Key Congressional leaders say they are "ready to roll" on passing healthcare reform legislation early next year.
At a Thursday briefing hosted by Families USA, Michael Myers, on staff for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass), said key Democratic Congressional leaders have been laying groundwork since summer on healthcare legislation in anticipation of president-elect Barack Obama's victory. Their plan is to draft a single bill as soon as possible using Obama's blueprint, he said.
Myers said there won't be the usual efforts to have a number of bills so that various lawmakers can take credit Ð rather, there will be single-minded goal to get something passed.
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said healthcare won't take a back seat in the 111th Congress.
"We have won an election. We now have to proceed to govern," he said. In a Nov. 6 e-mail to House Democrats, he listed broad healthcare reform as his top priority.
Dennis Rivera, chairman of SEIU Healthcare, said the union stood behind the Obama campaign with the intent of getting healthcare reform and is now determined to keep it in the forefront. "If we do not take this issue up early on in the Obama administration, it will have the potential of not passing. That's our concern," he said.
Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said 73 percent of the voters who chose Obama in this week's presidential election said healthcare was their top priority. "On no single issue was there a greater discrepancy on how people voted," Pollack said. "Healthcare unavoidably is going to be on the national agenda."
Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners, said the public has a short attention span, and waiting three months for Obama to be sworn in will seem like a long time to wait for change.
The public is "going to want to see some action," she said.
According to exit polls conducted by Lake Research Partners, two-thirds of the people who voted for a candidate based on healthcare reform as a top priority said they are willing to pay more taxes to make it happen, and half said they would support federal involvement.
Some have argued the economy will take precedence over healthcare. But according to Myers, healthcare reform is no longer a freestanding issue.
"It's about the economic recovery itself," he said. "It needs to be a part of the health of our economy in the future."
Myers said he is aware of "a lot of Republican interest," and work across the aisle will commence in earnest now that the election is over.
"We will be taking up discussions very soon to build a coalition, both inside Congress and out, to push this through," he said.