President talks health care reform

GREEN BAY - President Barack Obama brought his push for health care reform to a crowd of more than one thousand supporters at Southwest High School.

"It's time to give every American quality health care at an affordable cost," said the President.

Obama said his administration is working on the creation of something called a "Health Insurance Exchange."

It would allow Americans to one-stop shop for a health care plan, compare benefits and prices, and choose the best plan.

President Obama said none of the plans would be able to deny coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions.

"Every plan should include an affordable basic benefit package. And if you can't afford one of the plans, we should provide assistance to make sure you can," said President Obama.

He said another option should be a public insurance option.

"The reason is not because we want a government takeover of health care, I said if you have a plan already that works for you, that's great, but we want competition. If the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and help keep prices down," the President said.

The President said reform will cost money--but says the administration has already identified hundreds of billions of dollars of savings in the federal budget. Savings that will come from steps like reducing Medicare overpayments to insurance companies, and stopping fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid.

As Congress moves forward on health care legislation, President Obama says he welcomes debate, but he will not accept denials or delays.

"I know there are some who believe that reform is too expensive, but I can assure you that doing nothing will cost us far more in the coming years," said President Obama.

After speaking for about 20 minutes, President Obama took questions from the crowd.

One man asked about a timeline on all of this. President Obama said he is calling on Congress to get something on his desk by October.

The President said if something is passed yet this year, families should see immediate relief on some issues.

However, the President said total reform will take about four to five years.