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In a provocative argument designed to rescue his foundering health-care plan, President Barack Obama will warn Senate Democrats in a White House meeting Tuesday that this is the "last chance" to pass comprehensive reform.
Obama will contend that if it fails now, no other president will attempt it, aides said.
White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer told POLITICO: "If President Obama doesn't pass health reform, it's hard to imagine another president ever taking on this Herculean task. For those whose life's work is reforming health care, this may be the last train leaving the station."
Previewing the message, Vice President Joe Biden said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe": "If health care does not pass in this Congress ... it's going to be kicked back for a generation."
The new argument comes as the Senate races to pass the measure by Christmas, in the face of a costly setback this week. Senate Democrats say they are prepared to drop a plan to expand Medicare coverage after Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said he could not support it.
That could keep the bill alive but would infuriate the party's liberals, who feel the moderate Lieberman has thwarted them once again.
Biden said on MSNBC: ""Say it ain't so. ... Joe is a great guy. ... I think Joe's judgment is wrong on this."
Senate strategists say the current impasse will have to resolved in the next couple days in order to allow passage by year's end.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declined to say whether the Medicare expansion would be dropped and was waiting for congressional scorekeepers to put a price tag on the plan before making a final decision.
But several senators -- including Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) -- said it appeared Democrats faced with the reality of needing Lieberman's vote to get to the 60 needed for passage, would drop the Medicare expansion.
"The general consensus was, we shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good," Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) said after leaving a caucus meeting. "And if in order to get all the insurance reforms accomplished, a number of the other good things in the bill, dropping the Medicare expansion was necessary, then that's what should be done. And it appeared that would be necessary to get the 60 votes."
Asked if Reid explicitly dropped the Medicare plan, Bayh said, "That's what it sounded like to me."
For his part, Lieberman said he had not received a promise that the Medicare buy-in idea would be dropped from the bill. "Not an explicit assurance, no," Lieberman said.
"This is a classic case where you have to bring 60 people together. There are more than me that had concerns about different parts of this bill, but I think we're making progress," he said. "I think we're in the reach of a very significant accomplishment. ... It will change the lives of people forever."
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) also said it appeared Democrats were moving toward a bill without the Medicare option. "It looks that way," Harkin said.
Added Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), a big supporter of the public option and the Medicare idea, "Things are not moving in the right direction."
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