Foreign policy concerns are diverting some of the attention President Obama wants to be devoting to health care and a financial system overhaul, his spokesman says.
The speed of congressional efforts to change the U.S. health care; health finance qnd financial services regulatory systems came up Thursday during the daily White House press briefing.
"There's been some slip in the schedule on the consideration of health care on [Capitol] Hill," a reporter said at the briefing, according to a transcript provided by the White House. "Is the president concerned that a draft might not be done by the August recess? And if it's not, is it okay if it slips until later in the fall?"
"There are a lot of moving parts, this is part of the long process," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. "I don't think it's a surprise that this is going to take some time to do. It's an issue that we've been discussing for 40 years. So the president isn't pessimistic about being able to get this through Congress this year. "
But issues requiring the president's atttention now include North Korea and Iran, Gibbs said.
