Obama: Health Reform This Year

Calming the worries of liberal activists and Democratic committee chairman alike, President Obama declared that he is determined to push ahead with comprehensive health reform this year.

“[L]et there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year,” Obama said during an address before a joint session of Congress Tuesday night.

Since Obama won election in November, key Democratic committee chairmen such as Sen. Edward Kennedy (Mass.), Sen, Max Baucus (Mont.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) have asserted they want to move health reform this year.

But with Obama occupied with the struggling economy and his health agenda damaged by the ignominious departure of his pick for health czar, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), the optimism of health reform advocates has been challenged.

By emphasizing healthcare so prominently in his first address before Congress, Obama signaled that he intends to be aggressive on health reform.

In a telling turn of phrase, however, Obama suggested that he may not go as far as many liberals would like him to. Like during his campaign, he declined to describe his health reform plan as “universal.”

Instead, Obama described his health agenda as “an historic commitment to comprehensive healthcare reform