What does US healthcare reform mean for Obama?

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President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats are rallying congressional Democrats to support his effort to revamp the USD 2.5 trillion US healthcare industry before a critical vote in the House of Representatives on Sunday.

Here are some questions and answers about what the battle to pass healthcare legislation means to the Democratic president:

Will failure cripple Obama's presidency?

Congressional Democrats seem to think so.

Some House Democrats who had not planned to back the revamp have been swayed by concern that its failure. After more than a year of intense effort, it could leave Obama unable to push through any major legislation.

With Republicans nearly unanimous in their opposition to Obama's major initiatives, they argue, Democratic divisions could irretrievably weaken him even though, for now, his party holds the majority of seats in both the House and Senate.

"We have to be very careful that the potential of President Obama's presidency not be destroyed by this debate," said Dennis Kucinich, a liberal congressman who had opposed the legislation, said at a news conference announcing his support.

"The Obama presidency will be crippled if this bill doesn't pass," said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an adviser to President Bill Clinton during his failed fight for healthcare reform in 1994, which led to the loss of the Democratic majority in Congress.

"I was there in the fall of 1994, and it wasn't pretty."