Obama Health Care Logo design

ugust is do-or-die month for both President Barack Obama and his hopes of overhauling U.S. healthcare, and the battle will be fought not in Washington, but across the country. With lawmakers gone from Washington for a month and much of the reform plan still to be written when they return, the rancorous battle spreads to lawmakers’ town meetings, television and radio, and grass-roots campaigns. Obama’s own tactics have contributed to the free-flowing and expensive exchange of ideas. Although he has set an overall goal of expanding insurance coverage to the nearly 46 million uninsured and vowed to hold down skyrocketing medical costs, he has left the details to lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled House and Senate. Democrats will make their case to the public with stories of patients bankrupted by costs that insurers would not cover, hundreds lining up for charity, and people in need forced to delay life-saving treatments. Republicans and others will try to stop Obama from achieving his No. 1 domestic goal with a counter-argument: Why should Americans think that any plan conceived in Washington will in any way improve the medical attention they get now? Outspoken in their support of free enterprise, Republicans accuse the Democrats of trying to “socialize” medicine — anathema to the many Americans who oppose government intervention in their lives. Obama vowed on Wednesday to get a reform bill through Congress this year even without Republicans on board.