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Federal health care reform talks have achieved critical mass, as the end of this week will be a key time to see whether reform moves forward. The U.S. House could vote on a measure Saturday, and today some local chapters of the American Association of Retired People are holding press conferences to talk about support for the House bill. That will happen in a few minutes in Des Moines with Iowa AARP talking about advocacy efforts.

On the flip side, at noon Republicans like Iowa 5th District Congressman Steve King and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann will follow through with a press event called a “house call” on the east steps of the Capitol in Washington to beat back reform. Two days ago King and other reform critics called on Americans to “fill the streets of Washington and opposed the (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi health care bill. ”

“For liberals, this legislation is the crown jewel of their socialist agenda,” King said, since it “will place bureaucrats between patients and doctors,” and raise taxes on small businesses. Bachmann pitched the “house call” with, “Nothing scares members of Congress like freedom-loving Americans.”

With equal conviction he’s right on the issue, on Tuesday a Storm Lake newspaperman gave testimony to the Senate Health, Education, Health and Pensions Committee hearing on health insurance, as invited by U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. Art Cullen of the Storm Lake Times spoke about how the newspaper has struggled to continue to provide health insurance to 12 employees as costs rise. He cited rates doubling (and then annually increasing by double digits) after an employee had a kidney transplant in 2005, and bemoaned an inability to change insurers because of employees with pre-existing conditions.

“The Storm Lake Times now pays nearly $50,000 per year for health insurance coverage. That’s almost as much as we pay for newsprint. Were it not for such high insurance costs we could add more employees and help to grow our local economy,” Cullen testified.

Cullen noted Buena Vista County families have an average household income of $36,000 and it costs about one-third of that amount to buy an annual private health care plan. Click here to see the 176-minute hearing, including the very last minute in which an incensed, arms-waving Cullen goes off prepared testimony to vent about  insurance companies “screwing” Americans.

After I wrote a post early yesterday on health care reform efforts pushed by Democrats in D.C., later in the day President Obama after a meeting on the topic near Cleveland said he’s OK with slowing the train down to get a workable product. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she’s got the votes to get a reform bill passed, but now the process won’t be pushed prior to the August recess, which Obama says is preferable.

AARP says that’s a lamentable decision. From executive vice president Nancy Leamond: “The millions of people impacted by high drug costs and those that can’t get adequate health insurance because of age or a pre-existing condition need help now. An August of waiting will not lower costs, increase access or improve quality. Few understand the enormous challenge of this task better than AARP. We have been working to reform health care for more than 50 years …But Congress needs to get this done.”

The health care reform debate is a hot topic on The Journal’s Web site. In a response to the Mini Editorial today, anti-reform “MattB,” who’s passionate on the topic, coins one I’ve not heard: “ObamaCare, putting the RX in MaRXism.” One thing is sure, a month’s delay or more in moving reform legislation will allow opponents the chance to figure better how to scuttle the whole thing.

In today’s Journal, we recounted the new Divided We Fail, Together We Can Do Anything coalition created by AARP to prod presidential candidates to lay out what they’d do with “broken” health care and retirement sytems. AARP, which is the largest advocacy group in the nation with 38 million members, sometimes takes stances that place it squarely in the midst of robust discussions on how to address America’s vexing problems.

AARP chief operating officer Tom Nelson said AARP’s status as a nonpartisan organization isn’t imperiled when it takes positions like opposing President Bush’s 2005 plan to allow creation of private accounts within Social Security. I shared with Nelson that I’d never seen such vehement criticism of AARP as when I wrote about an event in Sioux City in 2005 when the organization went on record against the personal accounts.

Nelson said “AARP, from our vantage point, decides on the merits of the issue” in laying out stances, giving two recent examples. He said when the 2003 prescription drug benefit within Medicare was created by Congress, “Republicans were happy with us and Democrats were furious,” since AARP supported the drug benefit. Further, less than two years later, when AARP weighed in against Social Security privatization, “Democrats were thrilled with us and the Republicans were furious,” Nelson said.

AARP does not have a political action committee or endorse candidates. But AARP will summarize candidate positions on Divided We Fail issues for voters to mull on going to the voting booth.