Obama sets goal of health care for all Americans

[Ron Burgundy]

Reuters - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) said on Thursday every American should have affordable health care coverage within six years, calling for end to the "disappointing charade" of debate on the issue.

"In the 2008 campaign, affordable, universal health care for every single American must not be a question of whether, it must be a question of how," Obama said at a meeting of Families USA, an advocacy group for health care consumers.

"We have the ideas, we have the resources and we must find the will to pass a plan by the end of the next president's first term," he said.

Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, said promises on health care routinely collapsed after campaigns ended, breeding cynicism among voters about whether anything would be done to help nearly 47 million uninsured Americans.

"We can't afford another disappointing charade in 2008," he said. "It's not only tiresome, it's wrong."

Obama joins a growing field of Democratic presidential contenders who have endorsed universal coverage, including rivals John Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Obama, one of eight Democrats in the 2008 White House race, said he was preparing a comprehensive health care plan. He rejected arguments that universal health care would be too costly.

"Caution is what's costly," he said, adding it was time to act. "This isn't a problem of money, this is a problem of will."

Obama is expected to formally launch his presidential bid in his home state of Illinois on February 10.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070125/pl_nm/usa_politics_obama_dc [link]