WASHINGTON – House liberals pleaded with President Barack Obama on Friday to push for creation of a government-run health care program as the Senate’s chief negotiator said he won’t wait much longer for Republicans to compromise amid dwindling chances for a bipartisan bill. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., held a nearly two-hour teleconference with his small group of negotiators, who call themselves the “Bipartisan Six.” Afterward, Baucus was careful to leave the door open to a long-sought deal, but he clearly signaled the time has come for him to move ahead. “I am committed to getting health care reform done — done soon and done right,” Baucus said in a statement. He is considering making a formal proposal to the group of negotiators. Obama, meanwhile, tried to placate disgruntled House liberals who fear he is too eager to compromise with Republicans and conservative Democrats to get a bill. In a phone call from the Camp David, Md., presidential retreat, Obama spoke to leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and other liberal-leaning House groups. Caucus leader Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., said the lawmakers expressed their commitment to creation of a government-run plan to compete with private health insurers. On Thursday, they sent Obama a letter saying they could not support a health bill that lacked such a public option. Woolsey said Obama listened, asked questions and said the dialogue should continue. She said a follow-up meeting will occur next week at the White House. Another participant said the president was noncommittal about the government-run plan. Senate Finance is the only one of five congressional committees with jurisdiction over health care that has yet to produce a bill. Baucus had held back from convening a bill-drafting session, hoping that his group of three Democrats and three Republicans would reach a compromise behind closed doors that could win broad support. But he faces a Sept. 15 deadline from the Democratic leadership — and the prospect of losing control of the legislation if he doesn’t act. On Friday, Baucus said the members of his group agree on several big-picture items, including the need to control costs, provide access to affordable coverage for all Americans and ensure that health care fixes don’t add to the deficit. The negotiators have been working on a pared-back bill that would cost under $1 trillion over 10 years and drop contentious components, such as the government-sponsored insurance plan that liberals insist must be in the legislation. “Health reform is certainly a significant challenge, and each time we talk, we are reminded just how many areas of agreement exist,” Baucus said. The bipartisan group has scheduled a face-to-face meeting when the Senate returns on Tuesday, on the eve of a major speech by Obama to Congress. The president is trying to rescue his health care overhaul after a summer in which angry critics filled the Internet and airwaves with attacks, some clearly based on misinformation. Senate aides say the six Finance Committee negotiators realize they have an historic opportunity to influence the direction of the health care debate — and its ultimate result. But with Republican leaders solidly opposed to Obama’s approach, the GOP negotiators are under tremendous pressure not to cooperate. In the last few weeks, two GOP negotiators — Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Mike Enzi of Wyoming — have made harsh public statements about the Democrats’ approach. However, both insist they are serious about their negotiations with Baucus. The third Republican, Olympia Snowe of Maine, has been circumspect. “When Congress returns to session next week, we will be working with the same intensity … to achieve a consensus bill,” Snowe said in a statement. “I believe we must reduce the costs of health care and make coverage more affordable for all Americans.” The other two members of the group are Democrats Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico. Separately, the Democratic National Committee on Friday released a new television ad that counters Republican claims that lawmakers plan to raid Medicare’s budget to finance coverage for the uninsured. Obama says wasteful Medicare spending will be reined in but won’t affect benefits. The Democratic ad, called “No Friend to Seniors,” depicts Republicans as longtime opponents of Medicare. It will run on national and Washington, D.C., cable stations. A similar ad will also run in 10 Republican-held congressional districts.

WASHINGTON – With control of the health care debate slipping from his grasp, President Barack Obama pitched his ambitious plan to both conservative talk radio and his own liberal supporters Thursday — and denied a challenge from one backer that he was “bucklin’ a little bit” under Republican criticism.

Liberals were on the verge of revolt as Obama refused to say any final deal must include a government-run insurance option, while Republicans pressed their all-but-unified opposition to the White House effort. Obama, who will leave Washington Friday on vacation, said reason would prevail and it was no time to panic.

