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Obama: 'Now is the Season for Action'

WASHINGTON — President Obama alternately wooed and defied critics of his mammoth health care plan Wednesday in a speech to Congress and the nation timed to help him regain momentum lost during a month of growing public anxiety.

Saying he wanted to succeed where presidents since Theodore Roosevelt have failed, Obama told a joint session of Congress and millions watching on TV that he’s willing to compromise — but unwilling to start over or settle for the status quo.

“I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last,” he said. “The time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed. Now is the season for action.”

The 47-minute speech — interrupted dozens of times by applause from Democrats and, less often, Republicans — came at a crucial moment in the health care debate. Obama’s goal of remaking the U.S. health care system has advanced through four congressional committees — further than ever before. Yet for a month it’s been losing support in public-opinion polls and among the moderate Democrats whose votes may be key to passage.

Obama used Wednesday’s speech to get specific about his plan. He endorsed tax credits for those who need help buying insurance, mandates that individuals get insurance and that large companies provide it to workers or pay a fee, and a fee for the most expensive insurance policies. The plan, he said, would cost about $900 billion over 10 years.

The president also tossed out olive branches. He said he was flexible on creating a government-backed insurance plan to compete with private insurers, perhaps by using them only in certain regions or forming non-profit cooperatives instead.

However, he made clear he favored such a plan, which he said would be funded with premiums, not tax dollars. “I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can’t find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice,” he said.

Several moderates whose votes could be important in the fall, such as Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Olympia Snowe of Maine, said Obama missed an opportunity for bipartisanship by not renouncing the “public option.”

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