Yesterday, in an attempt to win over both the American public and political opponents (both Democratic and Republican) of ambitious health care reform, President Obama held a prime-time news conference. In the speech, he stated that proposed reforms would cover 97-98 percent of Americans and re-iterated that "health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade." He further stated that "two-thirds of the reform can be paid for by reallocating money that is simply being wasted in federal health care programs," despite last week's comments from Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf that increased costs from the proposed reforms will not be offset by savings found in the reforms.
President Obama also focused on the benefit of health reforms for middle-class Americans and the need to accomplish these reforms before the August recess in Congress. Video of the speech and questions can be seen here and the transcript is here .