Our goals for America also demand a higher priority for health care. One out of six Americans has no health insurance. The problem is becoming worse,… - Ted Kennedy

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Our goals for America also demand a higher priority for health care. One out of six Americans has no health insurance. The problem is becoming worse, not better. Increasingly, people with disabilities and other illnesses are being shut out of coverage. As the cost of care increases and jobs become less secure, more and more Americans are losing the coverage they have, and they fear that the sudden illness of a child or a loved one will bankrupt their family. As a result, too many too often go without the health care they need. In fact, those without health coverage are four times more likely not to get medical care than insured Americans. Lack of health insurance is the seventh leading cause of death in the nation today. Medical bills too often force the uninsured to default on their debts or lose everything they have. Inevitably, as medicine advances and as more and more medical miracles become available in this extraordinary new age of the life sciences, health care is increasingly beyond the reach of large numbers of Americans. America cannot have the best workforce in the world if we do not also have the healthiest workforce in the world. Our failure to guarantee health care is one of our greatest failures as a nation. More than ever, in our modern society, health security should be and must be a basic right for all. The battle for quality, affordable health care has never been easy. If it were, we would have enacted it a generation ago. But as the new spirit after September 11 calls forth the best in all of us, it challenges us to move forward to good health care for all Americans. We saw what could be achieved in education reform with genuine bipartisanship. There are disagreements on health policy, as there were and are on education. But at least we should be able to work together for goals widely shared by all Americans, and endorsed by both Presidential nominees in 2000.