WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- President Barack Obama returned to a familiar recent theme in his weekly address to the nation -- namely, that Congress must craft health-care legislation that lowers costs, ensures that consumers have choices and delivers access to quality, affordable health care. The need for reform is "urgent," Obama said, echoing the message he conveyed to congressional leaders at the beginning of the week. "What we can't welcome," he said, "is reform that just invests more money in the status quo -- reform that throws good money after bad habits." Estimates are that doing nothing, Obama said, would mean that one dollar of every five earned goes for health care within a decade. "Everyone's health care would be put in jeopardy," he said. From the standpoint of the federal budget, Obama vowed that health-care reform can be paid for via "vigorous spending reductions and appropriate additional revenues" and by rooting out waste, fraud and abuse.


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