Obama makes plea to Dems on health bill

March 5, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

Support from his own party in doubt, President Barack Obama summoned more than a dozen House Democrats to the White House on Thursday, pleading with them to put aside their qualms, seize a historic moment and vote for his massive health-care overhaul.

It’s the opportunity of a generation, he told them — and a chance to revive the party’s agenda after his rough first year in office.

In back-to-back meetings in the Oval Office and Roosevelt Room, Obama urged uneasy rank-and-file moderates and progressives to focus on the positives rather than their deep disappointment with parts of the bill. The lawmakers said Obama assured them the legislation was merely the first step, and he promised to work with them in the future to improve its provisions.

“The president very pointedly talked about how important this is historically,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., “how he needs our help.”

Cranking up the pressure, congressional leaders said they were hoping for votes on the legislation in as soon as two or three weeks.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters he believes the House is on schedule to approve the landmark legislation by March 18, when the president leaves for an Asian trip, and he can sign it into law “shortly thereafter.”

Concerned about fellow Democrats’ trepidation about a legislative drive that has garnered only modest public support, House leaders expressed optimism but hardly certainty that they would nail down enough support that soon.

Obama’s revved-up personal involvement, along with the cautious tone of congressional leaders’ forecasts, illustrated the uncertainty still facing the president’s yearlong drive to push his signature legislative initiative through Congress. The outcome is important for all Americans, since the changes would affect the ways nearly everyone receives and pays for health care, and failure to act would leave in place a system that many find lacking and that leaves out tens of millions of people.

In another event at the White House, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius met with the chiefs of four major health insurance companies and asked them to provide justifications for double-digit price increases that have angered consumers. Health insurers, who have blamed rising medical costs for their own price rises, made no final commitments about what they would provide.