Obama to meet with House Democratic leaders on fiscal standoff

U.S. President Barack Obama plans to meet with Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon, the White House said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders are expected to attend the meeting scheduled for 3:15 p.m. ET (1915 GMT) in the Oval Office, the White House said in a statement.

The meeting comes as lawmakers are struggling to reach a deal to raise the country's debt ceiling by a Thursday deadline. The meeting was originally scheduled for Monday afternoon but the White House changed the schedule to "allow leaders in the Senate time to continue making important progress towards a solution."

Lawmakers in the upper chamber appear to be coalescing around a deal that would fund the government into January and extend the nation's debt ceiling into February. The legislation is also expected to establish a joint committee to create a replacement for the across-the-board spending cuts, the so-called sequester.

As senators work to finalize a deal, the House Republicans are also moving towards their own debt ceiling and government funding bill.

House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday after a meeting with GOP members that they are trying to find a way forward in a " bipartisan way that would continue to provide fairness to the American people under Obamacare," indicating their insistence on changes or delays on the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

"There are a lot of opinions about what direction to go. There have been no decisions about what exactly we will do," said Boehner.

"But we're going to continue to work with our members on both sides of the aisle to try to make sure that there's no issue of default and to get our government reopened," he added.