Pelosi, Reid offer health bill optimism after meeting with Obama

After a White House meeting with President Barack Obama Tuesday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said there is "plenty to work with" to successfully overhaul the U.S. healthcare system, Reuters reports. She added that healthcare reform "will be done in a fiscally sound way."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who also attended the meeting, said Democrats will try to pass a healthcare reform bill without Republicans only if there is no alternative (Maler, 9/8).

Reid "said there is agreement on '90 percent' of the substance of a health-care overhaul," Bloomberg reports. "Reid said Obama didn't give them a preview of his address to a joint session of Congress tomorrow night." He added that "Obama didn't give them a preview of his address to a joint session of Congress tomorrow night"  (Chen, 9/8).