Obama urges Congress to stay vigilant on healthcare

WASHINGTON - President Obama, worried about growing resistance to his healthcare plan, exhorted Congress yesterday not to “lose heart’’ and urged deeper cost cuts to calm concern over the huge expense of covering millions of uninsured Americans.

“What we want to do is force the Congress to make sure that they are acting’’ on recommendations to hold down Medicare and Medicaid spending, the president said, rather than allowing reports to sit unused on a shelf.

Aiming to rally lawmakers, Obama spoke from the White House in a hastily scheduled appearance near the end of a week of tumult for the legislation atop his domestic agenda. “I realize that the last few miles of any race are the hardest to run, but I have to say now is not the time to slow down, and now is certainly not the time to lose heart,’’ he declared.

A few hours earlier, two House committees approved their portions of the sweeping healthcare bill over Republican objections after working overnight. The Ways and Means Committee voted, 23 to 18, to help pay for the measure by imposing a surtax on higher-income taxpayers to raise $544 billion over 10 years. The Education and Labor Committee approved its portion of the bill on a vote of 26 to 22.

That left one more House panel to act, but conservative Democrats were rebelling, demanding additional measures to hold down skyrocketing costs.

On Thursday, the head of the Congressional Budget Office told Congress the legislation taking shape would fail to control public spending on healthcare - remarks that produced fresh criticism from Republicans, and gave pause to Democrats.

In letters to key members of Congress yesterday, administration budget director Peter Orszag called for additional steps to ensure the bill “rewards quality, restrains unnecessary costs, and provides better care to more Americans.’’

Under current law, a Medicare Payment Advisory Commission makes recommendations to lawmakers annually on the rates Medicare pays doctors and other healthcare providers. Lawmakers are not obliged to follow them, or even vote on them. In his letter, Orszag proposed that the recommendations take effect unless rejected by the House and Senate.

In a statement released after Obama spoke, Senate majority leader Harry Reid said lawmakers “now stand on the doorstep’’ of enacting legislation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled that she, too, was open to additional cost-cutting provisions and suggested they may be incorporated into the bill next week by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Any legislation that emerges from Congress is expected to require insurance companies to issue policies to anyone who seeks coverage, without turning them down or charging higher premiums on the basis of preexisting medical conditions.

To spread insurance more widely, both the House bill and companion proposals in the Senate would rely on hundreds of billions of dollars in federal subsidies to assist lower-income families. The House bill also calls for the government to sell insurance in competition with private industry, a provision that Republicans in particular strongly oppose.

Given the complexities, as well as fresh calls for delay in the Senate, Pelosi opened the door to pushing off a vote past the early August timeline that she and Obama laid out weeks ago.

“We have to see what the Senate will do,’’ she said at a news conference.

While Reid has also said he wants legislation on the Senate floor before lawmakers go home for their August recess, six key senators - three Democrats, one independent, and two Republicans - urged a delay. “We believe that taking additional time to achieve a bipartisan result is critical,’’ they said in a letter yesterday to the Senate leaders of both parties.

The letter was signed by Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Republicans Susan M. Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who usually caucuses with Democrats. Snowe, who met one-on-one with Obama on Thursday, has been deeply involved in talks in recent days aimed at drafting bipartisan legislation.

Obama, who also plans a primetime news conference Wednesday and a healthcare event in Cleveland Thursday, did not mention the August recess.

Instead, he urged lawmakers and the public to look past the daily ups and downs and focus on the “unprecedented progress’’ toward healthcare overhaul: hospitals and drug companies have pledged givebacks to help pay for the bill, the American Medical Association and American Nurses Association endorsed legislation this week, and broad agreement on major elements of the bill.


source: boston.com