President Obama "is significantly raising his personal stake in the effort to overhaul America's health-care system," the Wall Street Journal reports. "After weeks of allowing allies in Congress to shape the emerging bills, the White House signaled its intention to start spending more of Mr. Obama's political capital."
Said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: "We're going to have to wade in a little deeper into the nitty-gritty to keep the process going. We know that and accept that."
The president will hold a prime time news conference today to once again make his case to the American people.
Meanwhile, Roll Call reports that bipartisan negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee vowed "to continue pressing for a deal on health care reform, insisting that the escalating war of words between President Obama and Congressional Republicans will not derail their efforts,"
They hope to have agreement by the August 7 Senate recess.
"The process in the Senate calls for ultimately merging the Finance package with the bill recently passed out of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The House has its own package, which is facing challenges overcoming objections from the conservative Blue Dog Democrats over the costs and other issues."
CQ Politics says the Blue Dogs want 10 changes made to the House bill -- including greater cost containment, a more generous exemption for small businesses from requirements that they provide insurance, and changes to the government-run plan that Democrats want to create to compete with private insurers.
