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Obama concedes problems with health overhaul

By MLive.com staff

January 23, 2010, 11:29AM

President Barack Obama pledged Friday to press for ambitious changes in the U.S. health care system despite major problems facing starkly differing proposals already passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Obama acknowledged, however, that the effort had run into serious opposition. And a leading member of his party suggested Congress slow it down on health care, a sign of eroding political will in the wake of Tuesday's Republican election upset in Massachusetts.

Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, who ushered the overhaul legislation through the Senate's health committee last year after the death of health reform champion Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, said Obama and lawmakers could "maybe take a breather for a month, six weeks."

The president did not offer a specific prescription for moving forward, but he delivered a full-throated defense of his signature domestic issue, which threatens to stall in Congress as the new 41st Republican senator will deny Democrats the 60-vote supermajority needed to assure passage of contentious legislation in the 100-seat Senate. Lawmakers ended the week having charted no clear path, though aides promised to work through the weekend to look for a compromise, possibly one that could allow the Senate to act with a simple majority instead of the supermajority Democrats now lack.

Obama put fixing a broken health care system at the of his 2008 campaign for the presidency, and once elected made it the top priority of his first term. He has faced solid opposition from the Republican minority, which has rolled over into his fellow Democrats in Congress and to growing numbers of voters.

Despite assurances from Obama and his administration, opposition to his plans have grown among people who bought into allegations of higher taxes, unbearable government deficits and serious government meddling in health care.

The United States is the only industrialized country without a version of universal health care. Americans get their health insurance mainly through their employers, with government programs to cover mainly retirees, military veterans and members of Native American tribes.

Forty million to 50 million Americans are uninsured and get medical care largely through hospital emergency rooms.

Obama has spoken about the patchwork nature of the U.S. health care system but said it is politically impossible to throw out the system and start from scratch. Thus the two bills passed by the Senate and House, which under normal congressional rules must be negotiated into a joint bill and re-passed by both chambers.

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House Republican leader John Boehner said the Massachusetts election should send a very loud warning to Democrats.

"My home state of Ohio has endured nine straight months of double-digit unemployment," he said in the weekly Republican radio and video address Saturday. "And for the better part of those nine months, Democrats in Washington have been focused on this government takeover of health care that working families just can't afford and want nothing to do with."

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Full article.