It took a little over a decade to build a coalition strong enough to beat the insurance companies, but in 1990, then Senator Tom Daschle and I passed a law regulating the private market for supplemental Medicare insurance policies.

This house better get cleaned up in six months. The swamp is going to have to be drained pretty quickly.

Americans don't want to hear the answers are privileged and off limits or they can't be provided in public or it would be inappropriate for witnesses to tell us what they know. We are talking about an attack on our democratic institutions and stonewalling of any kind is unacceptable. General Jeff Sessions acknowledged that there is no legal basis for this stonewalling.

When I was 27 years old, I organized legal aid clinics to help low-income seniors. It was a life-altering experience.

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.

I think if progressives stay at this, continue at the grassroots level to make the case that all Americans should have choice, all Americans ought to be able to hold insurance companies accountable, I think we will have 60 votes in the United States Senate for a strong bill.

Since 1994, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have considered it politically risky to offer a plan to fix America's broken health care system. The American public, though, has paid the price for this silence as health care costs skyrocketed, millions went uninsured, and millions more grappled with financial insecurity and hardship.