U.S. President Barack Obama told a healthcare summit on Thursday that he was planning to launch a reform to address the issue by the end of 2009.

US President Barack Obama delivers opening remarks at the White House Forum on Health Reform, Washington, D.C., March 5, 2009. [Xinhua]

"Our goal will be to enact comprehensive healthcare reform by the end of this year," the president said to an audience of about 120 medical doctors, patients, health insurance providers and lawmakers at the White House.

According to the White House, the summit was held to learn from the past healthcare reform efforts, and seek possible approaches to change the costly and inefficient healthcare system in the country, which is undergoing the worst economic meltdown since 1930s.

"Health care reform is no longer just a moral imperative, it is a fiscal imperative," Obama said. "If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, then we must address the crushing cost of healthcare this year, in this administration."

Compared to the previous reform launched by the Clinton's administration in the 1990s that was aborted due to heavy criticism from insurance and drug companies, Obama said that his reform would be different because "this time, the call for reform is coming from the bottom up, from all across the spectrum -- from doctors, nurses and patients; unions and business; hospitals, health care providers and community groups."

US President Barack Obama speaks in the East Room of the White House while participating in the White House Forum on Health Reform in Washington, March 5, 2009. [Chinadaily.com.cn/agencies]

Since his presidential campaign, Obama has been persistent with his resolution to launch a reform to realize the universal health insurance coverage and reduce the cost.

Official statistics show that US healthcare costs have grown to 2.5 trillion US dollars annually but there are still about 46 million people without insurance.

According to a report by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the U.S. spending on healthcare reached 2.1 trillion US dollars in 2006.

The number was estimated to hit 2.25 trillion dollars by 2007 and reach 4.3 trillion dollars annually in a decade, meaning that about 20 cents of every dollar spent in the U.S. economy will be spent on healthcare by 2017, it showed.

(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2009)