Obama urges Senate Dems not to give up on health legislation

The Washington Post: President Obama attended an issues conference today with the Senate Democratic Caucus and "answered questions from senators, some of them facing uphill reelection battles."
He highlighted accomplishments of the Democratic-controlled Congress and "played down the election last month of a Republican senator in Massachusetts, a GOP victory that denied the Democrats their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate" (Branigin, 2/3). 

The Wall Street Journal/MarketWatch: The meeting's tone "was decidedly friendlier than his meeting last week with House Republicans" when he "sparred with Republicans over creating jobs, expanding health care and other issues" (Schroeder, 2/3). 

The New York Times Prescriptions blog: Obama praised Democrats work "on major health care legislation and urged them not to give up," saying "'We have to finish the job on health care.'" He did not, however, offer any specific direction in terms of moving forward (Herszenhorn, 2/3).

Bloomberg: He told the Senate Dems that ""now is the time' to pass the financial and health-care initiatives. Doing so will ultimately help Democrats in this year's elections" (Runningen and Johnston, 2/3).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: "President Barack Obama will meet with bipartisan congressional leaders at the White House next week as he follows up on a State of the Union address promise." Obama had pledge to hold such monthly meetings and the first, set for Tuesday, will focus on jobs and economic issues (2/3).