Obama's health care reform is under intense scrutiny

As skepticism about the president's health-care reform effort increases on Capitol Hill, the Obama administration has launched a new phase of its strategy aimed to drastically increase public pressure on Congress.Late Friday, the Congressional Budget Office delivered an assessment of one of the House versions of the health care bill, which said it would add $239 billion to the deficit if passed. "We do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount and, on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs," the CBO's director Douglas Elmendorf said last week.Elmendorf said long-term costs would rise at an unsustainable pace even if the legislation doesn't add to the federal deficit immediately. In his effort to reshape how Americans receive health care, Obama refuses to accept a tax on high-cost health insurance plans as part of the overhaul.The Obama administration officials promptly took to the airwaves refuting the claims saying that the evaluation is premature. On Sunday White House officials defended Obama's health care proposals, emphasizing that Congress has not written the final draft of legislation, and urges skeptics to wait for the final bill. "At the end of the day, we'll have significant cost controls," said Presidential adviser David Axelrod. Critics of the reform say the cost and timing are too problematic to get the votes needed to pass the president's legislation. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele lashed out today at President Barack Obama's efforts to reform the national health care system."The President tells us he doesn't want to spend more than we have ... he doesn't want to live off borrowed money, but he also told us he didn't want to run an auto industry," Steele said. "President Obama justifies this spending by saying the devil made him do it. He doesn't want to spend trillions we can't afford and then he says he just can't help it." CONTINUE READING...