The battle to overhaul health care intensified Monday as a top Republican accused President Obama of attempting to ram through an ill-conceived plan that will undermine the country's economic future.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele's remarks came as Obama and Democrats struggled to regain much-needed political momentum on the high-priority issue before the August congressional recess.

Obama is scheduled to host a round-table discussion on health care Monday afternoon and to emphasize the need for reform in a nationally televised news conference Wednesday night.

The president is seeking an overhaul to ensure that health insurance is available to 46 million uninsured Americans while preventing costs to the government and individuals from climbing.

The health care plan is "a risky multitrillion dollar experiment with our health care ... [that] not only risks our economy, it risks every American's health, too," Steele argued during an appearance at the National Press Club.

"Under [the Democratic] plan, costs are going up, and you, the American people, are going to pay."


Steele also blasted congressional Democrats for attempting to pass a health care bill without reaching out to the GOP minority or "permitting any meaningful scrutiny."

Top administration officials, while defending their efforts with congressional Republicans, have conceded that more work is needed to ensure that whatever bill eventually gets passed is budget neutral.

Appearing Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said an additional tax on wealthy Americans is "a legitimate way to go forward" in the debate over how to overhaul the ailing health system.

A final bill "will be paid for -- it will not add to the deficit," Sebelius said.

The House of Representatives and Senate are working on Democratic proposals that would create a government-funded public health insurance option intended to drive down costs of private coverage.

However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported last week that the measures under consideration in both chambers would fail to pay for themselves, increasing the budget deficit.

Republican opponents were quick to seize on the CBO report as ammunition against Obama's push to have a bill from each chamber approved by the time Congress begins recess on August 7.

Democrats argued the CBO analysis failed to take into account the financial impact of cost-cutting measures under discussion as well as how stronger preventive care programs will reduce demand and costs.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, also appearing on "Meet the Press," said the government is overreaching by seeking to reform the whole system.

He called for expanding the tax deduction on health care costs for employers to include individual taxpayers -- what the Republicans call equalized tax treatment -- and limiting medical malpractice lawsuits that he said drive up the cost of medical care.

However, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said the real purpose of Republican criticism is to slow momentum in hopes of eventually killing health care reform.

"The typical Washington bureaucratic game of 'if you don't have a better alternative, just delay in the hope that that kills something' is partly what is playing out here," Orszag said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

Orszag called for, among other things, creating an independent commission of doctors that would set reimbursement levels and other health care policy issues under congressional oversight, calling it "the single most important thing that's missing from the legislation at this point."

The White House has so far resisted a call from the powerful head of the Senate Finance Committee to create a new tax on medical benefits provided by employers.

Sebelius argued Sunday that such a tax could cause employers who provide coverage for 180 million Americans to change or drop their programs, which could "dismantle the private market."

The skirmishing over health care comes as a new national poll indicates Obama is slipping on the issue.

Forty-nine percent of people questioned in an ABC News/Washington Post survey released Monday approve of the way Obama is handling health care. That approval is down 4 percentage points from last month and 9 points from April. Forty-four percent disapprove, up 5 percentage points from June and 15 points from April.


The ABC News/Washington Post poll is the third national survey to suggest that the president's approval rating on overhauling health care is under 50 percent, joining a CBS News poll and Quinnipiac University survey.

At the same time, the new poll also indicates Obama still has a large advantage over Republicans on the issue. Fifty-four percent of those questioned say they trust Obama to do a better job handling health care than Republicans in Congress, with 34 percent putting more faith in congressional Republicans than the president.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted Wednesday through Saturday, with 1,001 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.