WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House today summoned two lawmakers critical to President Barack Obama's hopes for health care overhaul to a private meeting as the timetable for a comprehensive bill continued to slip.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., were to meet at the White House this afternoon, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Baucus and Rangel are in charge of the crucial job of coming up with how to pay for a comprehensive health care overhaul that would cost an estimated $1 trillion over 10 years, mostly for subsidies to help cover some 50 million uninsured Americans.

The meeting comes as Obama, newly returned from an overseas trip, must refocus on his top legislative priority: a sweeping health care bill to bring down costs and cover the uninsured. Timelines for the health legislation continue to be pushed back, with a bill unveiling promised for today in the House sliding to Tuesday as House Democratic leaders struggled to regain support from moderate and conservative Democrats who threatened opposition last week over the bill's price tag and other issues.