The battle to pass a comprehensive health reform bill this summer has tightened as conservative and centrist Democrats take issue with its staggering price tag - despite attempts by the White House to grease the skids for reform.
Earlier this week, Vice President Biden announced that three top hospital associations, including the AHA, had agreed to create $155 billion in Medicare and Medicaid savings over 10 years.
Physician groups including the AMA made a similar pledge to slash $300 billion in costs earlier this year.
These deals seem to be efforts by the administration to soften the blow of health reform's $1 trillion price tag, later amended to $600 billion in a revised bill.
Either figure, taken with the massive $787 billion stimulus package, provide Republicans with easy ammunition to attack Obama as a profligate spender.
Nevertheless, the greatest danger to a timely reform bill could come from within Democratic ranks. The Washington Post is reporting that Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and a key health reform player on the House side, disparaged the Biden agreement.
In the Post article, Waxman is quoted as saying "we're certainly not bound by that agreement. The White House was involved, and we were not."
Meanwhile, two public hospital systems that were apparently barred from talks with the White House "suggested the reductions ‘could severely damage' hospitals that serve the poor," the Post article notes.
Top Democrats planned to have a bill ready for Obama to sign by August, but the prospects aren't looking good. It'll be interesting to see how things pan out in the next four weeks...