WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is addressing one of his key constituencies — organized labor — today as union members gather to celebrate the holiday named for their movement.
As Obama prepares for a critical speech Wednesday to Congress and the nation about his efforts to overhaul health care, a supportive audience at the AFL-CIO’s annual Labor Day picnic in Cincinnati should provide welcome relief from the highly charged partisan atmosphere surrounding the issue.
Besides addressing health care, Obama will tell the assembled union members he has named Ron Bloom as senior counselor for manufacturing policy. Bloom has served since February as senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as part of Obama’s auto industry task force.
Before moving to Treasury, Bloom was a special assistant to the president of the United Steelworkers union. He was a founding partner in the investment banking firm of Keilin and Bloom.
The president returned from Camp David on Sunday and spent part of the day working on his address for Wednesday, some of which may be tested today in Cincinnati.
For the first time, he is poised to “draw some lines in the sand” over the size and shape of legislation to remake the nation’s health care system, top advisers said.
Until now, Obama has resisted taking firm positions on specific elements of a broad health care bill, instead expressing openness to many ideas. But the approach has left lawmakers divided over contentious elements, such as how to rein in costs. And with a growing chorus in favor of a slower, less ambitious approach, Obama is inching toward a proposal that would bear his name and carry the political risks of sponsorship.
“People will leave (Wednesday’s) speech knowing where he stands,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “And if it takes doing whatever to get health care done, the president is ready, willing and able to go do that.”
Obama is not inclined to make veto threats, as President Bill Clinton did on the issue of universal health care, Gibbs added, “but I’m sure he will draw some lines in the sand.” Even as preliminary drafts of Obama’s address circulated Sunday, administration officials continued to hold out hope that bipartisan talks in the Senate may provide a road map — and political cover — for the direction the president will take Wednesday.
“Let’s see what the Finance Committee does,” said one administration aide who is involved in health policy but is not permitted to speak to the media. “Then we’d have five bills to pull from.”
After learning of Obama’s plans to speak, Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., suggested he may be ready to introduce a bill this week. The announcement was evidence that the mere mention of an Obama speech “is already having an effect,” said a senior White House official who declined to discuss internal deliberations publicly.
Others were more cautious.
“He doesn’t have a consensus at this point in time,” said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.
Still, Nelson and several fellow Democrats hinted at a possible compromise on one of the thorniest unresolved questions: whether to create a government-run insurance plan — or “public option” — for individuals and small businesses that have trouble buying coverage in the private market.
The Washington Post contributed to this report.
