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US President Barack Obama said Wednesday he was confident his historic health care overhaul bill would pass, as a cliffhanger vote loomed on a key political goal that could shape his presidential legacy.
Obama also dismissed Republican complaints that Democrats were stooping to underhanded maneuvers to drive his legislation through Congress.
"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," Obama told Fox News in an interview.
The president and Democratic leaders are piling pressure on wavering Democrats in an effort to force a final House of Representatives vote on the far-reaching bill before he leaves on a trip to Asia on Sunday.
As a row over Democratic tactics in the cliffhanger vote rocks Washington, after a year of rows over health care, Obama said he did not spend a lot of time worrying about procedural machinations in Congress.
"What I can tell you is that the vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform," Obama told Fox News Channel's Special Report.
"If people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health care reform. And I don't think we should pretend otherwise," Obama said, in interview excerpts released by Fox.
Obama added, with an apparent eye on conservative Democrats who may balk at voting for the now unpopular reform effort ahead of November's congressional polls, that their actions would be noticed by voters.
Somebody "who votes for this bill, they're going to be judged at the polls. And the same is going to be true if they vote against it," Obama told Fox News anchor Bret Baier.
The president declined to consider the possibility that his political authority and hopes for a historic reform could be severely dented if the health reform bid fails.
"If it doesn't pass, I'm more concerned about what it does to families out there who right now are getting crushed by rising health-care costs and small businesses who were having to make a decision," Obama said.
Leaders in the House of Representatives are mulling the use of a complicated parliamentary tactic which would see lawmakers pass a Senate health care bill that many of them dislike, without voting on it.
They would instead vote on a "rule" that declares the Senate measure passed only once the House has amended it to its liking.
The Senate would then pass the draft law using another controversial strategy, known as "reconciliation" which needs only a simple majority to pass, and would override Republican obstruction tactics.
Democrats have dismissed Republican complaints that such sweeping social legislation should not be passed using such intricate tactics, saying the opposition party did the same when it was in power.
