the quality coverage they need, and the federal government will not be able to balance its budget,” Landrieu said.

“The coming weeks and months will produce a spirited debate. But as the President said, the time is now for improving health care. Our current system is unsustainable and is costing our nation more than $2 trillion a year. Louisiana and all of America simply cannot afford the status quo.”

On Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden said he expected a health care bill to be done by the Thanksgiving holiday in late November because Obama has “re-centered debate” and there’s bipartisan consensus for change despite the fight over a government-run option.

“I think the most important thing he did, he also debunked a lot of the myths out there, the idea of death panels, that we were going to insure undocumented aliens,” said Biden. He spoke on morning network news shows.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, also interviewed Thursday morning, said he agreed that something needs to be done about health care. But he also said that if the administration wants to see legislation realized, it must reach out more aggressively to minority Republicans.

“We need to do it, but it has to be bipartisan,” McCain said. “We can’t lay another trillion dollars of debt on the next generation. ... It’s generational theft.”

Through a summer of angry debate, Obama also witness a sharp decline in his once-soaring popularity.

The speech was a political tour de force. To the public, he offered assurances that his plan would provide more security and more health care choices, while offering coverage to people who cannot now afford it.

To Republicans, he offered a hand to work together and pledged not to raise the government’s deficit. For Democrats, who want him to be more assertive, he lashed out at opponents, accusing them of employing scare tactics and lies to bring down the plan — and his presidency.

“I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it,” he said.

Obama appealed to emotions, unveiling a letter from Edward Kennedy, the respected Democratic senator who died last month. In the letter, delivered posthumously, Kennedy expressed confidence that the overhaul would pass this year. Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, was in the chamber’s visitor’s gallery next to first lady Michelle Obama.

And Obama returned to the soaring political rhetoric that marked his presidential campaign.

“We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it,” he told lawmakers.

It is unclear if Obama persuaded any Republicans. In keeping with tradition, most sat silently or offered polite applause during the speech.

But in an unusual outburst, one Republican congressman, Joe Wilson of South Carolina, shouted out “You lie” when the president said illegal immigrants would not benefit from his proposals. The president paused briefly and smiled, but from her seat in the visitor’s gallery, first lady Michelle Obama shook her head from side to side in disapproval of the interruption. Wilson later apologized for his “lack of civility.”

Health care has become the defining issue for Obama, just nine months after he took office amid enormous expectations at home and abroad. His success or failure may determine whether he has the political clout to press ahead on issues like climate change, arms control and the Afghanistan war. It is also likely to shape next year’s congressional elections.

Obama’s plan would impose new regulations on insurers while requiring all Americans to get coverage. He says it would drive down prices, prevent insurers from dropping sick patients and ultimately strengthen the economy by curbing exorbitant health care costs.

He said the changes he wants would cost about $900 billion over a decade, “less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans” passed during the Bush administration.

Republicans have overwhelmingly opposed the plan. They see it as a step toward a government takeover of health care and fear it will raise costs while driving down quality.

“Replacing your family’s current health care with government-run health care is not the answer,” Rep. Charles Boustany, a heart surgeon, said in the Republican response to the speech.

If the summer belonged to opponents of his health care overhaul, Obama is hoping to lay claim to the rest of the year — and close it by getting a bill on his desk.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. snap poll of people interviewed before and after Wednesday night’s speech indicated that the president shifted public opinion in his favor. After the speech, two-thirds said they supported Obama’s health care proposals, compared with 53 percent in a survey days before the president spoke.

That contrasted with an Associated Press-GfK poll released hours before the speech that showed many Americans had become disillusioned with Obama’s handling of health care. It found that disapproval of Obama’s handling of health care has jumped to 52 percent, from 43 percent in July.

Robert Blendon, a public opinion expert at the Harvard School of Public Health, said that before Obama’s speech, the debate over health care had looked like a tennis match.

“He’s taken control of this issue for now, and into the future it looks like there’s a plan, and he’s leading it,” Blendon said.