Obama, allies, seek imminent health deal

The White House and labor unions unveiled a breakthrough deal Thursday to clear a major obstacle blocking President Barack Obama's all-out campaign to remake US health care, his top domestic goal.

The announcement gave a much-needed boost to Obama and his Democratic allies as they strove in intense marathon talks to meld rival Senate and House of Representatives versions of legislation to enact the historic overhaul.

Democrats, eager for what would be a major election-year victory, said they hoped to overcome the last hurdles to craft a final compromise by the weekend and pass it before the president's State of the Union speech, just weeks away.

With a deal almost within his grasp, Obama paid a rare visit to the US Congress and sought to steel any House Democrats worried about paying a price in November mid-term elections for backing the legislation.

"If Republicans want to campaign against what we've done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have," said the president.

Obama proclaimed "we are on the doorstep" of a historic achievement and declared himself "proud we are putting the future of America before the politics of the moment, the next generation before the next election."

Democrats working on the final compromise had next-to-no margin for error: The Senate passed its bill on Christmas Eve by exactly the 60 votes needed and the House got just two more than the 218 needed seven weeks earlier.

But they took a critical step forward when labor unions announced a deal in which they watered-down the Senate's plans to pay for the overhaul with taxes on generous health plans like those their members have.

Union leaders told reporters on a conference call to unveil the accord that they would have preferred to go another route but that they would fight for the final bill and that the House and Senate had endorsed their approach.

"We think that everybody is on board with this," said Richard Trumka, president of the largest US labor federation, the AFL-CIO. Gerry McEntee, who heads the largest union of government workers, said they and their Democratic allies were "ready to fight" for the bill.

Republicans, seemingly united in opposition to the plan, have said they plan to harness public doubts about the legislation ahead of the mid-term elections, in which a sitting US president's party typically loses seats.

But Trumka said "we think it will help us" in the election because the underlying legislation is "good for all working Americans."

Several other disputes stood in the way of crafting a compromise that could be sent to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office for a formal assessment of its likely impact, cost, and effect on the soaring US deficit.

A previous CBO score showed the legislation would have cut roughly 130 billion dollars off the deficit over the first 10 years.

The legislation, which would usher in the most sweeping overhaul of its kind in four decades, aims to extend coverage to more than 30 million of the 36 million Americans who lack health insurance and curb abusive practices by private insurers who provide most Americans' coverage.

Recent public opinion polls have found deep skepticism about the bill, with a large segment disappointed that the sweeping legislation does not go far enough.

The White House and Democratic lawmakers were also looking to resolve another dispute centered on whether health care "exchanges" -- marketplaces where consumers could comparison-shop for coverage -- would be national or state-by-state.

"We are very, very close" to agreeing on a final plan, said Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs.

The United States is the world's richest nation but the only industrialized democracy that does not provide health care coverage to all of its citizens.

The United States spends more than double what Britain, France and Germany do per person on health care.

But it lags behind other countries in life expectancy and infant mortality, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).