The administration, meanwhile, gave signs of retreating on its demands that senators jettison special home-state deals sought by individual lawmakers that have angered the public.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs predicted House passage this week, before Obama travels to Asia, a trip he postponed to push for the bill. "This is the week where we will have this important vote," Gibbs said. "I do think this is the climactic week for health-care reform."

Political strategist David Axelrod said Democrats would persuade enough lawmakers to vote yes. "I believe that there is a sense of urgency on the part of members of Congress," he said.

A dose of reality came from Rep. James Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat and main vote counter. "No, we don't have them [the votes] as of this morning, but we've been working this thing all weekend," said Clyburn (D., S.C.). He said he was confident the measure would pass.

The House GOP leader, Ohio Rep. John Boehner, took up the challenge, acknowledging that Republicans alone could not stop the measure, but pledging to do "everything we can to make it difficult for them, if not impossible, to pass the bill." Republicans say they believe they may get help from Democrats facing tough reelection campaigns.

Axelrod indicated yesterday that the White House was backing down on an attempt to get senators to rid the legislation of a number of lawmakers' special deals. Taking a new position, he said the White House objected only to state-specific arrangements, such as an increase in Medicaid funding for Nebraska, ridiculed as the "Cornhusker Kickback."

That is being cut, but provisions that could affect more than one state are acceptable, he added.

"The principle that we want to apply is that, are these [provisions] applicable to all states? Even if they do not qualify now, would they qualify under certain sets of circumstances?" Axelrod said.

That is the argument made earlier by aides to Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Chris Dodd of Connecticut. The measure to give Medicare coverage to asbestos-sickened residents of Libby, Mont., for example, could apply to other places where public health emergencies are declared - even though Libby is the only place where that has happened so far.

Dodd's deal would leave it up to the health secretary to decide where to spend $100 million for construction of a hospital, though Dodd has made clear he hopes the University of Connecticut would be the beneficiary.

Trying to increase public pressure on Congress to pass the legislation, Obama planned to travel today to Strongsville, Ohio, home of cancer patient Natoma Canfield, who wrote this month to the president telling him she had given up her health insurance premium after it rose to $8,500 a year. Canfield is a self-employed cleaning worker who lives in the Cleveland suburb. Canfield's sister was scheduled to introduce Obama at the 1 p.m. event.

Boehner said Democrats never made a serious attempt to incorporate GOP ideas in the measure, saying they took only "a couple of Republican bread crumbs and put them on top of their 2,700-page bill."

The legislation would provide health insurance to tens of millions who currently have none, and it would ban insurance companies from denying coverage on the basis of existing conditions. It would require most people to obtain insurance and would subsidize premiums for poor and middle-income Americans.

The health-care bill appeared close to passage in January, before Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy, which cost the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Since then, the White House and Democrats have tried to rescue the effort, pushing to have the House pass legislation that cleared the Senate in December. Besides Republican opposition, Democrats still face resistance in their own party from antiabortion lawmakers worried about how and whether insurance plans should pay for abortions. The bill needs 216 votes to clear the House.

Obama has postponed his trip to Indonesia and Australia by three days to allow him to be on hand this week for what is shaping up as the pivotal period for his top domestic initiative. He originally was scheduled to leave Thursday.

Axelrod spoke on ABC's This Week, NBC's Meet the Press, and CNN's State of the Union. Gibbs appeared on Fox News Sunday and CBS's Face the Nation. Clyburn was on NBC and Boehner on CNN.