WASHINGTON — When the Senate Finance Committee met Wednesday for a hearing on the rising cost of health care in the United States, Republicans and Democrats agreed the problem has become a national crisis, but it didn’t take long for the parties to demonstrate why they’ve had such a hard time working together to solve it.

Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, the panel’s Republican chairman, kicked off the hearing by saying Congress should “address the root causes of the explosive increase in health care costs” rather than sending billions of dollars to insurance companies to subsidize monthly premiums. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the committee, countered by insisting that with barely a month before the expiration of subsidies millions of Americans rely on to afford their health ins

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