Obama: Health Reform Delay in Senate "OK"
Earlier in the day, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate would not be able to vote on a health care bill before its August recess, as the president had earlier requested.
"We just heard today we may not be able to get the bill out of the Senate by the end of August," Mr. Obama said at a town hall in Shaker Heights, Ohio. "That's OK. I just want people to keep on working. I want it done by the end of this year. I want it done by the Fall."
The president skirted around a question from an audience member about whether he was willing to force the Congress to stay in Washington, through its August vacation, until it passes the legislation. He said he has not talked to Reid yet today.
"My attitude is I want to get it right, but I also want to get it done promptly," he said. "As long as I see folks working diligently and consistently, then I am comfortable with moving a process forward that builds as much consensus as possible."
Mr. Obama tailored his push for health care reform for the citizens of Ohio, describing in the town hall meeting how reform would help the state's flagging economy.
"We have to do more than just rescue this economy from recession," he said. "We need to address the fundamental problems that allowed this crisis to happen in the first place."
Rising health care costs are crippling the economy in Ohio as well as the nation, he said.
"Here in Ohio," he said, "over the past few years premiums have risen nearly nine times as fast as wages. That's a future you can't afford. That's a future America can't afford."
Mr. Obama pointed to the Cleveland Clinic as an example of a medical facility that produced better outcomes for patients at lower costs by embracing changes like modern health information technology systems. The president toured the cardiac surgery unit of the clinic earlier in the day.
In spite of the setbacks in Congress announced today, the president emphasized the agreements reached so far among the five congressional committees working on the reform package, as well as the cooperation from health care providers, hospitals, drug companies and the American Nurses Association and the American Medical Association.
He blasted Republicans opposed to reform, singling out Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
"The Republican Party chair, seeking to stall our efforts, recently went so far as to say that health insurance reform was happening 'too soon,'" Mr. Obama said. "I thought that was a little odd. We've been talking about health reform since the days of Harry Truman, and he's saying reform is coming too soon."
The president repeated his promises that health care reform will be deficit-neutral, that insurance companies will not be able to deny coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and that citizens' health insurance will be more secure. As he said in a prime time news conference Wednesday night, out-of-pocket expenses will be limited, and the costs of reform will not fall on the middle class.
"Now is the time to rebuild this economy stronger than before," the president said. "Strong enough to compete in the 21st century."
He illustrated his investment in reform and the challenge it presents by likening health care reform to the Apollo 11 moon landing.
"There were those at that time who said it was foolish, even impossible," he said. "But President Kennedy understood, and the American people set about proving, what this nation was capable of doing when we set our minds to doing it."
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