🚀 go-pugleaf

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2009/0
7/obama_circles_t.html

Despite a series of setbacks this week, President Obama declared 
this afternoon that there has been "unprecedented progress" 
toward a healthcare overhaul.

In a hastily scheduled, then delayed appearance at the White 
House designed to reseize momentum on his top domestic priority, 
Obama urged everyone to "step back" from the "24-hour news 
cycle."

He spoke a day after the official, nonpartisan bean counter in 
Congress warned that House Democrats' healthcare bill would 
increase public spending on healthcare and worsen the federal 
deficit, adding to the sense that the legislation might be in 
trouble.

But Obama noted that hospitals and drug companies have pledged 
givebacks to help pay for the bill, and that the American 
Medical Association and American Nurses Association endorsed 
legislation this week. He also asserted that there is broad 
agreement on major elements of health reform.

"Now we've got to get over the finish line," he said, largely by 
figuring out how to pay the full cost of health overhaul without 
adding to the federal deficit.

"The last few miles of any race are the hardest to run," he 
added, but that doesn't mean slowing down or giving up and he 
remains "absolutely convinced" that legislation will be passed 
this year.

It must be passed because if healthcare overhaul isn't done, 
everyone's health coverage is at risk, the president said.

Obama, who met in recent days with key Senate moderates and 
Republicans, argued that savings in Medicare and Medicaid, and 
other efficiencies in the healthcare system would pay for about 
two-thirds of the cost, estimated at $1 trillion over 10 years.

Obama's chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, also made the 
argument in a speech today defending the administration's 
economic policies. Summers said the savings projected by the 
administration are based on wellness and prevention programs 
that are difficult to figure into the Congressional Budget 
Office's estimates.

While Obama wants a health overhaul that both extends coverage 
to the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance and cuts 
healthcare spending, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the CBO, 
told a Senate committee Thursday that the legislation drafted so 
far would fall far short on the second goal.

"We do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be 
necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by 
a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation 
significantly expands the federal responsibility for healthcare 
costs," he said.

Despite that warning, two House committees advanced the 
Democratic bill early today on party-line votes.

The Ways and Means Committee voted to help pay for the measure 
by imposing a surtax on higher-income taxpayers to raise $544 
billion over 10 years. The vote was 23 to 18, with three 
Democrats joining all Republicans in opposition, the Associated 
Press reports. The Education and Labor Committee approved its 
portion of the bill on a vote of 26-22.

In the Senate, however, a group of six Democrats and Republicans 
urged the White House to pull back from its schedule to get a 
bill through Congress before its August recess. "We believe that 
taking additional time to achieve a bipartisan result is 
critical," the group wrote in a letter obtained by the AP.

The letter was signed by Democratic Senators Ben Nelson of 
Nebraska, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, 
Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Joe 
Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who usually caucuses 
with Democrats.