“I guarantee you … we are going to get health care reform done. And I know that there are a lot of people out there who have been hand-wringing, and folks in the press are following every little twist and turn of the legislative process,” Obama told a caller to Philadelphia-based radio talk show host Michael Smerconish during a broadcast from theWhite House Diplomatic Room.

“You know, passing a big bill like this is always messy.”

Obama is struggling to regain the momentum on a comprehensive bill that would extend health coverage to nearly 50 million Americans who lack it and restrain skyrocketing costs. Opponents of the overhaul have drowned out supporters at lawmakers’ town halls around the country this month, and public backing for Obama’s effort has slipped in opinion polls. Congressional Democratic leaders are preparing to go it alone on legislation, although bipartisan negotiations continue in the Senate.

On the defensive, Obama is embracing a new role of fact checker-in-chief, trying to correct untrue claims such as that the proposals would provide health care for illegal immigrants, create “death panels” or pay for abortions with taxpayer dollars. Aides say the situation has left Obama exasperated.

“Now, c’mon,” a mocking Obama told a cheering crowd late Thursday at a Democratic National Committeeappearance designed to re-energize activists who were instrumental is his drive to the presidency. “What we’re going to have to do is to cut through the noise and the misinformation.”

“The best offense against lies is the truth,” Obama said. “All we can do is just keep on pushing the truth.”

Yet for all the gnashing from Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats, he faces equally tough opposition from lawmakers and activists on the left who insist any overhaul must include a government-run insurance option.

In fact, shortly after his comments Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared the Democratic-controlled House simply won’t approve the overhaul without it.

“There’s no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said after a round-table in San Francisco.

Obama told his DNC audience — as well as thousands watching online and listening by telephone — that health care was the toughest fight he has faced in office.

“Winning the election is just the start,” he said. “Victory in an election wasn’t the change that we sought.”

That election, though, came with his promise of the government insurance option, a provision that Obama’s team now calls “preferred” but not mandatory. During both his Thursday appearances, Obama declined to call it a deal breaker.

“What we’ve said is that there are a number of components to health care,” he said during the talk radio broadcast, sitting in front of a fireplace on the ground floor of the executive mansion. “I see nothing wrong with having public option as one choice.”

He said “the press got excited and some folks on the left got a little excited” when the he and top administration aides last weekend made statements indicating that a publicly run health insurance option was just one of several alternatives.

Since then, Obama has faced increasing criticism from his left flank.

“And even though some White House advisers seem to have forgotten, the reason the public option has become central to reform is simple: We’re fed up with the insurance companies and we need real accountability for them,” liberal MoveOn.org said in a message sent to its 5 million members while the president was speaking with Smerconish. “They’ve had decades to fix the problems with our health care system, but they haven’t done it.”

One caller to Smerconish’s program said he sensed the administration was making a misstep.

“I’m getting a little ticked off that it feels like the knees are bucklin’ a little bit,” said the caller who identified himself as Joe. “You have an overwhelming majority in both the House and the Senate, and you own the whole shooting match. … It’s very frustrating to watch you try and compromise with a lot of these people who aren’t willing to compromise with you.”

Obama told his audiences he is trying to reach across the aisle to craft a bipartisan plan, even as he blamed Republicans for delay. He peppered his DNC remarks with jokes and jabs at conservatives that had the partisan crowd breaking into applause and laughter.

In response, a spokesman for the No. 2 Republican in the House said he had a question for Obama and his team.

“We would love to know when, exactly — time, date, place — the president or his staff reached out to Republican leaders?” said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.

Republican leaders in May sent Obama a letter outlining the GOP’s principles and asking to collaborate.

“And the president’s response?” Dayspring said. “Meeting? Nah. Work together? No thanks. Further discussion? Nope. Instead, they went with, ‘Thanks for the letter.’”

While the White House insists Obama is still looking for Republican support for a comprehensive health carebill, Democrats privately are preparing a one-party push, which they feel is all but inevitable. Polls show slippage in support for the president’s approach, although respondents express even less confidence in Republicans’ handling of health care.

