It is hard to miss the irony in the fact that the very same week that Republicans were publicly heralding Congressman Paul Ryan's plan to inject market forces into the American health care system, they were crafting a budget deal to strip them from the health reform law.
It's correct that I wanted health reform to do more to create choices and promote competition.
I agree with just about everyone in the reform debate when they say 'If you like what you have, you should be able to keep it.' But the truth is that none of the health reform bills making their way through Congress actually delivers on that promise.
With a host of proposals on the table and a President examining new ideas for health reform, we have an obligation to give real reform our best shot.
Health reform is an essential part of restoring America's economy and maintaining our competitiveness.
But you say, does it represent change? The change is that we are fighting an insurance industry that has killed health reform for generations. They're spending tens of millions of dollars right now to defeat this bill, and we're on the doorstep of winning a great victory for the American people.
Look, all this is about is utilizing the rules of the Senate, using a majority of the senators, to make sure that we get health reform done. We cannot wait another day.
There are few tribes more loathsome than the American Right, and their vicious use of the shortcomings in the NHS to attack Barack Obama's attempts at health reform are a useful reminder.
There's a lot of work you have to do before you ever fire the starting gun on a health reform bill - doing the scut work with members of Congress, talking to your allies - to figure out the best plan.
Health reform is, in some ways, a microcosm to everything that's right about Washington and everything that's wrong about it.
Many of the received models of modern architecture and planning owe their ultimate origin to the building code and public health reform movements of the second half of the 19th century.
The Mental Health Reform Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2016. It was one of my proudest moments in Congress.
I'd never have guessed that, six years after Medicare introduced a drug benefit, it would still be forbidden to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies. Health reform might fix that, but it probably won't.
Health reform should be open and transparent.
Thanks to health reform, women across the country with private insurance can get birth control without paying out of pocket. This lets women make the health care decisions that are right for them and puts every one of us in charge of our own reproductive health.
There are some people who have had no pay rises for a very long time, and, working in highly skilled and highly responsible roles and in the health services and education, they deserve to be properly remunerated.
I think we need to make access to mental health services a priority in the obesity strategy, too.
If bringing up the next generation is important, why aren't they the best qualified, the best paid? Why aren't we as concerned about their career progression as we are about those who work in the education or health services?
If you're healthier, you tend to have a lower demand for health services.
Depression is a leading cause of ill health and disability, and many do not have access to mental health services and face significant social stigma around their disease.
