"The president believes right now the place for him to be is in Washington seeing this through," Gibbs said.
Obama had already delayed the trip to Indonesia and Australia, pushing back a Thursday departure until Sunday so he could help Democrats on Capitol Hill rally last-minute votes for the plan.
Gibbs said that while White House staff had tried to find a way to push the trip back another few days, the scheduling difficulties quickly made it clear that "the best course of business was to reschedule Indonesia and Australia until June."
House Democrats believe they are on track to vote Sunday on a $940 billion health care bill that will expand coverage to millions.