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Thursday that Obama is struggling to get ahealth care bill because he has been too deferential to liberals. Romney, who may challenge Obama in 2012, said on CBS’ “The Early Show” that “if the president wants to get something done, he needs to put aside the extreme liberal wing of his party.”

WASHINGTON – Bowing to Republican pressure, President Barack Obama’s administration signaled on Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system. Facing mounting opposition to the overhaul, administration officials left open the chance for a compromise with Republicans that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. Such a concession probably would enrage Obama’s liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority opposed by GOP lawmakers. Officials from both political parties reached across the aisle in an effort to find compromises on proposals they left behind when they returned to their districts for an August recess. Obama had sought the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation’s almost 50 million uninsured, but he never made it a deal breaker in a broad set of ideas that has Republicans unified in opposition. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that government alternative to private health insurance is “not the essential element” of the administration’s health care overhaul. The White House would be open to co-ops, she said, a sign that Democrats want a compromise so they can declare a victory. Under a proposal by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., consumer-owned nonprofit cooperatives would sell insurance in competition with private industry, not unlike the way electric and agriculture co-ops operate, especially in rural states such as his own. With $3 billion to $4 billion in initial support from the government, the co-ops would operate under a national structure with state affiliates, but independent of the government. They would be required to maintain the type of financial reserves that private companies are required to keep in case of unexpectedly high claims. “I think there will be a competitor to private insurers,” Sebelius said. “That’s really the essential part, is you don’t turn over the whole new marketplace to private insurance companies and trust them to do the right thing.” Obama’s spokesman refused to say a public option was a make-or-break choice. “What I am saying is the bottom line for this for the president is, what we have to have is choice and competition in the insurance market,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday. A day before, Obama appeared to hedge his bets. “All I’m saying is, though, that the public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health care reform,” Obama said at a town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colo. “This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it.” Lawmakers have discussed the co-op model for months although the Democratic leadership and the White House have said they prefer a government-run option. Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, called the argument for a government-run public plan little more than a “wasted effort.” He added there are enough votes in the Senate for a cooperative plan. “It’s not government-run and government-controlled,” he said. “It’s membership-run and membership-controlled. But it does provide a nonprofit competitor for the for-profit insurance companies, and that’s why it has appeal on both sides.” Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said Obama’s team is making a political calculation and embracing the co-op alternative as “a step away from the government takeover of the health care system” that the GOP has pummeled. “I don’t know if it will do everything people want, but we ought to look at it. I think it’s a far cry from the original proposals,” he said. Republicans say a public option would have unfair advantages that would drive private insurers out of business. Critics say co-ops would not be genuine public options for health insurance. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, said it would be difficult to pass any legislation through the Democratic-controlled Congress without the promised public plan. “We’ll have the same number of people uninsured,” she said. “If the insurance companies wanted to insure these people now, they’d be insured.” Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., said the Democrats’ option would force individuals from their private plans to a government-run plan, a claim that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office supports. “There is a way to get folks insured without having the government option,” he said. Obama, writing in Sunday’s New York Times, said political maneuvers should be excluded from the debate. “In the coming weeks, the cynics and the naysayers will continue to exploit fear and concerns for political gain,” he wrote. “But for all the scare tactics out there, what’s truly scary — truly risky — is the prospect of doing nothing.” Congress’ proposals, however, seemed likely to strike end-of-life counseling sessions. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has called the session “death panels,” a label that has drawn rebuke from her fellow Republicans as well as Democrats. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, declined to criticize Palin’s comments and said Obama wants to create a government-run panel to advise what types of care would be available to citizens. “In all honesty, I don’t want a bunch of nameless, faceless bureaucrats setting health care for my aged citizens in Utah,” Hatch said. Sebelius said the end-of-life proposal was likely to be dropped from the final bill. “We wanted to make sure doctors were reimbursed for that very important consultation if family members chose to make it, and instead it’s been turned into this scare tactic and probably will be off the table,” she said. Sebelius spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union” and ABC’s “This Week.” Gibbs appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Conrad and Shelby appeared on “Fox News Sunday.” Johnson and Price spoke with “State of the Union.” Hatch was interviewed on “This Week.”

