CEDAR RAPIDS - No federal stimulus bill will make the recession disappear overnight, but Sen. Tom Harkin is confident that the recovery package "will slow the downward dynamics and stabilize the economy."

There's no more important part of the $787 billion economic recovery package than the "down payment" on health care reform, he said Friday during a stop at Mount Mercy College, where 20 percent of students are in the nursing program.

The Iowa Democrat said the impact will be almost immediate in some areas, such as preventing the loss of jobs among public employees, and there will be more construction jobs this summer.

"I would hope that by this winter, early next year, you'll begin to see some real benefits from this," he said.

Some people are going to see the benefits sooner. Rita Robinson of Cedar Rapids, who was laid off after more than 11 years at McLeodUSA, will see her health insurance premiums fall from $310 a month to $108 because of a 65 percent tax credit in the stimulus package. She has been paying for her own insurance since being laid off in December through the federal COBRA plan that allows laid off workers to continue their health insurance.

"It's still a lot, but it's a great savings," Robinson told Harkin.

There's more savings and benefits if Congress takes up President Obama's challenge to have a health care reform package on his desk before the August recess.

"Basically, what we did in the stimulus package was to make a down payment on health care reform, which, by the way, we are going to do this year," he said.

Harkin remembers the unsuccessful attempt at health care reform in 1993-94, but said there are big differences. Now, business, insurance and labor are looking to Congress for reform.

Harkin is leading an effort to boost funding for prevention and wellness "because the best way to get health care costs under control is to keep people healthy in the first place."

"We have to make prevent and well the centerpiece of this health care reform," he said. "If all we're going to do is jiggle around how you pay and who pays and how many people are covered, we will have failed the American people."

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Contact James Q. Lynch at (319) 398-8375 or at james.lynch@gazcomm.com