Published: March 19, 2010

FAIRFAX, Va. – President Barack Obama described the stakes of this weekend's health care vote in stark terms Friday, using words uttered so rarely out of the White House that they seem all but banned: "If this vote fails."

With Sunday's expected vote hanging on the support of just a handful of wavering Democrats, Obama delivered a closing argument for the goal to which he has devoted much of his presidency and on which its future could pivot. Before a large, raucous rally at suburban Virginia college, the president summoned both pragmatism and principle to sway the undecideds to his side.

He emphasized the bill's provisions that would go into effect this year, including those banning insurers from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, dropping coverage when a person becomes ill or imposing annual or lifetime limits on care, requiring free preventive care and allowing children to stay on parents' policies into their 20s. He said "the insurance industry will continue to run amok" if the vote fails.

Obama urged lawmakers to reach beyond today's disputes and grasp the history-making aspect of the effort.

"It's a debate that is not only about the cost of our health care but the character of our country, about whether we can still meet the challenges of our time, about whether we're still a nation that gives its citizens a chance to reach their dreams," Obama said.

Pointing to contentious debates decades ago over creating the now-popular Social Security and Medicare programs, he said that "when we have faced such decisions in our past, this nation has chosen time and again to extend its promise to more of its people."

"I know this will be a tough vote. I know that Washington has treated this debate like a sport," he said.

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