WASHINGTON — The mammoth task of reforming the U. S. health care system took steps forward Tuesday on Capitol Hill and at the White House, and Rep. Brian Higgins and Michael W. Cropp, president of Independent Health, got a close-up view.

Higgins and other Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee met with President Obama to discuss the issue as key House committee chairmen released an outline of their efforts to develop legislation.

Meanwhile, Cropp and other managed- care industry leaders met with Obama aides, and Senate Democrats announced plans to begin work on a health care bill next week.

The effort aims to extend coverage to 50 million uninsured people and to control costs in an industry that makes up more than 15 percent of the American economy.

“I’m very confident we’re going to get legislation this year,” said Higgins, D-Buffalo.

As for the health officials who met with Obama aides, “we came forward and said we are not only accepting of change, but we embrace it,” Cropp said.

Optimism about health reform is building because the three House committees with jurisdiction over the issue — Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor — are working together.

“This solution will fulfill President Obama’s commitment to provide quality, affordable health care for all,” said the statement from the committee chairmen.

The House outline proposes requiring Americans to have health care coverage but would let them keep their current insurance if they want. It also would establish a public health plan to compete with private insurers.

Also on Tuesday, the Democratic leadership of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee introduced a health care bill similar to the House outline, although it includes no specifics about the government insurance plan.

“We still have a lot of work ahead of us and are looking forward to working with our colleagues on a bipartisan basis,” said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who will be heading health care hearings in the absence of the committee’s chairman, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who has a brain tumor.

Republicans uniformly oppose including a public insurance option in the bill.

“Unfortunately, the draft bill that Democrats released today is a partisan wish-list that will put us on the road to government-rationed health care,” said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo.

In his meeting with White House aides, Cropp said he and other industry officials outlined best practices they have used that could be incorporated into the reform effort.

But Cropp said he opposed establishing a new public health insurance plan.

“It would make it nearly impossible to have a level playing field” between the government insurance plan and private insurers, Cropp said.

Higgins said he is open to the concept of the public plan, so long as it pays for itself.

The Buffalo lawmaker told the president about his own proposal for making sure that newer, cheaper cancer treatments don’t lose out to older, more profitable options.

Obama told the lawmakers that history would judge them based on the outcome of the health care debate, which, Higgins said, has to be resolved this year while the impetus for change is at its strongest.