KEY QUOTES from the White House healthcare summit

(Updates with end of summit; additional comments by Obama, Biden, Rockefeller)

WASHINGTON Feb 25 (Reuters) - Here are some of the remarks made by President Barack Obama and U.S. congressional leaders at a White House summit on Thursday aimed at trying to reach a bipartisan agreement to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

"The question I'm going to ask myself and I ask of all of you, is there enough serious effort that in a month's time or a few week's time or six weeks' time, we could actually resolve something. And if we can't, we've got to go ahead and make some decisions."

REPUBLICAN SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN

"Both of us ... promised 'change in Washington.'... Eight times you (Obama) said negotiations on healthcare reform would be conducted before C-Span cameras. I'm glad, more than a year later, that they are here."

"Unfortunately, this (Democratic) product was not produced in that fashion. It was produced behind doors."

SENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER HARRY REID

"Harvard just completed a study that shows 45,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance, almost 1,000 a week in America."

REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE CHARLES BOUSTANY

"We all agree on prohibiting insurance companies from arbitrarily canceling insurance policies. That's a no-brainer. There's strong agreement on both sides of the aisle."

DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE LOUISE SLAUGHTER

"I even have one constituent -- you will not believe this, and I know you won't, but it's true -- her sister died. This poor woman had no dentures. She wore her dead sister's teeth, which of course were uncomfortable and did not fit."

REPUBLICAN SENATOR LAMAR ALEXANDER

"With respect, you (Obama) are wrong about your bill. It would increase premiums, I believe."

Alexander also urged Democrats not to resort to a rarely used procedure that would allow them to avoid a Senate Republican procedural roadblock.

"You can say that this process has been used before, and that would be right. But it's never been used for anything like this." Alexander quoted Democratic Senator Robert Byrd's description of the process as ramming the bill through like "'a freight train.'"

DEMOCRATIC SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER

"You can't just get up there and say we don't want to cut anything out of Medicare. We want to cut the bad stuff and keep the good stuff. And I think that's where we can find common ground."

SENATE REPUBLICAN WHIP JON KYL

"There are some fundamental differences between us here that we cannot paper over. We do not agree about the fundamental question about who should be mostly in charge."

"There's so much in the bills that you've supported that puts control in Washington that we have a very difficult time supporting those provisions."

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN

"We are not cutting Medicare benefits. We are trying to eliminate waste."

REPUBLICAN SENATOR TOM COBURN

"The government now directs over 60 percent of the healthcare in this country. And if throwing money at it and creating new government programs could solve it, we wouldn't be sitting here today because we've done all that. It hasn't worked."

DEMOCRATIC SENATOR MAX BAUCUS

"We basically know what the problems are, all of us. We basically know that the current system is unsustainable."

"We are actually quite close -- there's not a lot of difference..."

"We are on the verge and the cusp, with not too much effort, to try to bridge a lot of gaps here, because the gaps, in my judgment, are not that great."

HOUSE REPUBLICAN WHIP ERIC CANTOR

"We can't afford this. That is the ultimate problem here."

DEMOCRATIC SENATOR JOHN ROCKEFELLER

"They (members of the health insurance industry) are terrible. They are in it for the money." (Reporting by Thomas Ferraro, David Morgan and Donna Smith; editing by Anthony Boadle and Paul Simao)