President Obama doesn't have a health care bill -- but his budget assumes there will be one.

The proposal for fiscal year 2011 includes a "reserve fund for health care reform" totaling $634 billion -- a "down payment," as the administration also puts it.

Of course, the administration has little choice but to budget for health care legislation. Failure to do so would be a sign it has given up on the idea, and Obama has made it clear he will continue pushing for a final bill.

"What I will not do is stop working on this issue," Obama said yesterday at his town hall in Nashua, N.H. "Because it is the right thing to do for America and you need to let your members of Congress know they shouldn't give up, they should keep on pushing to make it happen."

Obama will also discuss health care strategy this morning during his meeting with Senate Democrats.

Budget director Peter Orszag pointed out that both the House and the Senate have passed health care bills, and are now trying to merge -- an effort thrown off track by the recent Senate election in Massachusetts.

Scott Brown's win gives Republicans the power to block a final health care bill in the Senate. Obama has responded by trying to pressure congressional Republicans into offering their own plans, lest they risk the wrath of voters who want changes in the health care system.

"What I've done is I've said to the Republicans, 'show me what you've got,' " Obama said in New Hampshire.

On this Super Bowl week, Obama employed a huddle of football analogies to describe the current standing of health care.

"We're essentially on the 5-yard line," Obama said. "So we've had to go into overtime, but we are now in the red zone, that's exactly right. We're in the red zone. We've got to punch it through."

(Posted by David Jackson)