In our own state we came up with I think what was a very novel approach to closing the gap on the uninsured. To harmonize medical records - which was a major step in getting costs out of the system.

If you're under 26 you can stay on your parents' plan. You can go back to school or get extra training without fear of a health catastrophe bankrupting your family. Over three million previously uninsured young adults are now on their parents' plans.

Our health care system is the finest in the world but we still have too many uninsured Americans too high prices for prescription drugs and too many frivolous lawsuits driving our physicians out of state or out of business.

I think that we have a number of different health care challenges in our country and certainly addressing the uninsured is one and the second is making sure that those with health insurance actually get the care that they assume they'll have available to them if they get sick.

Since 1994 lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have considered it politically risky to offer a plan to fix America's broken health care system. The American public though has paid the price for this silence as health care costs skyrocketed millions went uninsured and millions more grappled with financial insecurity and hardship.