After another day wrangling over healthcare reform, it was no small amount of frustration that inspired Rep. Henry Waxman to stand in front of a press gathering and not-so-subtly accuse the “blue dog” Democrats of being party turncoats. “I won’t allow them to hand over control of our committee to Republicans,” Waxman said, threatening to have the bill bypass the Energy and Commerce Committee he chairs if the blue dogs didn’t accept the deal before them. “I don’t see what other alternative we have, because we’re not going to let them empower Republicans on the committee,” he added, in case his point had been lost on anyone. [Read 10 Things You Didn't Know About Henry Waxman] That position, however, didn’t last long. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has cultivated a generally positive relationship with the blue dogs, said she would not support a move to bypass the committee. Waxman backtracked shortly afterward, striking a more conciliatory tone and offering up a package of concessions to the seven blue dogs on his committee. The episode was widely heralded as a tidy illustration of the growing clout of the coalition of 52 mostly Southern, mostly fiscally conservative House Democrats. It also appeared to make an impression on high-profile House Republicans. “Good for them,” Minority Leader John Boehner said of the holdout blue dogs. He added that he would now consider shelving the nickname “lap dogs,” which he had previously taken to calling them. But that particular moniker points to criticism within Democratic ranks as well: namely, that the blue dogs don’t have the sort of substantial sway that their recent spate of press would suggest. “The blue dogs have really created this brand name,” says Burdett Loomis, a professor at the University of Kansas and author of a recent study on the subject, “Blue Dog House Democrats: Lead Dogs or Mythical Beasts?” Despite all of the attention they have garnered, he says, until recently there was little evidence that the coalition really mattered in Congress. True, Loomis says, they have been a voice for fiscal moderates. Many come from either rural Southern districts or Northern blue-collar coal-mining towns, for example, “that aren’t very hospitable to an extremely liberal member of Congress,” he says. Or, some would add, even moderately liberal: Thirty-two of the 52 blue dog Democrats’ districts voted for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the general election. “So the first thing they’re doing in many ways is responding to their constituents,” says Loomis. [Read Obama's 10 Top Friends and Foes in Congress] But despite the tough talk, the blue dogs have not voted against the Democratic Party on many issues since the coalition was created after the 1994 Republican revolution ousted many of their ranks. The blue dogs argue this doesn’t mean they lack pull. Theirs is more of an inside game, they say, to get the Democratic leadership to change and modify its agenda. Under President Obama, however, they have begun to flex their muscle within the party in high-visibility arenas like healthcare reform. Last month, they also succeeded in passing pay-as-you-go legislation, known as PAYGO. The bill institutes across-the-board spending cuts if the cost of new laws isn’t matched by increased revenues or cuts elsewhere in the budget. It is a measure for which the blue dogs had been fighting for 15 years, saidRep. Baron Hill, a Democrat from Indiana. The bill also represents “an unprecedented step forward in the blue dogs’ fight to restore fiscal responsibility and accountability to the federal government,” he added. But both liberal and conservative bloggers are fond of arguing that the fiscal conservatism of the blue dogs is overrated. They cite defense appropriations as one illustration. Despite a White House victory with the Congressional vote last month to kill the F-22 fighter jet program, the House defense appropriations bill contained no shortage of big weapons systems and planes with hefty price tags. This, critics note, is in direct opposition to Obama’s military