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President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are considering major expansions of government-assisted health insurance and unemployment compensation that they start intensive work this week on a two-year economic recovery package.

One proposal, as described by the Democratic counsel, would extend unemployment compensation to part-time workers, an idea that congressional Republicans have blocked in the past.

Other policy changes would subsidize employers’ expenses for temporary continuation of health insurance coverage laid off and retired workers and their people, as under a mandate of 22 years, known as Cobra federal law, and to allow workers who lose jobs, which did not come with insurance benefits to be eligible for the first time to apply for Medicaid coverage.

The proposals show how potential long-range changes that Mr. Obama intends to push the promised American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, as called in his weekly Saturday address on the radio and YouTube. These will be combined with a time of measures which are more typical of the federal stimulus package to jump-start a weak economy, such as spending on roads and other job creating projects for public works.

As the economy worsened in the weeks after Mr Obama election, adviser and congressional leaders suggested that a stimulus plan could be ready for the new year, the House votes this week. But House is not expected to vote until next week at the earliest, which will push the final, most likely action in February, said Democrats aid.

Aid delays have said, perhaps inevitably, given the holiday interruptions, big business ambitions and internal tensions over the plan components and their costs.

Obama advisers have said the package will carry a total cost of at least 775 billion dollars.

However, Democrats are wary of slowing economic stimulus to provoke opposition from Republicans who have warned in recent days that the package should be no excess, no hurry. They are also fielding concerns fiscal conservative Democrats.

In his address Saturday, Mr. Obama, only on a vacation for two weeks, also announced that, as expected, he will begin meeting in Washington on Monday with leaders of Congress from both parties in a bid for bipartisan cooperation.

“Economists across the political spectrum agree that if we do not act quickly and boldly,” said Mr. Obama, we could see a deeper economic which could lead to double-digit unemployment and the American dream slipping further and more far reaching. ”

Mr. Obama promised to “create or save the” three million jobs over the next two years. In the address, he omitted the word “save”, suggesting that it would create three million jobs, an objective that many economists consider unattainable in current conditions.

His plan, he said the address would “put people back to our work today and to reduce dependence on foreign oil tomorrow, through tax incentives and spending to double renewable energy production, the government is building energy more effectively, build and renovate roads, bridges and schools, upgrading technology and health.

A main factor slowing Obama’s team of design, it is obvious now, was difficult to reconcile sometimes conflicting’s directives.

President-elect asked only plan including proposals that would stimulate the economy quickly. Typically, meaning that once spending money that gets the hands of consumers quickly to spark demand for goods and services.

Both Mr. Obama and congressional leaders are intent on keeping the price tag below cargo political figure of 1 billion dollars.

Emerging Obama plan, such items will include 140 billion U.S. dollars to 200 billion dollars in relief to states to offset their budget-busting costs for Medicaid and education, extension of unemployment compensation for former full-time workers, who will take place in March, and billions of dollars for building projects on which Mr. Obama called “shovel ready.”

But also, Mr. Obama said that the recovery should take down-payments on its campaign promises to permanent changes that will reshape the economy, especially for the good of low wages and the middle class workers. These changes could bear the costs for permanent new energy, education, health care and tax policies.

For example, Mr. Obama indicated previously that he would seek money to develop a national network of energy to harness and distribute power from wind, water and other alternative energy sources.

Additional money to subsidize local governments for education costs decline could become an accessory, a sudden increase federal small beyond its role in the expansion of President Bush. Besides money for school construction and renovation aid Congress said they expected an increase of funding to educate students with disabilities and special needs. Officials are also exploring the potential increases for Head Start childhood education programs and Pell Grant scholarships for students.

Instead of proposing a one-time tax rebate for all but the richest Americans, Mr. Obama is likely to propose what he called during his campaign a “make work pay” tax credit of $ 500 for eligible individuals and $ 1000 for couples. Those who earn too little to pay federal taxes would receive credit in the form of control designed to offset the payroll taxes to pay for social security and Medicare.

Disputes also are percolating in the camp between Obama and Congressional committees over which provides spending for special projects, which Mr. Obama has sworn to oppose. Disputes are similar, if less than petulant, past tiffs between Mr Bush and Congress.

Democratic leaders in Congress say they are serious about helping keep Mr. Obama legislation being free pork-barrel projects that could invite criticism from Republicans and foster public skepticism.

“Every U.S. dollars must be justified as to whether it is targeted to our economy,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said last week. “This is not a bill that will be an excuse to put things that otherwise might not be justified.”

To get around potential objections to Mr Obama, including some lawmakers are projects that Congress previously authorized, but failed to pass in the credits. In a 41-page memorandum, the House transportation and infrastructure committee stressed the 85 billion U.S. dollars previously authorized for infrastructure spending over two years, including 30.2 billion dollars for road projects and 12 billion dollars for local public transport .

House approved money for many projects in September as part of a 61 billion U.S. dollars stimulus package which was blocked by Republicans in the Senate.

However, officials said the size of proposed stimulus two years, equivalent to almost a year of federal discretionary spending, have tested imaginations, both in Congress and the Obama camp. Aid and advisers are struggling to identify enough projects that would meet Mr. Obama’s criteria that they are truly stimulating, creating jobs and not be open to being branded as pork.

“It really forced people to think outside the box”, an aide to House Appropriations Committee said, “because it is more money than anyone expected to be spending.”

Tensions on the other side of the requests involve fiscal conservative Blue Dog Democrats in the House and Senate from the Democrats - particularly the Senate Budget Committee chairman, Kent Conrad of North Dakota - budgetary provisions for the imposition of controls on future tax and spending cuts for long-term health of the economy.

According to both parties, Obama tax officials have assured conservatives that Mr. Obama would propose long-term control in its first five-year budget, which is due by late February. But Blue Dogs see recovery package as the best chance of achieving the reforms adopted quickly.

While Democrats support conservative fiscal deficit spending to jump-start the economy, these are debts that must be paid, “said Representative Jim Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee.

“We have to combine short-term stimulus, with a focus on long-term,” he continued.

Among their ideas is a bipartisan Commission to propose limits on future benefits for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the entitlement programs whose estimated future costs should come out all other expenses, a nonpartisan entity to designate infrastructure projects, such as roads and public buildings, based on merit, and federal pay-as-you-go “rules that require offsetting spending increases and savings for tax cuts in November.