Obama To House: Time To Finish Job On Health Care

PHILIP ELLIOTT

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a private meeting on Capitol Hill and from the presidential podium in the Rose Garden, President Barack Obama on Saturday pressed for House passage of a health overhaul bill and told lawmakers "to rise to this moment" and "answer the call of history."

After the nearly hourlong session, Obama returned to his office and made a public appeal to lawmakers' sense of history. Such opportunities, the president said as the House worked toward a final vote, "come around maybe once in a generation."

"Millions of Americans are watching right now," Obama said in the Rose Garden.

"This is why they sent us here — to finally confront the challenges that Washington had been putting off for decades, to make their lives better, to leave this country stronger than we found it," Obama said.

"This is their moment; this is our moment to live up to the trust that the American people have placed in us, even when it's hard — especially when it's hard. This is our moment to deliver," he said.