President Obama and the Democrats are close to working out the details of a bill that will provide health care coverage to more than 30-million uninsured Americans by increasing Medicaid coverage while forcing insurance companies to not deny people based solely on pre-existing conditions.

It's not the best health care reform bill that Congress could have put together. For example, the vaunted public health insurance option has long-since disappeared; however, passage of the bill could represent a first step in changing how health care is distributed in this country.

President Obama has embarked on a public relations push while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to win over enough Democrats to pass the bill using a reconciliation procedure that would eliminate Republican attempts to filibuster it. The process has forced Democrats to cut some of the pork from the bill, which is a good thing.

Republicans have vowed to do everything in their power to prevent the bill's passage. That's disappointing considering "almost every American would be affected by the legislation, which would change the ways people receive and pay for health care, from the most routine checkup to the most expensive, lifesaving treatment," according to the AP.

"My question to them is, 'When's the right time? If not now, when? If not us, who? Is it a year from now or two years from now or five years from now or 10 years from now?' I think it's right now, and that's why you're here today," Obama said at a rally in Ohio yesterday.It would have been better for Republicans to lend their input rather than being mere obstructionists. However, they are more concerned with upcoming presidential elections.

"If the bill passes, I think that's surely one of the things that they should and will run on," Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told ABC News. "This whole idea of rubbing the nose of the voter in a bill that they find unpopular and thinking it won't be bad for them is just, to me, a conscious suspension of your power of disbelief."

I actually have more disbelief at how sick people who can't afford coverage are treated in our country. Hopefully, that will change.

"I need you to knock on doors, talk to your neighbors, pick up the phone," Obama said. "When you hear an argument by the water cooler and somebody's saying this or that about it, say, 'No, no, no, no. Hold on a second.'"