White House hosts white-coated doctors for health reform pitch

President Obama spoke to a group of doctors in the Rose Garden Monday, the Associated Press reports. "[N]obody has more credibility with the American people on this issue than you do," he said (Babington, 10/5).

Los Angeles Times: "Popular support becomes more important for the president and his allies every day," as the Senate Finance Committee completes its work, and the measure approaches debate in the full Congress. Obama used the opportunity to recall the American Medical Association's critical, but not unqualified, support for his proposals. He did not address divisive issues like the creation of a public insurance plan (Parsons, 10/5).

Politico: "[T]he president did hit back against the most resonant opposition attacks, saying doctors wouldn't support his approach if he were advocating a government takeover of health care or trying to damage the doctor-patient relationship" (Brown, 10/6).

ABC News: The President called for the doctors in support of reform to fan out across the country to make the case for why reform is so needed. "You did not devote your lives to be bean counters or paper pushers," he said. "You took an oath so that you could heal people" (Wright, 10/5).

Roll Call: Meanwhile, Republican doctors, such as Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., an orthopedic surgeon, are pushing back against President Barack Obama's effort to trumpet support from doctors for his health care proposals, asserting that there is significant opposition in the health care community to the president's plans (Koffler, 10/5).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.