Eliminating “waste and abuse” in the Medicare and Medicaid programs will help the government find money to cover most of the Americans now without insurance, he said.
The bill Baucus introduced Wednesday, among other things, aims to roll back spiraling medical costs and require nearly everyone to carry health insurance. A vote in his committee could occur as early as next week, but many hurdles remain in the House and Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., intends to begin debate on the Senate floor late this month or early October. The House also plans action this fall.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called Baucus' plan overall an "important building block" that "gets us closer to comprehensive health care reform." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it “will move this historic debate forward.”
Other Democrats were less enthusiastic, and not a single Republican announced support when Baucus introduced the measure.
Obama's rally in Maryland was part of a campaign-style blitz to keep the pressure on Congress. He's also planning to appear on five Sunday morning talk shows and visit David Letterman's late-night show Monday on CBS.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said Thursday that party leaders would do all they could to line up votes for health care legislation. “We're not going to accept failure, we're going to find another way to bring real health care reform,” he said.
Associated Press writers David Espo, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Julie Hirschfeld Davis contributed to this report.
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