President Barack Obama holds health insurance reform rally, Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)
In this photo provided by FOX News, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., appears on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace in Washington, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009. (AP Photo/FOX News Sunday, Freddie Lee)
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is interviewed on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009, in Washington
In this photo provided by FOX News, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., appears on "Fox News Sunday" in Washington, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is interviewed on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2009, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Obama speaks to a joint session of Congress on health care at the U.S. Capitol in Washington Sept. 9, 2009. Obama decried the "partisan spectacle" that has stymied the debate over health care in recent months
President Barack Obama said he is confident Congress will pass "a good health care bill," as months of rancor over reforming the nation's health care system seemed to be easing Sunday, with the White House playing down an immediate role for a government insurance option.
At the same time, Obama was critical of Republican opponents who he said were trying to block an overhaul of the nation's heath care system for political gain.
"I believe that we will have enough votes to pass not just any health care bill, but a good health care bill that helps the American people, reduces costs, actually over the long-term controls our deficit. I'm confident that we've got that," Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes. "There are those in the Republican party who think the best thing to do is just to kill reform. That that will be good politics."
"I have no interest in having a bill get passed that fails. That doesn't work," Obama told CBS. "You know, I intend to be president for a while and once this bill passes, I own it."
Obama wants to make sure that any overhaul imposes strict measures to ban companies from refusing insurance to people with existing medical conditions, dropping coverage when policyholders become ill and imposing caps on what a person can claim for one illness or in his lifetime.
He told CBS he didn't want Americans to say in the future: "'You know what? This hasn't reduced my costs. My premiums are still going up 25 percent, insurance companies are still jerking me around.'
"I'm the one who's going to be held responsible," Obama said. "So I have every incentive to get this right."
Obama is trying to sweeten the deal for Republicans by indicating he is open to their ideas.
In his Wednesday speech and again in the CBS interview, the president signaled he was open the idea of so-called tort reform. Under current practice, doctors and hospitals must pay huge amounts to insure themselves against malpractice lawsuits by patients seeking large court-ordered settlements for poor treatment.
Democrats, thanks to heavy backing from lawyers, have not supported Republican efforts to limit such payments. Doctors — and Republican politicians — say the current system drives up costs through unneeded medical procedures ordered by physicians who fear being sued.
"I would be willing to ... consider any ideas out there that would actually work in terms of reducing costs, improving the quality of patient care," Obama said in the Sunday interview, which was taped Friday.
While he said he did not back limits on court-ordered rewards for malpractice, he said "there are a range of ideas that are out there, offered by doctors' organizations like the AMA (American Medical Association), that I think we can explore."
"I specifically said that I think we can work together on a bipartisan basis to do something to reduce defensive medicine, where doctors are worrying about lawsuits instead of worrying about patient care," Mr. Obama said in the interview, which aired Sunday.
Republicans had suggested after Mr. Obama's address last week that the president's overture didn't go far enough. Many Republicans believe that limiting medical professionals' liability in malpractice suits is key to bringing down health-care costs.
A central issue in the debate is whether to impose caps on monetary payments awarded in medical malpractice suits. There is broad support among Republicans for such caps, but Democrats have long opposed them.
Signaling that he is only willing to compromise so much on the issue, Mr. Obama on Sunday said he didn't support caps on payments. "So far the evidence I've seen is that caps will not" reduce costs, he said.
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President Barack Obamas Heath and Human Services Secretary backed off requirements that a heath care reform bill include a public insurance option. A key Democratic Senator, Kent Conrad, declared the public option dead in the Senate. But Howard Dean predicts that the bill will pass with the public option intact.
It will pass with the public option, and the president will sign it sometime in December,
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Sen. Kent Conrad told Fox News' Chris Wallace that there are not enough votes in the Senate to pass a public option for health insurance. "The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for a public option. There never have been," said Conrad.
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