President Obama held a meeting Tuesday at the White House with 24 Senate Democrats to work on health reform. The meeting comes as Congress is currently working on drafting comprehensive reform legislation.
Obama also met with other leaders on Capitol Hill Tuesday to push health reform.
"This issue, healthcare reform, is not a luxury," Obama said in his opening remarks at the White House. "It's not something that I want to do because of campaign promises or politics. This is a necessity. This is something that has to be done."
Obama emphasized that soaring healthcare costs are unsustainable.
"If we don't get control over costs, then it is going to be very difficult for us to expand coverage. These two things have to go hand in hand," he said. "Another way of putting it is we can't simply put more people into a broken system that doesn't work."
The president promoted incentives for doctors who provide the best care, with an emphasis on wellness.
The senators invited to the White House were Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.); Tom Harkin (D-Iowa); Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.); Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.); Patty Murray (D-Wash.); Jack Reed (D-R.I.); Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.); Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio); Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-Penn.); Kay Hagan (D-N.C.); Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.); Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.); Max Baucus (D-Mont.); John D. Rockefeller (D-W. Va.); Kent Conrad (D-N.D.); John F. Kerry (D-Mass.); Blanche L. Lincoln (D-Ark.); Ron Wyden (D-Ore.); Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.); Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.); Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.); Bill Nelson (D-Fla.); Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Thomas Carper (D-Del.).
Also on Tuesday, the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) issued a report entitled "The Economic Case for Health Care Reform." Christina Romer, chair of the CEA, said the rise in costs for businesses alone is enough to demonstrate how imperative the issue is.
"Years of diagnosis on the ills of the U.S. health system have produced no cure," she said. "Healthcare expenditures in this country are currently 18 percent of GDP and, without change, will keep rising, until they account for nearly one-third of our total output by 2040."
Romer noted that health reform would impact GDP, the deficit, unemployment, standard of living, and the labor market.
Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-NY), the chairwoman of the House Committee on Small Business said the report is further evidence that spiraling healthcare costs not only make it more difficult for small firms to provide coverage to their employees, but lessen their competitiveness and stifle entrepreneurship.
"Small business growth will be necessary if we are going to see a real economic recovery with sustained job creation, but that cannot happen until we address the looming healthcare crisis," Velázquez said.