According to a Twitter post from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, President Barack Obama is delaying his upcoming trip to Indonesia and Australia from March 18 to March 21.
"The President will delay leaving for Indonesia and Australia - will now leave Sunday - the First Lady and the girls will not be on the trip," Gibbs posted.
Although Gibbs did not list a specific reason for the delay, it is believed that the President's trip has been delayed so he can work with Congressional Democrats to pass health care reform legislation.
Obama and top congressional Democrats have been attempting to hammer out a deal in order to revive health care reform legislation that has been stalled since Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate as a result of Sen. Scott Brown's, R-Mass., victory in the Massachusetts special election.
The plan apparently being discussed would involve the House passing the Senate version of the health care reform bill passed last December and then following that up with a reconciliation bill that would address concerns that House members have with the Senate bill.
In a significant development earlier today, comments from a Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., spokesman to a progressive political action campaign suggest that the public option could be revived in the Senate if the House passes it first.
Durbin spokesman Joe Shoemaker told the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, "Sen. Durbin and the rest of the Senate Leadership will be aggressively whipping FOR the public option if it is included in the reconciliation bill the House sends over."
"Conversely, the Leaders will whip against any attempt to alter or amend the bill if the public option is not in it," he added.
Subsequently, the PCCC concluded that, if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, R-Calif., can pass the public option in the House, the full weight of Senate leadership would push the public option across the finish line in the Senate.
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