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BOSTON - The two Republicans running to succeed the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy clashed Monday about whether Massachusetts should serve as a model for the nation's health care overhaul.

State Sen. Scott Brown of Wrentham lauded the near-universal coverage created by the 2006 bill. But he said restrictions and tax elements of the current U.S. House and Senate bills would have the adverse effect of reducing benefits already existing in Massachusetts.

"I'm thankful that we've done something here in Massachusetts, but the other states really should step up and do their own health care plans and bear their own costs," Brown said during a candidate forum sponsored by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. "We should not be subsidizing other states for their health insurance while we're doing it properly here."

Duxbury businessman and attorney Jack E. Robinson said the Massachusetts bill has failed to control costs. He said people should be allowed to buy insurance across state lines, spurring sufficient private competition to create universal coverage.

"The way to solve our health care problem is to create incentives for private market competition," Robinson said. "It's no different from any other industry, health care, education, making widgets: Competition brings down costs." Kennedy died Aug. 25 of brain cancer. Brown and Robinson are the two Republicans vying to replace him. Four people are seeking the Democratic nomination: Attorney General Martha Coakley, Rep. Michael Capuano, City Year co-founder Alan Khazei and Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca.

The party primaries are Dec. 8, and the special election is Jan. 19.

Both Brown and Robinson face a daunting challenge in their campaigns: Kennedy was a Democratic icon in a heavily Democratic state. The governor of Massachusetts, all six of its constitutional officers, the majorities in both of its legislative chambers and its entire congressional delegation are Democratic.

The sparse crowd of 60 who met for breakfast at a financial district hotel underscored the lack of attention the GOP primary race has received. When the four Democrats met at the same hour and same day last month, more than 400 people were in attendance.

Robinson, a perennial political candidate who attended both Harvard Law and Business schools, cast himself as an entrepreneur. He cited work in the airline and wireless telephone industries as he claimed to have created more than 1,000 jobs during his career.

"I'm a progressive Republican," he told the crowd.

Both he and Brown highlighted their no-new-taxes pledges, and Brown said his work in Wrentham town government, as well as the Massachusetts House and state Senate, has been focused on job creation and elimination of unnecessary government regulation.

"The cost of business is out of control and people are afraid to expand," he said.

Moderator Bill Purcell, the former mayor of Nashville, Tenn., and a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, focused his questions on issues of interest to the Chamber's business membership.

Both Brown and Robinson said they would oppose both the House and Senate health care bills. The Democratic Senate candidates have been casting themselves as the vital 60th vote to prevent a Republican filibuster on the legislation. On the subject of a second federal stimulus bill, Robinson said the first bill had boosted government but not private-sector job creation. He said he favored a complete elimination of the federal capital gains tax for 2010 to promote business investment and entrepreneurship.

If that were done, he said, "We'll be out of the recession, in my opinion, by the end of next year."

Brown called eliminating the tax impractical, but he said the country does not need a second stimulus bill and should instead move to reclaim the unspent portion of the original bill.

He called for the government to target spending on infrastructure, both to create construction jobs and add the benefits of capital improvements.

"We don't need another trillion dollars of debt added onto our $12 trillion of national debt," Brown said.

On education, Robinson said he supported the federal government setting educational standards, while Brown said he wanted more funding for the No Child Left Behind education law pushed by Kennedy and the most recent Republican president, George W. Bush.

"No Child Left Behind," he said. "Great idea, but they didn't really provide the resources to finish the job."