WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama told Congress Tuesday night that healthcare reform must be addressed this year. In his first speech to a joint session of Congress, he called for a three-pronged approach to saving the economy that includes healthcare reform and investments in energy and education.

It is time to confront "the crushing cost of healthcare," Obama said.

Healthcare causes a bankruptcy in America every 30 seconds and could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes this year. In the last eight years, premiums have grown four times faster than wages, and in each of these years 1 million more Americans have lost their health insurance, according to the president. 

Healthcare is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas. And it’s one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of our budget, he said.

"Given these facts, we can no longer afford to put healthcare reform on hold," Obama said in remarks that drew a standing ovation.

The president said he recognizes there will be differences of opinion. He is calling a summit of healthcare stakeholders next week to include businesspeople, workers,  healthcare providers, Democrats and Republicans to begin laying the groundwork. He called for an end to "governing out of anger" and "yielding to the politics of the moment."

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said he hopes the president's speech marks a new kind of bipartisan leadership and an end to the "we-won-the-election attitude" of Democratic leaders in Congress.  

Obama's healthcare reform plan calls for public-private health insurance, while Republican reforms would strive to create a more affordable healthcare system in the current market.

The economic stimulus package, passed Feb. 13, makes a down payment on healthcare reform, according to the majority of Democrats and three Republicans who supported it. It includes $19 billion toward healthcare IT advancement and more than $100 billion in other healthcare measures.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will also fund preventive care and research.

The stimulus package  includes $44,000 in incentives for qualifying Medicare providers and $63,750 to qualifying Medicaid providers for certified electronic health record adoption. The law provides more than $30 billion in EHR adoption incentives through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Justin Barnes, chairman of the Health Information and Management Systems Society's Electronic Health Record Association, said he expects private payers to follow the administration’s lead and create certified EHR adoption programs and incentives.

"We have never had a president so committed to financially and strategically removing the waste and inefficiencies from our nation’s healthcare system while utilizing technology such as EHRs to increase care quality and control costs," Barnes said.

Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and founder of the Center for Health Transformation, agreed with the president's urgency. ''We need real change in our healthcare system," he said.

The key will be whether Obama calls for government-centric or patient-centric reform. A reform plan would also need to include effective measures for addressing Medicare fraud, which accounts for billions of dollars a year, Gingrich said.

Photo by jurvetson and obtained under Creative Commons license.