spending priorities–and comes after Defense Secretary Robert Gates has explicitly stressed that the Pentagon doesn’t need the systems. [Read 10 Things You Didn't Know About the F-22 Raptor] But the big defense contractors that build them offer jobs in Congressional districts hit hard by the recession. In other areas, fellow lawmakers have noted that the blue dogs have not been immune from the influence of big lobby groups. “They are walking a fine line,” says Thomas Mann, an expert on Congress at the Brookings Institution. “They love to talk of fiscal responsibility, but they are the first to fight for higher Medicare reimbursement for providers in their districts and often the first to support higher agricultural subsidies. Their commitment to fiscal responsibility is limited.” A recent report from the Center for Public Integrity found that the Blue Dog Political Action Committee “is on track to shatter all its fundraising records” this year, filling its coffers with $1.1 million in the first six months of 2009. The PAC received about half a million dollars from the healthcare industry. That’s up 90 percent from the 2005 to 2006 cycle, CPI notes. Financial services and energy firms also contributed hefty sums in the hope of influencing upcoming votes on banking industry oversight and energy legislation. PAC contributors are well aware that the upcoming legislation will be tough votes for the blue dogs to sell to their cost-conscious constituents. Some, for example, hail from coal-mining districts that worry about how the cap-and-trade bill’s limits on emissions from fossil fuels will affect them. Because they have voted with the party on energy legislation, sometimes under heavy pressure from Democratic leadership, blue dogs have held firm on issues like healthcare reform. [Read Senate Considers Healthcare Co-ops] And so, as this week drew to a close and the congressional recess approached, Rep. Mike Ross, a blue dog from Arkansas who has emerged as a leader of the seven holdouts on Waxman’s committee, enumerated the concessions that his coalition was able to win, including exempting businesses earning less than $500,000 per year from providing employee health insurance and cutting $100 billion in costs from the plan. He and his colleagues also were successful in delaying a vote. “We were able to reach an agreement that ensures that every member of Congress will have the entire month of August and the first week in September to read the bill and to visit with their constituents about it,” Ross said. Equally important, the healthcare dust-up allowed the blue dogs to tout their conservative credentials. “Look, there’s no secret here that Henry Waxman is much more to the left than I am,” Ross took pains to point out. But Mann notes that despite requisite political theater, the blue dogs are aware that they have a vested interest in seeing that healthcare reform ultimately passes after the August recess. They know, he says, “that if they hold out for too much and this goes down, then they go down.” That’s because they are the most politically vulnerable of the Democrats. “Simply voting against healthcare reform,” Mann adds, “isn’t going to insulate them from the downward draft if this thing blows up.” The administration “has put so many chits on this one program that if it goes down, [Democrats] really look like we’re not fit to govern,” says one party operative. “In the end, the blue dogs and the liberals have the same calling here.” But by creating a choke point in the influential House Energy Committee, “we’re getting to see how the blue dogs arguably can be influential,” says Loomis. This influence will continue as Obama begins outlining some of his efforts to cut the deficit later this year. One congresssional staffer says that the president “will try to give something back politically to the blue dogs after what will be a series of tough votes on energy and healthcare reform for them.” It is a nod, many add, to their growing clout as majority members working alongside a Democratic president with a highly ambitious agenda.

