Obama calls for universal health care within six years

Thursday, January 25th 2007, 10:32 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Every American should have health care coverage within six years, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday as he set an ambitious goal soon after jumping into the 2008 presidential race.

``The time has come for universal health care in America,'' Obama said at a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group.

``I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country,'' the Illinois senator said.

Obama was previewing what is shaping up to be a theme of the 2008 Democratic primary. One of his rivals, 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards, also said as he announced his candidacy last month that he will offer a proposal for universal health care.

Obama said while plans are offered in every campaign season with ``much fanfare and promise,'' they collapse under the weight of Washington politics, leaving citizens to struggle with the skyrocketing costs.

He said it's wrong that 46 million in this country are uninsured when the country spends more than any one else on health care. He said Americans pay $15 billion in taxes to help care for the uninsured.

``We can't afford another disappointing charade in 2008, 2009 and 2010,'' Obama said. ``It's not only tiresome, it's wrong.''

Obama's call was an echo of a speech he made last April when he said Democrats ``need to cling to the core values that make us Democrats, the belief in universal health care, the belief in universal education, and then we should be agnostic in terms of how to achieve those values.''

His argument Thursday not only will be considered through the prism of the presidential campaign, but weighed against rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's ill-fated plan to overhaul the health care insurance system when she was first lady.

Even after leading that calamitous attempt in 1993, Clinton remains a strong advocate of universal health care and has made it a central theme of her presidential bid.

``One of the goals that I will be presenting ... is health insurance for every child and universal health care for every American,'' she said at a community health clinic in New York Sunday, the day after entering the 2008 Democratic field. ``That's a very major part of my campaign and I want to hear people's ideas about how we can achieve that goal.''

Another candidate, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, also backs universal health care.