President Obama claimed his first convert on health-care reform Wednesday, as senior Democrats, labor unions and an array of interest groups intensified their efforts to sway wavering lawmakers before a climactic vote in the House this weekend.
House leaders expressed increasing optimism about pushing Obama's top domestic initiative to final passage, even as they continued to tinker with the last element of the package and their day for a vote appeared to slip to Sunday. Taking a break from his face-to-face efforts to win support for the measure, Obama made a rare appearance on Fox News Channel to declare that, after a year-long battle, Congress is finally poised to deliver the far-reaching overhaul to his desk.
"I'm confident it will pass. And the reason I'm confident that it's going to pass is because it's the right thing to do," the president said in a sometimes testy interview with reporter Bret Baier, who repeatedly prodded him about special deals in the package that were used to win over recalcitrant lawmakers, as well as a much-criticized parliamentary maneuver that the House may employ.
The interview interrupted a presidential schedule packed with calls to Capitol Hill, where House leaders said Obama has focused on the 37 House Democrats who voted against health-care legislation in November but may be open to supporting the latest package. Over the past few days, Obama has met privately with at least half a dozen dissenting Democrats in the Oval Office, and lobbied others by phone. |