US President Barack Obama is delaying a visit scheduled next week to Indonesia and Australia in order to stay home to try to get his health care bill approved, dpa cited the White House as announcing today. Obama, however, will still make his trip to the region, but starting on March 21, rather than the March 18 departure originally scheduled, the administration said. According to the New York Times, the issue had become controversial among Democrats in the House of Representatives, with complaints made privately that they were being forced to vote quickly on the health care bill to permit the president to make his trip. The paper cited an administration official as saying Obama had now agreed to delay his departure to accomodate the final effort to get the health care bill approved by the House. Just on Thursday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had dismissed the possibility of a delay in the trip, which would be Obama's first foreign travel of 2010.
