Obama to Reset Health Care Reform

Sept. 6, 2009— -- This Sunday, White House advisers and lawmakers previewed a big week ahead for President Obama, who will attempt to take the lead on health care reform, and regain momentum after a summer marked by heated, partisan and confusing debate.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and senior White House adviser David Axelrod sounded confident ahead of Obama's big speech to Congress this Wednesday evening, to be televised live to the nation. In the speech, they said, Americans would hear exactly where Obama stands on health-care reform.

"They'll leave that speech knowing exactly where the president stands, exactly what he thinks we have to do to get health-care reform done this year," Gibbs said on ABC News' "This Week."

"The president has an opportunity on Wednesday to speak to the nation and the Congress on this," Axelrod said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We've been through a long debate now. All the ideas are on the table. It's time to bring the strands together and get the job done for the American people here."

Liberals, Conservatives Unwilling to Back Down Over Public Option

So far, consensus has been difficult to achieve, with lawmakers divided along inter- and intraparty fault lines over the best way to lower insurance costs, and how to pay for health care reform in light of an economic recession and a skyrocketing budget deficit.

The president is stuck in the middle, between Senate Republicans who could block much of what the president wants, and liberal supporters who want it all. Republicans reject the president's idea to create a the public option -- a government-run insurance exchange intended to compete with and lower the costs of private insurance. House Democrats overwhelmingly favor the idea. Progressive Democrats say they will not pass a bill without it.

"We support what the president has said all along he'd like to see, and that is a robust public option. He campaigned on it. He continues to talk about his support for it. And we're going to stand behind him. Nancy Pelosi has said that nothing is going to pass that floor without a public option," said Rep Maxine Waters, D-Calif., on ABC.