Reid: Health care reform a necessity

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that reforming health care has become increasingly important as the economy has become more dire and that Congress must take up the issue.

"People ask me, 'With the economy the way it is, how can you afford to do anything about health care?' I say, how can we afford not to?" the Nevada Democrat told reporters during conference call announcing a new report that finds more than one-third of Nevadans under 65 went without health insurance at some point during the last two years.

President Barack Obama has built $640 billion for health care into the budget Congress is currently wrangling over, and lawmakers working on the issue have said they could have reform legislation ready as early as this summer.

"We need to make sure we keep our eyes on the prize," Reid said. "Not only is it the right thing to do, but it's the smart thing to do."

But Reid made no commitments about the final form health care legislation could take. Asked about two potentially controversial aspects — whether there should be a government-run insurance option available for people to choose, and whether people should be required to buy insurance — he said it was too soon to get into details.

"I don't think at this stage we should take any single thing off the table," he said. "It should all be there and we should work our way through it. ... I don't favor anything (specific) right now. I favor health care reform, nothing specific. That would be getting way ahead of ourselves. We have to hold a lot of hearings. The secretary of health and human services hasn't even been sworn in yet."

According to the report released today by the national nonprofit group Families USA, about 841,000 Nevadans went without health insurance in 2007-2008. More than three-quarters of that number were uninsured for at least six months.