María Elvira Salazar: “I rise to support the effort we have on the floor to address a national health care imperative, which is providing…”

“I rise to support the effort we have on the floor to address a national health care imperative, which is providing health insurance to 10 million young people in our country today. For me, when I come to this Senate every day and speak on behalf of the millions of people in my State of Colorado and around the country, I think about the biggest issues we are faced with, the biggest challenges of our time, the imperatives of the 21st century, and there are three in my mind. First is the questions we face in terms of foreign affairs and how we protect America and homeland security. We will have other occasions where we will deal with the fundamental issue of protecting America and making sure our homeland is secure. We took significant steps last week in that direction when we adopted the 9/11 Commission recommendations. The second issue is how we move forward and embrace a clean energy economy for the 21st century. The third issue that I think is an imperative of the 21st century is how we take the health care crisis we have--a system which is not working for the people today--and fix it.”