In a rare interview with Fox News on Wednesday, President Obama predicted to host Bret Baier that Congress will soon pass the health care reform proposal that his administration has been working on for months.
OBAMA: I'm confident it will pass. And the reason I'm confident that it's going to pass is because it's the right thing to do. Look, on a whole host of these measures, whether it's health care, whether it was fixing the financial system, whether it's making sure that we passed the Recovery Act, I knew these things might not be popular, but I was absolutely positive that they were the right thing to do and that, over time, we would be vindicated in having made those tough decisions.
I think health care is exactly the same thing. We -- I've got a whole bunch of portraits of presidents around here, starting with Teddy Roosevelt, who tried to do this and didn't get it done. The reason that it needs to be done is not its affect on the presidency. It has to do with how it's going to affect ordinary people who right now are desperately in need of help.
The president played down the contentious debate over the legislative tactics currently under consideration for getting health care reform passed. "I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are in the House or Senate," he said.
President Obama also added a warning for those still opposing the health care reform package, saying that "if they vote against it, then they're going to be voting against health care reform and they're going to be voting in favor of the status quo."
Baier repeatedly interrupted the president during the interview; at the end of their exchange, Baier apologized for the interjections, explaining that he wanted to "get more bang for buck."
