US President Barack Obama and top Democratic lawmakers struggled Friday to rally their troops behind legislation to remake US health care, ahead of what was expected to be a razor's edge weekend vote.
With the House of Representatives poised to take up the measure as early as Saturday, Obama planned to woo wavering lawmakers personally with a rare visit to the US Congress and a dramatic, blunt message, his spokesman said.
"The sales pitch is simply that we're on the cusp of the type of health care reform that this country has been talking about for decades," said Robert Gibbs. "Do this for the country. Do this for your constituents."
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of the 10-year, 900-billion-dollar measure -- the most ambitious overhaul of its kind in a half-century -- that only Republican parliamentary delaying tactics would put off the Saturday vote.
But Democrats were still wrestling with intra-party feuds over banning government funding for abortions and over restrictions aimed at ensuring that undocumented immigrants do not have access to the new benefits.
As Obama prepared for his Saturday charm offensive, he tasked Vice President Joe Biden with the job of calling wavering lawmakers as Democrats worked to collect the 218 votes needed to win House approval of the package.
Even if Democrats squeeze the measure through, it must still clear the Senate, where Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid faces more daunting obstacles and has hinted any action could slip to 2010.
That would put the issue front-and-center in the 2010 mid-term elections, when one third of the Senate, the entire House of Representatives, and many US governorships are up for grabs.
Gibbs played down that potential headache, saying lawmakers would "ultimately, we believe, before the end of the year get a bill to the president's desk" and that Obama "sees tomorrow as an important step forward."
Republicans, united in opposing the plan, crowed privately that the last-minute scramble to schedule Obama's visit and the vote showed that Democrats were short of the votes needed to pass the measure.
House Minority Leader John Boehner said the grim news that US unemployment had soared to 10.2 percent, the highest level since 1983, showed the need to freeze the health care bill in its tracks.
"This job-killing bill needs to be defeated," said Boehner.
On Thursday, the number two Republican in the House, Eric Cantor, promised several thousand protestors at the US Capitol that "not one Republican will vote for this bill."
Looking to secure what would be a major victory for the White House, its independent political arm, Organizing for America, urged supporters to call their representatives.
"The House of Representatives will vote on health insurance reform tomorrow. All signs point to it being incredibly close, possibly even coming down to a single vote," wrote OFA Director Mitch Stewart.
Democratic Representative Louise Slaughter, chairwoman of the House Rules Committee that will shape the final bill and the rules for debate, said "we're all right" in the effort to reach 218 votes but declined to offer details.
The United States is the only industrialized democracy that does not ensure that all of its citizens have health care coverage, with an estimated 36 million Americans uninsured.
And Washington spends vastly more on health care -- both per person and as a share of national income as measured by Gross Domestic Product -- than other industrialized democracies, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The United States spent about 7,290 dollars per person in 2007, more than double what Britain, France, and Germany, with no meaningful edge in the quality of care and lags behind OECD averages in life expectancy and infant mortality.
