PRESIDENT Barack Obama has postponed his trip to Indonesia and Australia in a bid to see through his battle to reform healthcare in America.
The White House announced early today, Australian time, that Mr Obama had put the visits off until June.
"The President greatly regrets the delay,” press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters. “Passage of heath insurance reform is of paramount importance and the President is determined to see this battle through.”
The new schedule, which is likely to coincide with summer school holidays in America, could allow the President's family to accompany him after all.
It was not immediately clear whether an extra day would be re-instated for the Australian leg of the trip, which had been truncated to just 24 hours in last week's rescheduling. Mr Obama was due to address a joint sitting of Parliament on Friday.
The President was scheduled to leave Washington on Sunday, but a crucial vote in Congress on the President's landmark heathcare reforms was expected to collide with his departure.
Democrats believe they are close to clinching the numbers in the House of Representatives necessary to advance the legislation to its next stage in a tangled and long-winded process that has been marred by controversy and rancorous debate.
Mr Gibbs announced the trip delay to reporters on a sunny spring morning in the Rose Garden, shortly after the President signed into law a $US17 billion jobs creation bill that provides tax credits for businesses that employ new workers.
But Mr Obama's chief preoccupation is trying to nurse through the legislative process the near-$US1 trillion bill that will expand health insurance coverage to an additional 30 million Americans while outlawing restrictive insurance company practices.
Democrats are fashioning a Senate healthcare bill that was passed on Christmas eve into a final blueprint that removes preferential treatment for some states while incorporating key elements from a similar House bill favoured by the President.
The two-stage process requires the President to sign into law the bill that passes the House before it goes to the Senate for final approval via a process known as reconciliation. There, a simple majority of 51 votes in the 100-seat chamber is required to finish the job.
The trip delay coincided with the release of a 25-page “preliminary analysis” of the healthcare reforms by the Congressional Budget Office which the Democrats had promised to display for at least 72 hours before moving to a final vote.
The CBO reported that the reforms would cost $US940 billion over 10 years, but would reduce America's yawning budget deficit by $US138 billion over the same period and by more than $US1 trillion in the subsequent decade, numbers that could sway fiscally conservative Democrat representatives to add their name to the bill.
The party needs 216 votes to pass the reforms in the House; pundits believe they coujld be as few as four votes short of success.
According to some media reports, Mr Obama has told wavering Democrats that his Presidency is on the line over the healthcare debate.
Mr Gibbs said he was unable to confirm whether the president had expressed the sentiment.
He dismissed concerns that canceling the trip would send a negative message overseas about America's international commitment, saying Mr Obama simple believed that “right now this is the place to be, in Washington, seeing this through”.
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