Obama keeps up health-care push
Posted: Friday, July 17, 2009 4:19 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC's Athena Jones
The president ended the week much as he began it, this time pairing a not-so-gentle nudge to Congress to get a health care overhaul bill to the floor quickly with praise for what he termed the "unprecedented progress" lawmakers had already made.
In a late-afternoon event that was added to the Friday's schedule just hours earlier, Obama said that the last several weeks had seen "a level of consensus on health-care reform that we have never seen in this country," listing the agreements reached with hospitals, health care providers and pharmaceutical companies to cut costs over the next decade and highlighting the fact that the American Nurses' Association and the American Medical Association support the health care revamp.
Video: President Barack Obama made a hastily scheduled appearance Friday to offset the message coming from the Congressional Budget Office that the Democratic health care reform plan would actually cost money instead of saving it. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports.
Still, he acknowledged that reaching a consensus on how to pay for a massive restructuring of a system that represents 17% of the economy was going to be difficult, while repeating his commitment that it be paid for in a way that would be deficit neutral.
"I realize that the last few miles of any race are the hardest to run," the president said. "But I have to say now is not the time to slow down and now is certainly not the time to lose heart."
House and Senate committees have been hard at work on their versions of a health care bill. Overhauling health care is a top priority for the president. Each day this week, he has kept up the pressure on Congress to get most of the work done before they take off for summer vacation and today he said he was convinced they would pass a health care bill this year.
"I believe that members of Congress are prepared to work as hard as it is gonna take to make this happen," he said. "And I'm grateful for the work that they've already done. I'm confident that we're gonna be putting in a lot more hours, there are going to be a lot more sleepless nights, but eventually this is gonna happen."
In response to reports from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office saying the health care bills proposed so far would increase, not reduce, long-term federal health care costs, Obama stressed his commitment to a signing a bill that would slow the growth in costs. He has consistenly argued that revamping the health care system is key to reducing the deficit since Medicare and Medicaid costs are an increasing strain on the federal budget.
The administration is pushing for so-called "delivery system reform" and wants Congress to create an independent group of doctors and medical experts to oversee cost savings measures using research on best practices to help health care providers deliver the most effective care not just the most expensive care.
