Can country get to yes on health care?

One of them - Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy - is dead. The other one - Republican Mitt Romney - is politically dead in his party if he plays the same role nationally as he did as governor. In Massachusetts, he was pivotal.

“Massachusetts was able to get to yes because the leading public official who kicked it off was Mitt Romney,’’ John McDonough, a former state representative and leading architect of the Massachusetts health insurance overhaul, told Globe reporter Lisa Wangness. “He deserves a lot more credit than he wants to claim.’’

McDonough, who was called to Washington by Kennedy to work on national legislation, also explained how the fiercely liberal senator approached an issue that breaks down - in both Massachusetts and Washington - along classically ideological lines. Kennedy played the role of “unifier, conciliator, bridge builder, and cheerleader. He would say: ‘Yes, we can. We can do this together and do it in a bipartisan way.’ ’’

Kennedy’s can-do attitude, coupled with Romney’s willingness to compromise for the perceived greater good, was enough to achieve success in Massachusetts. Those two elements are sorely missing in Washington.

The Obama health care plan - with no public option - is very close to the Massachusetts plan, as pointed out recently by Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank. Ornstein (who is generally considered liberal) described both plans as a “moderate conservative Republican option’’; neither is a “radical leftist plan, much less a government takeover of our health care,’’ he wrote.

But the GOP message machine never lets facts get in the way of a scary storyline. Last summer, it started defining the Democratic agenda as radical and socialist, ensnaring Republicans who know better. In Romney’s case, his own party now forces him to disown his own creation.

On one hand, Romney touts the Massachusetts plan, recently in an opinion piece in USA Today.

He sounds like he wants to be a player in the national debate. “If he had been invited to the White House health care summit, he would have welcomed the opportunity to share lessons from our experience in Massachusetts,’’ said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom.

Yet, despite what experts describe as broad similarities between Romneycare and the Obama plan, Fehrnstrom insists there are too many differences for common ground. “Governor Romney’s plan didn’t raise taxes, or cut Medicare, or increase spending by $1 trillion. Governor Romney’s plan was passed with large bipartisan majorities in both branches of the Legislature. Governor Romney didn’t establish artificial deadlines or grandstand in front of the media, or demonize the opposition,’’ Fehrnstrom said.

Achieving bipartisan agreement in Massachusetts is, of course, nothing like achieving bipartisan agreement in Washington. Even in the Bay State, it took two years. Romney didn’t have to establish artificial deadlines or grandstand, because Kennedy quietly pushed leaders of a legislature controlled by Democrats to work out differences. The Massachusetts Senate unanimously backed the plan, with then Republican state Senator Scott Brown supporting it.

Romney signed off on legislation that added $330 million in spending. Failure to address cost is the big, acknowledged weakness of the Massachusetts plan. Kennedy and Romney both agreed it was best to first provide access and cover the uninsured; then, to find a way to pay for it.

Affordability is the next challenge in Massachusetts. In contrast, Obama and the Democrats are proposing an admittedly controversial package of taxes and Medicare cuts to pay for it up front.

The lesson from Massachusetts is that bipartisanship works only when it is in the interests of both sides to make it work. Romney wanted reform as much as Kennedy. Each gave up something to achieve it. The Massachusetts plan does not include a public option, which liberals favor, but does mandate coverage, which conservatives oppose. It’s imperfect, but still historic.

It’s sad that neither man is available to make the same case in the same bipartisan spirit to the nation.

Joan Vennochi can be reached at vennochi@globe.com.