WASHINGTON --Sen. Evan Bayh is sitting down in the Oval Office with President Barack Obama today to discuss a number of items on the congressional agenda including health care, according to a White House official.

The Indiana Democrat is a leader of a group of Senate moderate Democrats who could be influential on items high on the administration's agenda such as health care and climate change.

Obama met last month with Bayh's group of Senate moderates to talk about health care. Tuesday's meeting is just with Bayh, according to Obama's schedule released by the White House Monday.

Bayh is not on the Senate committee that is expected to vote Tuesday on a health care overhaul plan. That plan must be merged with another Senate bill before the full Senate votes.

Bayh has said the overhaul has to make health insurance more affordable for middle-class families and small businesses while not increasing the deficit. The bill expected to be approved by the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday would lower the deficit over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But Bayh has said he's concerned there won't be enough enforcement mechanisms to ensure that happens.

Bayh has also criticized one of the bill's way of paying for expanding health coverage: new fees on medical device makers. The fees would also apply to drug makers and the insurance industry but it is the fees on medical device makers that Bayh has questioned publicly. He is among a group of senators from states with large concentrations of medical device makers who have written to Senate Democratic leaders asking them to "moderate" the proposal.

The industry fees are intended to be a portion of the new profits the medical device, drug and insurance industries will get from having more people with health insurance buying their products.

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