Obama declares time to fix health care is now

Published 5:55 pm Thursday, June 11, 2009

President Barack Obama says a health care overhaul will cost “a good deal of money at a time where we don’t have extra to spend.”

Obama spoke to a town-hall audience gathered at a Wisconsin high school, part of a new effort to aggressively push action this year. In opening remarks before taking questions in Green Bay Thursday, the president said he won’t allow reform to add to the deficit.

To get there, he said he will identify about $300 billion in budget savings “in the days to come” on top of an already outlined $300 billion. However, Obama also said that that won’t be enough. He proposes the extra money come in part from reducing charitable deductions for the wealthiest Americans — an idea that has little backing on Capitol Hill.

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