President Barack Obama said Wednesday there will be no vote on his proposed reforms of the US healthcare system before autumn, a setback that is costing him more political capital with each passing day. 'This bill, even in the best-case scenario, will not be signed -- we won't even vote on it probably until the end of September or the middle of October,' he said in a session here to muster public support for the reforms. 'We're just trying to get all these different bills out of committee,' he said. Lawmakers are going through bills in both houses of Congress with fine tooth combs amid fierce opposition from Republicans and divisions within the Democratic majority and between the Senate and the House of Representatives. Obama has pressed lawmakers to vote on the initial bills before departing on their summer recess August 7, but acknowledged that is unlikely to happen. He was not clear whether he expected a final vote or only a first vote on the bill by the end of September or mid-October. In the past, he has set a goal of signing the law around mid-October, or at least before the end of 2009. A member of the audience asked Obama about lawmakers' assertions that they needed to take time to closely read the landmark legislative proposals. 'Some of the folks sincerely want to get it right, and we want to give them enough time to get it right. We don't want to just do it quickly, we want to do it right,' he said. 'But some folks have specifically said on the other side: The more we can delay, the better chance we have of killing the bill.' He said that when Congress returns in September he would be 'available to answer any question that members of Congress have.' 'If they want to come over to the White House and go over line by line what's going on, I will be happy to do that,' he said. 