U.S. President Barack Obama has called the Senate health committee’s decision to approve a healthcare reform bill “a major milestone” and has urged Congress to pass a bill by the beginning of August, when Congress goes on recess.

Obama has been pushing for a healthcare bill that will expand coverage to all Americans yet that push has been met with resistance by several Republicans who have pointed to the cost involved in such a measure. Despite his detractors, Obama has continued to lobby for reform and has consistently called healthcare a necessity that had to be achieved.

Wednesday’s vote reflected the divisive nature of the healthcare reforms as the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee voted 13-10 to pass a to pass a $600-billion version of the bill with all ten detractors being Republican.

Under the HELP proposal healthcare would be expanded to all Americans by requiring individuals to be insured and providing assistance to those unable to pay for their coverage. The approval was the first passed by a congressional committee with several other committees working on their own version of a healthcare reform bill.

Obama the various bills will be debated and a combined bill will reach Congress with both House and Senate voting on the unified bill.

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The White House has insisted that President Barack Obama's health was "never in danger" despite visiting Mexico during the swine flu outbreak and meeting a man who died a day later.
>Barack Obama (L) waves as he is welcomed by Felipe Calderon, Mexico's president, during a ceremony at Los Pinos, the presidential residence, in Mexico City

The president's spokesman was barraged with media questions following reports that Felipe Solis, an archaeologist who showed Mr Obama around Mexico City's anthropology museum earlier this month, died the next day of "flu-like symptoms".

Mr Obama visited Mexico on April 16 and 17, at least four days after the beginning of the outbreak of highly contagious swine flu.

"The president's health was never in danger," said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary who said he had talked to Mr Obama's doctors.

Neither "the president nor anybody that I know of traveling with him in either governmental or press capacity has shown any symptoms that would denote cause for any concern," he said.

The White House later issued a statement from Ricardo Alday, a spokesman for Mexico's embassy in Washington, saying Mr Solis "died of complications of a pre-existing condition and not of swine flu."

Mr Obama has reassured Americans that the swine flu outbreak is " not a cause for alarm" despite the small but rising number of cases in the United States.

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US President Barack Obama has been tested for swine flu after he just returned from a trip to Mexico where he was discussing the escalation of the country's violent drug related problems.

The president is assuring Americans the country is taking aggressive measures to control the virus.

New cases of swine flu have surfaced in the United States and Canada, taking the total to 26.

There are now more than 1300 suspected cases in Mexico.

People who are infected can spread the virus before they even start showing symptoms.

The symptoms of the H1N1 virus are similar to numerous other flu viruses - fever, headache, muscle aches, dry cough and extreme tiredness - and in this case also vomiting and diarrhoea

While most cases in the United States and Canada have been mild, it has killed up to 81 people in Mexico, including some fit young adults.

H1N1 has been around since the 1918 flu pandemic, in various forms but no one knows if this strain is different enough to cause widespread and severe disease.

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