The Case

America's health care system is broken. We devote more of our GDP to health care than any other industrialized nation, but more than 80 million Americans go without coverage over the course of a year.

Costs are rising because people are living longer and because expensive medical advances can prolong lives and cure diseases previously beyond reach.

Instead of advancing real solutions to the nation’s health care crisis, conservative political leaders have focused obsessively on protecting the corporate players in a system that currently leaves 47 million people uninsured and millions more underinsured. They have also pursued policies destined to reinforce their "you're-on-your-own" approach to health care and undermine the insurance coverage workers receive through their jobs.

Guaranteed, affordable and comprehensive health care is America's great, unfinished agenda. Creating a public health care plan, available to all Americans, would do away with the massive administrative waste of private HMOs and insurance companies.

High-quality, affordable health care should be a right not a privilege. The United States is spending more per person yet covering fewer of its citizens than any other industrialized country.