Obama keeps up pressure for health bill
Posted: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 3:00 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Congress, Barack Obama
From NBC’s Athena Jones
President Obama stepped up public pressure on Congress to vote on a bill to overhaul health care before the August recess.
He said recent progress on the Hill should not lead to complacency, but instead give both houses of Congress a sense of urgency to finish "their critical work on health reform" before they head home for summer vacation.
"We're going to be continually talking about this for the next two or three weeks, until we've got a bill [out of] the Senate,” he said, “we've got a bill out of the House, then we'll deserve a few weeks' rest before we come back and finally get a bill done, so we can sign it right here in the Rose Garden.”
Video: Touting a Senate health care committee's bill that approved expansion of insurance coverage, President Obama says lawmakers need to pass heath care reform. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.
Last week, when Obama was asked whether getting a bill done by the August recess was "do-or-die" he would only say, "I really want to get it done by the August recess." Today, he was more direct.
The midday event was meant to highlight nurses' support for the kind of comprehensive revamp Obama says is necessary to ensure the country's fiscal health and save American businesses and families millions of dollars in rising premiums and out-of-pocket costs.
The president stressed the cost savings an overhaul would bring, while repeating his assurances that those who like their health-care provider and their plan would be able to keep them, even though the government cannot force companies to continue to provide the plans they provide now.
He used the recent progress in Congress -- the House proposal introduced yesterday and a Senate Health Committee proposal introduced today -- to say Washington was "now closer to the goal of health reform than we have ever been." Both proposals would include a public option.
Calling the HELP Committee's proposal "a major milestone," Obama said the 50 hours of debate on the bill and the 160 Republican amendments included in it were a "hopeful sign of bipartisan support for the final product, if people are serious about bipartisanship."
There is still much work to be done on Capitol Hill to bring the overhaul measures to the floor of each house for a vote.
