AP sources: Obama tells lawmaker he wants health bill in Senate committee bill by week’s end

AP sources: Obama wants health bill this week

WASHINGTON — Democratic officials say President Barack Obama has told a key lawmaker involved in drafting health care legislation he wants a bill in the Senate Finance Committee by week’s end.

These officials say the president delivered his message Monday to Sen. Max Baucus in a White House meeting attended by administration officials and Democratic lawmakers.

The president’s action came as he spent his first work day in the White House since returning from an overseas trip, and sought to give fresh momentum to his drive to remake the nation’s health care system.

The officials who spoke did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss private meetings.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Back in the White House after a week overseas, President Barack Obama pressed Democratic leaders to pass health care legislation in both houses of Congress before August and expressed confidence about the ultimate outcome for his top domestic priority.

“Don’t bet against us. We are going to make this thing happen,” a defiant president said, eager to impart fresh momentum after days of delays in the House of Representatives and Senate.

Obama delivered his full-throated promise in a Rose Garden appearance to announce his surgeon general nominee. Later, he met privately with Democratic congressional leaders crucial to the legislation — as well as conservative Democrats who have misgivings. The leadership’s ambitious timetable for floor votes this summer has slipped.

Unlike other developed countries, the United States lacks universal health care.

“There was a strong agreement by everyone in the room that we can get a bill done before the start of the August recess,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “Sen. Reid intends to take a bill to the floor as quickly as possible.”

That was short of a commitment, and left unanswered how quickly the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, would act — or whether the leadership and White House would step in.

“The urgency barometer is going up,” Baucus said following the White House meeting. He and a group of senators from both parties are meeting throughout the week to try to finalize a compromise bill, but they have set no deadline.

In the House, Democrats said they were nearly ready to unveil comprehensive legislation and push it through three committees in the coming days. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has long been on record as saying the full House would act by the end of July.

While the president was out of the country sizing up foreign leaders, rank-and-file lawmakers took a look at the emerging details of health care legislation and many decided they didn’t like what they saw. In the House, conservative Democrats rebelled over costs. In the Senate, the Democratic leadership pulled the plug on a controversial financing scheme to tax health benefits that a moderate Democrat worked out with Republican counterparts.

Late Monday afternoon, Obama met with members of the Blue Dog Coalition, conservative Democrats who forced a delay in the House last week.

Separately, in a wide-ranging meeting with union leaders, the president said taxation of employer-provided health benefits was off the table and expressed his strong commitment to a voluntary public health plan, according to a labor activist familiar with the session. The activist spoke on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the private meeting.

Joining Reid, Pelosi and Baucus at the White House were House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel.

Despite Obama’s determination, there’s no guarantee he’ll succeed in the effort to get all Americans covered and try to better manage costs. With lawmakers concerned about the cost of an overhaul above all else, Congress may decide to expand coverage slowly, phasing it in over a number of years.

Baucus and Rangel are in charge of the crucial job of coming up with how to pay for a comprehensive health care overhaul that would cost at least $1 trillion over 10 years, mostly for subsidies to help cover nearly 50 million uninsured Americans. But the two Democrats are taking very different routes. Rangel is shaping a bill that Democrats can support. Baucus is striving for a bipartisan compromise, which would have better chance of winning broad support, and which Obama says he wants.

Obama lost no time signaling that he intends to be in the forefront of the action.

“I just want to put everybody on notice, because there was a lot of chatter during the week that I was gone,” the president said. “Inaction is not an option.”

He also ruled out any tax increase affecting the middle class, complicating lawmakers’ efforts to pay for overhaul.

“During the campaign I promised health care reform that would control costs, expand coverage and ensure choice and I promised that Americans making $250,000 a year or less would not pay more in taxes. These are promises that we’re keeping as reform moves forward,” Obama said.

House Democrats may be able to muscle a bill through the floor by August.

“We will be on schedule,” Pelosi told reporters. Nonetheless, release of a bill — originally set for last Friday — was delayed until Tuesday. And Pelosi indicated more changes are likely as leaders try to keep intact a Democratic caucus that includes liberals and conservatives. “It won’t be the final product,” Pelosi said. “It is just the beginning.”

Underscoring that political challenge, the campaign arm of the House Republicans targeted more than 60 potentially vulnerable House Democrats on Monday with news releases asking whether they planned to support the Democrats’ “massive government health care takeover” and “job-killing tax hike.”

Up to now, the president has avoided debating policy details, choosing instead to make the broader case for a health care overhaul, and leaving the day-to-day negotiations to his aides. Yet if Congress is getting stuck in a policy swamp, Obama may be the only one who can get things moving again. He hinted as much on Monday: “Muscles in this town to bring about big changes are a little atrophied but we are whipping people back into shape,” he said.

Associated Press writer Alan Fram contributed to this report.