Health reform next on Obama's agenda

By GottaLaff

Speaking of Ted Kennedy:

President Obama will host a White House summit on health reform next week, he said Monday, signaling that he means to push forward aggressively on an issue some thought would fall by the wayside. [...]

Democratic lawmakers, led by Senate committee chairmen Edward Kennedy (Mass.) and Max Baucus (Mont.), have been developing health reform legislation for months -- thus far without active leadership from the White House.

But by scheduling a White House summit on health reform in early March, Obama is sending a clear message to Congress and the public that he is not setting aside his ambitious health care agenda. The president also is expected to tout health reform in his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday and in the budget outline he will release Thursday.

At the fiscal reform summit, Obama and members of his administration highlighted the importance of reducing health care costs to the economic recovery. [...]

Keying off previous remarks by the president, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag connected health care costs to entitlement reform. "To my fellow budget hawks in this room and in the rest of the country, let me be very clear: health care reform is entitlement reform. The path of fiscal responsibility must run directly through health care," Orszag said. "We also must recognize that reforms to Medicare and Medicaid will only succeed in the context of slowing the spiraling growth of overall health care costs."

Let the bickering begin.