Obama to Address Congress in Bid to Rally Support for Health Care Reform

President Obama will try to invigorate the push for health care reform during an address to a joint session of Congress next Wednesday, FOX News has learned.

The decision comes as the White House is revamping its approach, following a rocky August recess. Advisers said earlier that the president will try to reframe the debate by rallying Democrats around the partisan bills that have already advanced. In doing so, Obama appears to be abandoning hopes for a bipartisan breakthrough on health care reform.

During the speech, the president is expected to highlight the absence of a key advocate of health care reform, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, and pledge to achieve the senator's health care goals.

The decision to hold such an address is rare. The only times in recent history that a U.S. president delivered a non-"State of the Union" address before a joint session of Congress was in September 2001, when President George W. Bush addressed the nation after the Sept. 11 attacks, and in September 1993, when President Bill Clinton used the forum to push his health care reform package.

Republicans quickly criticized the move.

"The White House and Congressional Democrats lost the month of August, and with it public opinion," said Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "Lecturing members of the United States Congress is not the answer to the Democrats' growing political problems, dumping their plans for a health care takeover is.

"We know the president can give a great speech," he said. "The question is whether or not he can hold his own party together."

Obama and lawmakers are returning from recess to an intensely partisan environment. Top White House officials over the past few days have blasted Republicans who were part of a "Gang of Six" negotiating team on the Senate Finance Committee, accusing them of stonewalling progress on what was considered the only bipartisan package in Congress. The top Republican negotiator fired back on Wednesday, with his spokeswoman saying the bipartisan negotiations will go forward.

But the path forward, as the president sees it, is to unify Democrats around the three House bills and one Senate bill that have already passed out of committee, according to senior administration aides. This strategy suggests the Senate Finance Committee is considered a lost cause and that the White House will use the Democratic Party's strong majority in both chambers to finish the job.

"We are entering a new phase driven in part by the actions of some in the GOP. They are essentially walking away from the table," said one senior Obama administration adviser, referring to GOP Senate Finance Committee negotiators Charles Grassley of Iowa and Mike Enzi of Wyoming.

"Now is the time to begin to pull together the various strands and solutions from the four bills that have been marked up and other proposals," one adviser told FOX News. "Basically all the cards are on the table."

The assessment comes after Enzi blasted Democratic proposals in a radio address over the weekend and after Grassley asked people for "support in helping me defeat Obama-care" in an August fundraising letter.

The White House's discontent with their actions was made clear early this week.

"I think Senator Enzi's clearly turned over his cards on bipartisanship and decided that it's time to walk away from the table," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday.

White House adviser David Axelrod also condemned their comments.

Their remarks, he said, "were not exactly consistent with good-faith negotiations."

But Grassley spokeswoman Jill Kozeny said the senator's letter was "nothing new" and that the White House accusations were unjustified.

"Attacks by political operatives in the White House undermine bipartisan efforts and drive senators away from the table," she said, calling the other four bills "policy failures" that have "been rejected at the grassroots." She said the Senate Democratic negotiators have the same concerns as Republicans, and that the group of six will hold its scheduled conference call Friday to continue working toward a bipartisan bill.

Though it was reported that Obama had no plans to insist on a controversial government-run insurance plan in his speech, White House advisers insisted it remains in the mix.

"The president thinks it's the best way to achieve his ultimate goal -- choice and competition -- but certainly not the only way to get there," one adviser said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi feels differently. Speaking in her hometown of San Francisco Wednesday, Pelosi insisted that the bill that emerges from Congress will have a public option. "Let me say it another way," she said. "We can't pass a bill without a public option."

The president's willingness to put more of his own proposals out to the public shows he's been listening to critics, on both sides of the aisle, who say he has not done enough to steer the work of his congressional allies. In the absence of an Obama plan, public confidence in the president's ability to handle the colossal task, and in health care reform itself, has eroded.

As Obama embarks on what is perhaps his most important political campaign since the election, he still faces the tricky task of bridging the gap between fiscally conservative Democrats and the liberal wing of his party -- let alone peeling off any remaining Republicans willing to strike a deal.

But the president may have to take a clear stand on the so-called public option to really shake up the debate.

"This speech only has to be two paragraphs long," said a Democratic strategist who asked not to be named. "Two paragraphs saying you're fighting for the public option no matter what. Or two paragraphs saying you're setting it aside to focus on other priorities. Everything else has been said before and heard before. Over and over. If the White House doesn't say one or the other, I'm not sure another speech can make much difference."

FOX News' Major Garrett and The Associated Press contributed to this report.