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer – 47 mins ago

WASHINGTON – With mugs of beer and calming words, President Barack Obama and the professor and policeman engulfed in a national uproar over race pledged Thursday to move on and try to pull the country with them. There was no acrimony — nor apology — from any of the three: black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., white Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley, who had arrested him for disorderly conduct, and Obama, who declared on national TV that the police had “acted stupidly.” But neither Gates nor Crowley backtracked either, agreeing they still had differences. Said Obama after the highly anticipated, 40-minute chat on the Rose Garden patio: “I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart.” “I am confident that has happened here tonight, and I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode,” said the nation’s first black president. Under the canopy of a magnolia tree in the early evening, Obama joined the other players in a story that had knocked the White House off stride. Vice President Joe Biden joined them for drinks and snacks. The policeman and the professor both expressed respect for each other after their dispute that unleashed a furor over racial profiling in America. It all began two weeks ago when Crowley was called to investigate a potential burglary at Gates’ house and ended up arresting the protesting professor for disorderly conduct. The matter mushroomed when Obama made his comment in a prime-time news conference. The president later expressed regret. In Cambridge, the charge was dropped. “We agreed to move forward,” Crowley said Thursday night when asked if anything was solved in the meeting. “I think what you had today was two gentlemen agreeing to disagree on a particular issue. I don’t think that we spent too much time dwelling on the past. We spent a lot of time discussing the future.” For his part, Gates said he and Crowley had been caught up as characters in a larger narrative about race over which they had no control. “It is incumbent upon Sgt. Crowley and me to utilize the great opportunity that fate has given us,” Gates said in a statement. He said their task must be to foster sympathy among Americans about “the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand.” Although Obama had invited Crowley and Gates as part of what he called a “teachable moment,” it wasn’t quite reachable for the masses. The coverage allowed the public to get the we’ve-come-together photos and video footage that the White House wanted, while keeping the discussion private among the men. They were seen chatting with each other, each with a mug of beer — Biden’s was nonalcoholic. The media were stationed far away, out of earshot, and ushered away quickly. Crowley, 42, and Gates, 58, said they were planning to meet again, and Obama hopes he can now pivot back to health care and other issues with this distracting story behind him. There’s been a political cost for Obama. The two-week episode has stolen attention from his agenda and has drawn negative public reviews on how he handled the matter. In Massachusetts, meanwhile, a black sergeant who was with Crowley at Gates’ home said Thursday he’s been maligned as an “Uncle Tom” for supporting the actions of his white colleague, according to an e-mail that CNN said it received from the sergeant. The officer, Leon Lashley, said he “spoke the truth” about the arrest, and he said Gates should consider whether he “may have caused grave and potentially irreparable harm to the struggle for racial harmony.” At the White House, Crowley and Gates wore dark suits, more formal than Obama and Biden who had ditched their coats in the early evening. The president nibbled on snacks and was seen laughing at one point. Obama called it a “friendly, thoughtful conversation.” He praised Crowley and Gates for having already spent a little time listening to each other. That had happened, Crowley explained later, when he and Gates crossed paths as they toured the White House separately with relatives who accompanied them. They continued their tour as one large group. Before anyone showed up, Obama did what his aides had been doing for days: lowering expectations. “I noticed this has been called the ‘Beer Summit.’ It’s a clever term, but this is not a summit, guys,” Obama told reporters. “This is three folks having a drink at the end of the day, and hopefully giving people an opportunity to listen to each other. And that’s really all it is. This is not a university seminar.” The White House meeting drew such media interest that press secretary Robert Gibbs said he looked forward to facing no more questions about what beers each man would drink. For the record, it was Bud Light for Obama, Sam Adams Light for Gates, Blue Moon for Crowley and nonalcoholic Buckler for Biden. Before the photo-op moment of diplomacy, Obama said he was “fascinated by the fascination about this evening.” “Hopefully, instead of ginning up anger and hyperbole everybody can just spend a little bit of time with some self-reflection and recognizing that other people have different points of view.” Obama said last week the episode could be a “teachable moment” on improving relations between police and minority communities. In practice, that boiled down to a good, productive conversation. The hope, in turn, was that people in communities across the nation would see the meeting as a model for how to solve differences — more listening, less shooting from the lip. The White House said it did not pay for any transportation or other accommodation costs for Gates or Crowley. At the time of the incident, Gates had demanded an apology from Crowley and called him a “rogue policeman.” After Obama’s “acted stupidly” comment, Crowley said that, while he supported the president, Obama was “way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts.” ___ Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Philip Elliott and Jennifer Loven in Washington and Karen Testa in Boston contributed to this story.

WASHINGTON – Americans are more likely to disapprove than approve of how President Barack Obama dealt with the racially tinged dispute between a white Cambridge, Mass., police officer and a well-known black Harvard scholar — with disapproval especially strong among white voters, according to a poll released Thursday.

The July 16 arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. for disorderly conduct in his own home sparked a national debate over racial profiling and police conduct. The controversy intensified after Obama last Wednesday said police “acted stupidly” when they arrested Gates, who is a friend of his.

The poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 41 percent disapproved of Obama’s handling of the Gates arrest, compared with 29 percent who approved. The poll also found the incident and Obama’s reaction saturated the public consciousness. As many as 80 percent of Americans said they are now aware of Obama’s comments on the matter.

The president’s approval ratings fell, especially among working class whites, as the focus of the Gates story shifted from details about the incident to Obama’s remarks, the poll said. Among whites in general, more disapprove than approve of his comments by a two-to-one margin.

The poll was conducted Wednesday to Sunday last week. Among those interviewed on Wednesday and Thursday, 53 percent of whites approved of Obama’s job performance. This slipped to 46 percent among whites interviewed Friday through Sunday as the Gates story played out.

Obama’s overall job approval in the poll was 54 percent, down from 61 percent in a mid-June Pew poll.

White House aides had sought to play down the president’s comment, but the subsequent outcry and constant commentary reached such a pitch that Obama acknowledged publicly that he should have been more diplomatic with his words.

“Over the last two days as we’ve discussed this issue, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but nobody has been paying much attention to health care,” Obama told reporters on Friday when he surprised them in theWhite House briefing room to revisit the Gates issue.

Gates, who is black, was taken into custody by Cambridge Sgt.James Crowley, who is white, after Crowley accused him of disorderly conduct for protesting the policeman’s actions in responding to a mistaken report of a possible burglary at Gates’ home. The charges were later dropped.

White House aides said it became clear the matter was not going away.

So Obama made phone calls to each participant and invited them to join him for a beer at the White House. The meeting is set for Thursday evening.

Pew re-contacted 480 of the poll respondents on Monday, July 27, to ask them more questions about the Gates matter. They found that people are divided as to who should be blamed for the Gates arrest: 27 percent blame Gates and 25 percent Crowley. Another 13 percent of respondents say both or neither are at fault.

A separate poll said almost a third blame both the scholar and the sergeant. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found 27 percent think Gates was at fault, 11 percent blamed Crowley and 29 percent said each was equally at fault.

The Pew poll of 1,506 adults was conducted July 22-26. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. For the re-interview survey of 480 adults on July 27, the margin of error is plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.

The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of 1,011 people was conducted Friday through Monday. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

WASHINGTON – After weeks of turmoil, House Democrats reached a shaky peace with the party’s rebellious rank-and-file conservatives Wednesday to clear the way for a vote in September on sweepinghealth care legislation.

Bipartisan Senate negotiators reported progress, too, on a bill said to extend coverage to 95 percent of all Americans without raising federal deficits.

“We’re on the edge, we’re almost there,” said Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican involved in the secretive talks, although a fellow GOP participant, Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, dissented strongly.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, said preliminary estimates from congressional budget experts showed the cost of the emerging Senate plan was below $900 billion and would result in an increase in employer-sponsored insurance — conclusions that may reassure critics who fear a bloated bill that prompts businesses to abandon the coverage they currently provide.

Across the Capitol, House Democratic leaders gave in — at least temporarily — to numerous demands from rank-and-file rebels, so-called Blue Dogs from the conservative wing of the party who had been blocking the bill’s passage in the last of three committees.

The House changes, which drew immediate opposition from liberal lawmakers, would reduce the federal subsidies designed to help lower-income families afford insurance, exempt additional businesses from a requirement to offer insurance to their workers and change the terms of a government insurance option.

At their core, both the House bill and the plan under negotiation in the Senate are designed to meet President Barack Obama‘s goals of spreading health coverage to millions who now lack it, while slowing the skyrocketing growth in health care costs nationally.

Obama has placed the issue atop his domestic agenda, and as recently as two weeks ago was pressing the House and Senate insistently to pass separate bills by the end of July or early August.

The White House issued a statement praising the development in the House, and with appearances in North Carolina and Virginia, the president sought to minimize the significance of the slippage in his timetable.

“We did give them a deadline, and sort of we missed that deadline. But that’s OK,” Obama said. “We don’t want to just do it quickly, we want to do it right.”

