The Obama administration is setting out on a health care reform blitz, pressing lawmakers to produce a palatable overhaul before the perceived window of opportunity passes.
That window, according to President Obama, is in the next few weeks. He wants the House and Senate to pass out versions of the bill before the August recess, though he says he's willing to wait until fall for lawmakers to reconcile the differences and for him to sign it.
Time appears to be on the Republicans' side, however, as they insist on a longer consideration so that news of the bills trickles out.
As it does, public support for the Democratic health plans continues to decline. A Washington Post-ABC News survey released Monday shows approval of Obama's handling of health care reform slipping below 50 percent for the first time. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Moreso than the $787 billion economic stimulus package, the president is casting the trillion dollar-plus health care reform as his signature item. Since returning from his latest overseas trip, he has held a series of health care meetings and has with his key advisers made near-daily public statements on the need for reform.
Obama plans to attend a roundtable with health care providers Monday afternoon, after which he will deliver a statement to the press. He's planning the fifth press conference of his presidency for Wednesday evening.
Paying for the health care plan remains the major challenge, underscored by a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report that emerging House legislation would increase deficits by $239 billion over a decade.
"I don't follow why we've got to spend another $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, most people estimate, on top of the $2.5 trillion we're already spending in this country and yet still have, under one estimate, at least 33 million people without health insurance," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "I mean, these are things that are real serious problems."
Democrats insist the budget analysis ignores savings and Obama's pledge not to add red ink to the federal ledger. - FOX News Story
I don't know why we wouldn't believe Obama when he says he won't add any more red ink!? That is all he has done as the President is add red ink on top of red ink.
WASHINGTON -- The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the the U.S economy and today's bleak landscape.
The administration's annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Obama's budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.
The release of the update -- usually scheduled for mid-July -- has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.
The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance. - FOX News Story
A new poll suggests public approval of the way President Barack Obama is handling health care reform is slipping.
The Washington Post-ABC News survey says since April, Obama's approval rating on the issue has declined from 57 percent to 49 percent, with disapproval rising from 29 percent to 44 percent.
The president's overall approval rating stands at 59 percent positive and 37 percent negative. It's the first time Obama's approval rating has fallen below 60 percent in Post-ABC polling since he took office.
The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Obama advisers are urging critics of their health care overhaul to wait for Congress to finish writing legislation before issuing verdicts.
The president will hold a round-table discussion today with health-care providers at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington - Fox NewsFinally, we’re starting to see him sweat.
President Barack Obama made his personal icy cool the trademark of his campaign, the tenor of his White House and the hallmark of an early run of successes at home and abroad. But as the glamour wears off and a long, frustrating summer wears on, he is being forced to improvise — stooping to respond to political foes and adjusting his tactics and demeanor for the trench warfare of a legislative agenda.
The root of the change is one that faces every president: Economic and international realities that resist political charm. Iran and North Korea have shown no interest in the president’s outstretched hand. The economy has delivered a double-whammy, with rising unemployment stirring voters’ concerns while sluggish growth deprives the government of tax revenues Obama would like to spend on new programs.
Health care reform, which once appeared flush with momentum from earlier congressional victories, is now on a slog through no less than five committees, which include Democrats who either aren’t sold on Obama’s expansive vision or can’t figure out how to convince voters to pay for it. - Politico Story
President Obama's budget director on Sunday described a House bill on health care reform as "deficit neutral" even though it includes Medicare payments to doctors that would put the bill $240 billion in the hole over a decade.
Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag insisted that Obama won't sign any health care reform that isn't paid for, but also said the legislation doesn't take into account savings that will be achieved in other bills to come. - FOX News Story
You can't pass a bill promising it to be Budget Neutral based on upcoming bills after this one is done. What kind of nonsense is that?
Protesters gathered outside a Chicago area hotel Sunday as an Islamic extremist group reportedly linked to Al Qaeda held its first official conference on U.S. soil in an attempt to step up Western recruitment efforts.
Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir — a global Sunni network with reported ties to confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda in Iraq's onetime leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — met Sunday inside a Hilton hotel to host a conference, "The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam."
Hizb ut-Tahrir insists that it does not engage in terrorism, and it is not recognized by the State Department as a known terror group.
But some terrorism experts say it may be even more dangerous than many groups that are on the terror list.
"Hizb ut-Tahrir is one of the oldest, largest indoctrinating organizations for the ideology known as jihadism," Walid Phares, director of the Future of Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told FOXNews.com.
Phares said that Hizb ut-Tahrir, rather than training members to carry out terrorist acts like Al Qaeda, focuses instead on indoctrinating youths between ages of 9 and 18 to absorb the ideology that calls for the formation of an empire — or "khilafah" — that will rule according to Islamic law and condones any means to achieve it, including militant jihad. - FOX News Story
Imagine that, in Chicago? I guess my biggest surprise is that Obama didn't give a speech at the Conference apologizing for us Americans.
The stimulus bill "includes help for those hardest hit by our economic crisis," President Obama promised when he signed the bill into law on Feb. 17. "As a whole, this plan will help poor and working Americans."
But FOXNews.com has analyzed data tracking how the stimulus money is being given out across the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and it has found a perverse pattern: the states hardest hit by the recession received the least money. States with higher bankruptcy, foreclosure and unemployment
The transfers to the states having the least problems are large. Even after accounting for other factors, each $1,000 in a state's per capita income means that the state got $21 more per capita in stimulus funds. With a spread of almost $38,000 in per-person income between the top and bottom states, this has a sizable impact. High-income states get considerably more stimulus money.
States with higher bankruptcy rates got a lot less, not more, money — roughly $86 less per person for each percentage point increase in the state's bankruptcy rate. States with higher foreclosure rates were treated very similarly, losing $82 per person for each one percentage point more of the people suffering foreclosures.
The spending data come from two reliable sources: the Wall Street Journal and the Federal
