I think it's worth it for the American people to get a good health bill.

My goal is universal coverage.

I think you have to have a universal coverage goal.

More working Hispanics are uninsured than any other group of Americans.

Their action follows more than a year and a half of debate and discussion in town hall meetings, in doctors' offices, hospitals, and around kitchen tables.

We've got to cover everybody.

We ought to cover everybody with private insurance, and we ought to have insurance reforms that deal with preexisting conditions.

I want to emphasize today that what I seek, contrary to the attacks, and what you have sought, is not a Government-run health system, it's a private insurance health system that covers everybody.

It's also not fair for people whose children are born with an illness or who develop an illness not to ever be able to get health insurance.

The only way to fix it, ever, is to provide health care security for all of our people.

The truth is, if you have a chain of food stores, like the one I visited today, and they cover their employees, they're at a competitive disadvantage to people who don't.

Women avoid preventive care because they're afraid of having records of preexisting conditions that will deny them insurance coverage.

By next Mother's Day we never have to worry about the health of our mothers being cared for.

How can a pro-family country say pregnancy is a preexisting condition?

We have got to try to reform this system to try to help people stay healthy and take care of them when they're sick.

Every one of you has got somebody living in your city, even if you live in a really small town, who's had somebody in their family that's been sick.

When it's all said and done, the people of this country are going to have health care, or they're not.

We believe that we have to keep Medicare but that we have to recognize that the present system is heavily tilted toward institutionalized care.