WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- President Barack Obama took aim at what he called "nay-sayers and cynics" on Monday and said health-care reform will get done, even as some lawmakers said an overhaul won't be completed by the White House's August deadline.

With Obama back from a trip to Europe and Africa and lawmakers hunkered down on the details of legislation, action heated up again on Monday on health-care reform. But congressional wrangling is continuing over costs of an overhaul, and a key plank of a White House-backed plan is under attack from the National Retail Federation.

Following several days of hearings last week, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Monday resumed its work on a sweeping bill to cover roughly 47 million uninsured Americans. Panel members reportedly want to finish the bill this week, but a plan on funding the overhaul is by no means decided.

Obama said Monday that he's putting everyone "on notice" that reform is coming.

"We are going to get this done," he said at the White House, introducing his pick for U.S. surgeon general, Regina Benjamin. "This is no longer a problem we can wait to fix."

Employer mandate attacked

Meanwhile, the National Retail Federation is attacking the proposed requirement for employers to provide their workers with health care, a position backed by retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

"Although the move may provide a short-term public relations boost to Wal-Mart, it could have long-lasting, devastating consequences to retailers throughout the country," wrote federation president and CEO Tracy Mullin in an open letter to members on Monday.

On Friday, House Democrats said they'd ask the wealthiest Americans to help pay for the health-care overhaul with a $550 billion tax increase. An overhaul is expected to cost about $1 trillion over 10 years. But the idea of taxing the wealthy is unlikely to get traction in the Senate among Republicans and even some Democrats.


Obama has said he wants to sign a bill by October, and both houses of Congress have been aiming to finish bills by August. But on Sunday, some lawmakers said that timetable may slip.

"There is no chance that it's going to be done by August," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., on ABC's "This Week." Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota said "there really is plenty of time."

Obama returned over the weekend from a trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana. With action on another top domestic priority, climate change, delayed until September, the president is free to focus on health care again.

"Don't bet against us," Obama said Monday. "We are going to make this thing happen because the American people desperately need it."

Members of the Senate Finance Committee are also working on health reform, but its top Republican, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, is busy this week with confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin, threw cold water on the House Democrats' plans to tax the wealthy. "I think we're going to have a different approach," he said Sunday on "This Week."

"We understand that we have to combine cuts in actual spending on health care, savings from hospitals, from doctors, from health-insurance companies, along with some new revenue," Durbin added.

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