President Barack Obama on Wednesday night said he was committed to reforming health care in the United States noting that he was not the first president to take up the case, but was “determined to be the last.”

Addressing a joint session of Congress, Obama said it had been nearly a century since President Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. “And ever since, nearly every president and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way,” he said. The president contended that a “collective failure to meet this challenge - year after year, decade after decade - has led us to a breaking point.”

The president outlined details of a plan that would, if passed, end America’s dubious distinction as the only advanced economy without some form of universal health care. “In the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick,” he declared.

Obama's proposal to reform health care has split the nation and resulted in lawmakers facing stormy town-hall sessions with constituents over the summer. The president said that the quality of the debate in the last few months “is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government. Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics.”

The liberal wing of the Democratic Party is urging Obama to abandon the Republicans and ram through a health care proposal with a public option on the lines of the medical coverage available in Europe. Republican critics oppose government management of health care and compare such suggestions to socialism-a dirty word in this epitome of a capitalist society.

Noting that the “time for bickering is over,” the president told lawmakers: “Now is the season for action. Now is when we must bring the best ideas of both parties together, and show the American people that we can still do what we were sent here to do. Now is the time to deliver on health care.”

Obama said the plan he was offering would meet three basic goals: It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance; it will provide insurance to those who don’t; and it will slow the growth of health care costs. Obama said his plan incorporates ideas from Democrats and as well as Republicans. He pledged to continue to seek common ground in the weeks ahead. “If you come to me with a serious set of proposals, I will be there to listen. My door is always open,” he said. But, he also had a word of warning those out to scuttle the plan: “I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it’s better politics to kill this plan than improve it. I will not stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are. If you misrepresent what’s in the plan, we will call you out. And I will not accept the status quo as a solution. Not this time. Not now.”

Bangladesh plans to send a diplomatic note to the United Nations protesting India’s claims on maritime borders of the extended continental shelf in the Bay of Bengal. Dhaka sent a similar note to the UN protesting Myanmar’s claims earlier this week.

The notes came as Bangladesh awarded contracts to two foreign firms - a US oil firm ConocoPhillips and Irish firm Tullow - to explore and extract hydrocarbon in the Bay of Bengal on August 24.

The Bay of Bengal maritime boundaries took on greater significance after India discovered oil and 100 trillion cubic feet of gas and Myanmar discovered another seven trillion cubic feet of gas in 2005-2006.

Bangladesh and Myanmar were engaged in a military stand off last November over disputed maritime borders, with both countries deploying warships to protect their maritime boundaries.

Bangladesh requested Myanmar to stop all its activities there as per the Bangladesh Government’s 1974 Territorial Water and Maritimes Zones Act and added that the government has the right to protect its interest.

Dhaka also claims that India’s submission to the UN on May 2009 encompassing undersea basins fall within Bangladesh’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) that stretches up to 200 miles from the baseline. Bangladesh is yet to stake its claim with the UN.

The deadline for officially registering the claims of the 150 nautical miles or more areas of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles (EEZ) is July 27, 2011.

The minister said the government has also been negotiating with the two neighboring countries to resolve the maritime disputes with them through bilateral discussions.