Obama Adviser: Time Running Out on Health Reform

President Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod is acknowledging what everyone else seems to already know: the president's health reform plan is in trouble.

"It’s fairly obvious that we’re not in the second inning. We’re not in the fourth inning. We’re in the eighth or ninth inning here, and so there’s not a lot of time to waste,” Axelrod told Politico.com, one of several interviews he gave yesterday.

Polls continue to show the president faces increasingly hostile attitudes toward his reform plan, which is hurting his overall approval ratings. A CBS News poll showed his approval rating at 56 percent, the lowest of his presidency. Forty-seven percent of respondents don't approve of the job he's doing on health care, while 40 percent approve, the poll found.

A daily Gallup poll shows Obama's overall rating is 50 percent, down from a high of 68 percent, ABC News reports.

One of the president's biggest problems is he's let Democrats in Congress run the show and it's been a disaster: Public support for his plan has taken a drastic plunge since the beginning of the year.

The president is pondering a major speech on health reform next week, Politico reports, citing unnamed aides. The public insurance option, a source of controversy and anxiety among many people, will not be one his demands, Politico says.

That is going to infuriate the Democratic liberal base, which has said a government-run insurance plan is critical to any reform.

“The most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition,” an unnamed aide told Politico. “There are lots of different ways to get there.”