Also this week, calls for Obama to take immediate action on health-care reform were boosted when Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, released on Wednesday a comprehensive outline for guaranteed health insurance for all residents of the USA. With the exception of a stipulation for mandatory coverage for all individuals, Baucus’s plan is similar to Obama’s and could help convince Congress and the president-elect to take up the issue of reform during the first half of next year.

“In 2009, Congress must take up and act on meaningful health reform legislation that achieves coverage for every American while also addressing the underlying problems in our health system. The urgency of this task has become undeniable”, wrote Baucus.

Baucus and fellow members of the finance committee have already held nine hearings this year on health-care reform, and many experts suspect that early momentum is crucial going into the new presidential term. Still others believe reform impossible without a substantial economic turnaround, something that could take months, or longer.   Whether or not health care reform and economic recovery are mutually exclusive is a question that Congress and the new president will have to answer in-step and early in 2009. With so much at stake, delays could render reform terminally ill if Obama and Congress fail to act during what Senator Hillary Clinton—whose efforts at health care reform failed in the mid-nineties during husband Bill Clinton’s administration—has called “a honeymoon period”.

“The bottom line is that Americans are voting for change, and by that they mean they want to see a better life for themselves and their families and their country, and we’re going to have to produce that”, Clinton told reporter Karen Tumulty.          

Otherwise, the honeymoon between voters and their favourite new change agent could wind down – and rather quickly.

Obama has said he would first work toward creating economic stability and then on adopting a new renewable energy policy. Health-care reform would come third, he said. But Baucus’s new proposal, along with support of other senators— including Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate committee on health and a strong advocate for health care reform—may just be reason enough for the new president to take a second look at his list of short-term priorities. 

David Boddiger

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