The Kerry proposal presented.(Health Care 2004: You Decide)

John Kerry understands that our health care system faces important challenges and it will require national leadership to meet them.

The number of people who do not have health care coverage is going up, overall health care costs are going up, and the cost of prescription drugs is going up. Sen. Kerry will provide real leadership so we can make reliable, quality health care affordable for all.

More than 44 million Americans do not have health care coverage, and most of them are hardworking people in middle class families. That is a moral shortcoming--and it is also bad economics.

People who do not have health care coverage still receive medical treatment. They just receive it in the wrong place--often the emergency room--and at the wrong time, often after a minor condition has become a major problem.

When that happens, we all pay the cost in increased hospital costs or we pay in taxes for public programs--such as the end-stage renal disease portion of Medicare. That program alone will cost about $20 billion this year and is growing rapidly.

John Kerry has a plan to make sure all Americans have the quality health care coverage they deserve.

Under his plan, the government would pick up 75% of the costs above approximately $50,000 for a catastrophic illness, which would lower a family's health insurance premiums by up to $1,000.