Obama meeting designed to boost Reid's effort to pass health bill

The New York Times Prescriptions blog: "With the health care overhaul on shaky ground, President Obama planned to meet with Senate Democrats on Tuesday afternoon ... to exhort them to make history by approving the contentious measure." The president reportedly does not plan to use the meeting to negotiate or discuss bill specifics. Instead, "he will again appeal to lawmakers' sense of history in an effort to give Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, enough of a boost to get his caucus back in line." An aide also said the President seems open to scrapping a plan to let people beginning at age 55 buy into Medicare if it made passing a larger measure possible (Stolberg and Herszenhorn, 12/15).

Fox News: A White House spokesman offered the following preview of the President's message: "President Obama will tell Senators that they've come much farther than any previous reform effort, and that the lion's share of the work is behind us. He'll underscore that now is the time to come together and finish shaping legislation that will garner 60 votes and pass the Senate in short order" (Siegfriedt, 12/15).