Washington, Sep 10 (DPA) President Barack Obama warned that health care in the US has reached a “breaking point” and called for a serious effort to overhaul the system in the coming months, according to excerpts of a speech he is to deliver to Congress.
Obama is looking to regain some momentum as Congress returns from a month-long summer recess, during which many legislators were shouted down by angry opponents at townhall meetings on the issue in their home states.
“Our collective failure to meet this challenge – year after year, decade after decade – has led us to a breaking point,” Obama said, according to the excerpts released by the White House Wednesday.
“The time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action.”
Obama, who has so far left the crafting of the legislation largely to Congress, was expected to deliver more concrete proposals during the rare address before a joint session of Congress.
In the excerpts, Obama said he remained open to ideas from both parties, but warned: “I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it.”
Obama has an uphill battle in overhauling health care coverage in the US, which has the costliest system in the industrialised world and leaves about 46 million people uninsured. There have been no serious reforms in four decades.
Conservatives have strongly opposed any more government intervention in the country’s largely-private system. But Obama has also taken fire from fellow left-leaning Democrats for suggesting a government-run insurance option could be left out of the final package.
The reform battle has been extremely partisan to date. The best hope for a solution lies in a group of six lawmakers in the Senate Finance Committee – three Republicans and three Democrats – that have been haggling for weeks over a compromise bill.
The committee’s Democratic chairman, Senator Max Baucus, said Wednesday that he will release his version of the bill next week, with or without Republican support. The Finance Committee is one of five committees that have developed proposals in Congress.
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