In his appearances, Obama stressed that any legislation he signs will include numerous consumer protections, including a ban on insurance company denials of coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions. A White House fact sheet left room for insurers to continue charging higher premiums based on prior health problems.

Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas, a leader of conservative and moderate “Blue Dog” Democrats, said the changes agreed to by the leadership in the House bill would cut its cost by about $100 billion over 10 years.

While Baucus reported the Senate Finance measure carried a price tag of under $1 trillion, congressional officials said it included only the cost of the first year of a 10-year, $245 billion program to increase doctor fees under Medicare. House Democrats used a similar sleight of hand, excluding the entire $245 billion when claiming their measure wouldn’t add to the deficit.

The House deal was worked out over hours of talks that involved not only Democratic leaders but also White House officials eager to advance the bill. Senior congressional aides cast it as a temporary deal, saying leaders had not committed to support it once the bill advances to the floor of the House in the fall.

As word of the agreement spread, liberals fired back. “We do not support this,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., co-chair of the Progressive Caucus. “I think they have no idea how many people are against this. They can’t possibly be taking us seriously if they’re going to bring this forward.”

Plans to convene the Energy and Commerce Committee for a vote slipped until Thursday as leaders sought to allay concerns of liberals.

“We just need to get everybody on board,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who chairs the panel’s subcommittee on health.

Whatever the longer-term budgetary or political ramifications, Democrats said the way was now clear for the committee to approve its portion of the legislation, the last step before it comes to the floor for a vote.

“We’re hoping to get a bill out before we leave … this week,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, the panel’s chairman.

In the Senate, Baucus, Grassley and two other senators from each party have been negotiating for weeks in hopes of agreeing on compromise legislation. Both men face considerable pressure from their respective parties — Baucus not to stray too far from Democratic objectives, Grassley not to hand the president a political victory.

Republican Sen. Enzi dissented strongly from any impression that a deal was imminent. “There are big issues that haven’t been resolved. We haven’t even gotten to the little issues,” he told reporters. He also minimized the importance of Baucus’ claim, saying the Congressional Budget Office has yet to provide a cost estimate “because no precise bill language is available yet.”

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has given Baucus months to see compromise across party lines is possible, and he told reporters during the day he expects a bipartisan plan to emerge.

The pace of decisions appears to have accelerated in recent days, with negotiators all but settling on a tax on high-cost insurance plans to help pay for the bill, as well as a new mechanism designed to curtail the growth of Medicare over the next 10 years and beyond.

More problematic from the Democrats’ point of view is a tentative agreement to omit a provision in which the government would sell insurance in competition with private industry. In its place, the group is expected to recommend non-profit cooperatives that could operate at the state, regional or even national level.

Nor is any bipartisan recommendation likely to include a requirement for large businesses to offer insurance to their workers. Instead, they would have a choice between offering coverage or paying a portion of anygovernment subsidy that non-insured employees would receive.

Like the House bill, the bipartisan proposal under discussion would expand eligibility for Medicaid to 133 percent of the federal poverty level.

It provides for federal subsidies for individuals and families up to 300 percent of poverty, less than the 400 percent in the House measure.

Even if the negotiations succeed before the Senate’s vacation, it is not clear when the Finance Committeewould vote.

The proposal would have to be blended with a more liberal measure that was approved last month by the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee. It would then go to the Senate floor, where Democrats have 60-40 majority rather than the 3-3 lineup that Baucus and Grassley have led for months.

House Republican conservatives, relegated to the sidelines of the debate, unveiled a $700 billion health care plan with tax credits to help defray the cost of insurance.

Unlike Democratic plans, it would not set up new federally regulated purchasing pools for individuals and small businesses. Instead, it would allow individuals to use the Internet to purchase lower-cost coverage if available anywhere in the country. It would provide grants to states to help set up high-risk pools for people with medical problems who are denied coverage by commercial insurers.

The GOP bill also would limit jury awards for pain and suffering, and create new courts with specially trained judges to decide medical malpractice claims.

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Associated Press Writers Liz Sidoti, Alan Fram, Erica Werner and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this story.