House Democrats cleared the way Wednesday for a pivotal floor vote on health care overhaul as early as the weekend, after tweaking their 1,900-page bill to crack down harder on insurance companies.

The health care overhaul bill produced by House Democrats would impose an array of new taxes, fees and government mandates on major players in the health industry, including insurers, doctors and drugs and medical devices makers.

The House health care bill released Thursday raises most revenue by taxing individuals making $500,000 or more, but also tightens rules for corporate accounting and takes aim at foreign companies working in tax havens.

The stock market may be up, U.S. service industries may be recovering, banks may be lending again and housing prices holding. But one major piece of the recovery puzzle is still missing: a brighter employment picture.

Financial firms should not be able to choose their own regulator, White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers said on Monday.

U.S. President Barack Obama's top economic adviser said Monday the United States is on the path toward economic recovery, conditions in financial markets are steadier and there have been initial signs of stabilization in the housing market.

Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief after a positive cost report on health care overhaul gave them a chance to rally around a Senate plan that significantly expands coverage while trimming the federal deficit.

Barack Obama has pushed closer than any president in generations to creating a basic health care safety net, yet the fate of legislation is far from certain.

Tougher financial rules have been stymied by industry lobbying, government turf battles and a stabilizing banking system. Some analysts fear another crisis is inevitable.

Yukio Hatoyama, who led Japan's opposition party to a stunning election victory, is coming to power amid questions about how he will pursue his desire for a more independent relationship with the United States.

Japan's opposition swept to a historic victory in elections Sunday, crushing the ruling conservative party that has run the country for most of the postwar era.

Former Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean, a leading figure in the liberal wing of his party, said Monday he doubts there can be meaningful health care reform without a direct government role.

President Obama said Sunday he's confident his drive to overhaul health care will succeed. The president writes in Sunday's New York Times about "health insurance reform" and says his attempt to overhaul the system is closer to reality "than we have ever been."

President Barack Obama is using political tactics and rhetorical devices honed in his White House campaign to regain the upper hand in the health care debate over increasingly vocal and organized critics.

President Barack Obama's campaign for a health care overhaul is an intense installment in a long-running story, dating to Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.