As expected, President Obama yesterday said that lawmakers should not try to “jam through” a health reform bill before newly elected Republican senator Scott Brown goes to DC.  However, in his first interview since the Democrats lost their supermajority, Obama told ABC News that lawmakers should “move quickly to coalesce around” parts of the health-care bill that both parties can agree on.

“We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don’t, then our budgets are going to blow up and we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance to their families.”

One of the issues the president specifically mentioned is pre-existing conditions.  ”If you ask the American people about health care, one of the things that drives them crazy is insurance companies denying people coverage because of preexisting conditions. Well, it turns out that if you don’t … make sure that everybody has health insurance, … you can’t stop insurance companies from discriminating against people because of preexisting conditions.”

Recognizing that the process to overhaul health care has been less than efficient, Obama said “I wish we had gotten it done faster.”

Still no mention of issues that may help to garner votes from the other side of the isle to pass legislation, i.e. malpractice reform….