Obama's health care reform is under intense scrutiny

As skepticism about the president's health-care reform effort increases on Capitol Hill, the Obama administration has launched a new phase of its strategy aimed to drastically increase public pressure on Congress.

Late Friday, the Congressional Budget Office delivered an assessment of one of the House versions of the health care bill, which said it would add $239 billion to the deficit if passed. "We do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount and, on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs," the CBO's director Douglas Elmendorf said last week.

Elmendorf said long-term costs would rise at an unsustainable pace even if the legislation doesn't add to the federal deficit immediately. In his effort to reshape how Americans receive health care, Obama refuses to accept a tax on high-cost health insurance plans as part of the overhaul.

The Obama administration officials promptly took to the airwaves refuting the claims saying that the evaluation is premature. On Sunday White House officials defended Obama's health care proposals, emphasizing that Congress has not written the final draft of legislation, and urges skeptics to wait for the final bill. "At the end of the day, we'll have significant cost controls," said Presidential adviser David Axelrod.

Critics of the reform say the cost and timing are too problematic to get the votes needed to pass the president's legislation. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele lashed out today at President Barack Obama's efforts to reform the national health care system."The President tells us he doesn't want to spend more than we have ... he doesn't want to live off borrowed money, but he also told us he didn't want to run an auto industry," Steele said. "President Obama justifies this spending by saying the devil made him do it. He doesn't want to spend trillions we can't afford and then he says he just can't help it."

Conservative Democrats in the House have said they will vote against the reform in its current state. They are preparing several amendments, including measures that reduce the effort's long-term cost. And many on Capitol Hill continue to urge the president to abandon his rapidly approaching demand for passage of bills in the House and Senate by Aug. 7.

"I don't think we should be bound by a timetable that isn't realistic," Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), a key swing-vote on health care, told Obama last week reminding him that President Lyndon B. Johnson took 1 1/2 years to pass Medicare. "I think it would be prudent of the president to be patient and allow us the opportunity to work."

Stuart Rothenberg of The Rothenberg Political Report thinks making the deadline is near impossible. "There's going to be some sort of reform, I think most people believe, but in terms of the dramatic program, policy changes that the president wants, the longer this lasts the less likely that something dramatic is going to truly be passed and be signed," said Rothenberg.

The president's top health adviser said Congress has not settled on an outline for health care legislation and reiterated Obama's push for a bipartisan approach. There's a lot more work to be done. "This is a work in progress and I think the House and Senate leaders share the president's goal that cost also come down," Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Despite scrutiny, the House Democrats received an endorsement of their legislation from the American Medical Association, saying the bill "includes a broad range of provisions that are key to effective, comprehensive health system reform."

To keep Obama's health-care legislation moving in the House and Senate committees, Senior White House aides pledge "an aggressive public and private schedule." Health care reform is expected to be the number one topic this week as Obama pushes back hard. The president's advisers say he will do a number of interviews this week to increase the narrative and gain more support for the bill.

Private meetings with lawmakers are said to become more frequent and urgent. Increased visibility is high on the administrations list, including an interview on PBS, a prime-time news conference on Wednesday, a trip to Cleveland, and extensive use of Internet video to broadcast his message.

A few weeks ago, the president invited Americans to go to his Web site and post personal stories about their experiences obtaining health care in the current system. Obama will now "take the baton" and may go as far as navigating social networking sites. "I don't know whether he will Twitter or tweet," said senior adviser David Axelrod. "But he's going to be very, very visible."