WASHINGTON - — WASHINGTON - -President Barack Obama, offering some concessions to Republicans and yielding some of his own ground on health care, said Wednesday night that a "public option" of government-run insurance is only one option open to debate in the weeks ahead.
Insisting that lawmakers approve an overhaul of health care debated for decades by the end of this year, the president told a joint session of Congress in a nationally televised address that "the time for games has passed. ... Now is the season for action.
"I am not the first president to take up this cause," Obama told the Congress and a viewing public, "but I am determined to be the last."
The president, while maintaining that some elements of his proposal are essential, made a pitch for his "public option," offering government-run health care for those who cannot find private coverage, but stopped short of demanding a plan imperiled in the Senate.
Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who chairs the Finance Committee, said Wednesday that the Senate "cannot" pass a public option. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, insists that a public option is essential to the passage of any health care plan in the House.
"Let me be clear, it would only be an option for those who don't have insurance," Obama said. "We should remain open to other ideas that accomplish our ultimate goal."
Obama reiterated three long-stated requirements: improving health insurance for those who have it, offering coverage to those who lack it and paying for it without worsening the federal budget deficit.
The president also reached out to Republicans in his address by embracing some GOP-inspired ideas for a health care overhaul.
He announced an initiative to contain the costs of medical malpractice lawsuits, endorsing a Bush administration-inspired demonstration project with alternatives to lawsuits.
And Obama embraced a plan put forward by his opponent in the 2008 presidential election, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, to insure people against catastrophic illnesses.
In months of debate over health care, the president said, "we have seen Washington at its best and its worst."
"But what we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government," Obama said. "Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics."
For the president, the challenge ahead remains in coalescing a divided Congress and a doubtful American public to support what he expects to accomplish in health care by the end of the year. Obama plans a public rally for his plans in Minneapolis on Saturday.
"The problem isn't the sales pitch, it's the product," said Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican. "President Obama can give speech after speech, but until this legislation is fundamentally altered, Americans will remain skeptical of it."
