Obama Prods Congress to Reform Health, Saying Window Could Close

President Obama urged Congress yesterday to push past their growing doubts and pass a comprehensive health-care reform package this year, saying that a better opportunity to remake the nation's health-care system may not arise for generations.

The president had urged lawmakers Friday to take bolder steps to achieve reform, and yesterday in his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama called the proposed overhaul essential not only to expanding health-care coverage to the 46 million Americans who lack it but also to restoring the nation's economic stability.

"This is an issue that affects the health and financial well-being of every single American and the stability of our entire economy," Obama said.

With the cost of health insurance increasing at three times the rate of wages in recent decades, Obama called the status quo unsustainable.

That fast-rising cost is crippling businesses, which are finding it difficult to afford coverage. It is also placing a burden on the state and federal governments, which see ever-larger shares of their budgets consumed by Medicaid and Medicare. In addition, individuals who lack coverage frequently find themselves at risk of being thrown deep into debt by a single medical emergency.

As bills to expand health-care coverage take shape in Congress, criticism has intensified because of their potential costs.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said that the proposals fall short of Obama's promise to slow the increase in health-care costs, leading critics to charge that those bills would only add to the nation's large budget deficits.

"That's simply not true," Obama said yesterday.

Reform is expected to cost at least $1 trillion over the next decade, and Obama has pledged to pay for it without adding to the nation's budget deficit.

He says the savings accrued by adjusting health-care incentives will eventually reduce medical costs and help tame the deficit.

"By helping improve quality and efficiency, the reforms we make will help bring our deficits under control in the long term," Obama said yesterday.

Rather than shy away from reform because of the difficulty, Obama said, Congress should seize the moment.

"This is what the debate in Congress is all about," he said. "Whether we'll keep talking and tinkering and letting this problem fester as more families and businesses go under and more Americans lose their coverage -- or whether we'll seize this opportunity, one we might not have again for generations, and finally pass health insurance reform this year."