There are good reasons to believe that Congress will pass healthcare reform legislation in 2009, although some “dealbreakers” could derail the process.

Dispensing this political wisdom at HIMSS09 was Charlie Cook, publisher of the Cook Political Report and political analyst at The National Journal Group. Cook spoke at a “Views from the Top” session on Tuesday.

“There is a general consensus in Washington that something needs to happen in the healthcare arena,” Cook said. He noted, however, that Tom Daschle, the former nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, had been the designated “healthcare quarterback,” and without him President Barack Obama could find it more difficult to pass healthcare reform legislation.

“(HHS nominee) Kathleen Sebelius, as a former governor, knows the Medicaid system, but she doesn’t know Congress like Daschle does,” Cook said.

Funding healthcare reform in the current economic climate could also be challenging for Obama, Cook said. In Washington, he said, one makes “new enemies” every time one seeks a new funding source.

Cook also indicated that cutting payments to healthcare providers and instituting a publicly run health insurance program to compete with private insurers would alienate key constituencies, possibly dooming reform.

“Obama has problems on both sides of the aisle,” Cook said. “We will probably see some sort of incremental healthcare reform. It will be less cohesive than you would like, but that’s how things work in Washington.”

Cook said that no president in recent memory has faced the challenges that Obama does, and the pace of economic recovery would determine the Democrats’ fate in the 2010 midterm elections.