The legislation would establish a Citizens Health Care Working Group that will conduct meetings across the country seeking public input on what people want in terms of health care reform and what they are willing to pay for.

Out of this process, the Working Group will write a report to Congress. The relevant Congressional committees will then be given six months to develop legislation that reflects the conclusions of the report. If the committees fail to act within six months, any member of Congress could force a vote.

In a recent speech at the National Press Club, Sen. Wyden said the time for the legislation is now.

“I believe Congress has the best opportunity it has had in years to enact meaningful health reform,” he said.

For one thing, Sen. Wyden said, the new Senate leader, Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has a longstanding interest in health policy. Moreover, he said, the public is fed up with inaction on issues that should have been resolved years ago, and there is growing evidence that the need for broad reform is urgent.

Sen. Wyden said the legislation must be moved quickly if health care reform is not to get lost in the crush of Congressional business. “I believe the heavy lifting must be done in the first six months of the 108th Congress,” he said.

It is difficult, Sen. Wyden said, to get action on health issues during the last months of a session, adding that by the August recess, another presidential campaign will be underway.

Sen. Wyden said the goal of the legislation is to let the American people know that with one-seventh of the economy on the line, their voices will be heard first on health care reform, not as an afterthought.

Reforming health care, the senator said, will require tough choices. “Im convinced that if Congress gives the public the facts, people will be willing to think hard about a system that literally means life or death to them, and then make the difficult choices that are necessary,” he said.

Three major groups that rarely agree on health care issuesthe American Association of Retired Persons, the AFL-CIO and the United States Chamber of Commerceall announced support for the Wyden-Hatch legislation in a joint statement.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, January 20, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.