Obama Claims Health Effort Not to Dig Nation Deeper into Debt

Congress has agreed to step away from its promise to pass expansive health bills before its August recess as the president wanted. It would have bordered on legislative malpractice for the House to have rushed to pass its bill last week as its leadership hoped to do, considering that most members still have not read the 1,017-pager, known as H.R. 3200 , U.S. News & World Report reports.

Meanwhile, Obama could be falling into the same trap that snagged George W. Bush when he was pushing private accounts for Social Security as part of his "ownership society" in 2005. Bush's claims that the proposal would help shore up Social Security's long-term finances were hard to document mathematically and wound up feeding greater public skepticism.

Obama claims his health effort will not dig the nation deeper into debt and over time will help reduce deficits. He has vowed to not sign any health bill that raises deficits , The Associated Press reports.

However, for House Democrats, today marks the first day of "our month of promoting health care." Or so House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Friday just before heading home to San Francisco. This was just after Pelosi and President Obama's political strategy ace, David Axelrod, held a closed-door meeting with House Democrats ,USA Today reports.