Kathleen Sebelius

The premium tax credit that is in the Obama plan is exactly that - it is a tax credit, and it isn't cash. It is a discount on the amount that you pay for an individual policy based on your family size and your income.

There are people in this country who have waited for decades for affordable health coverage for themselves and their families.

Global health issues remind us - perhaps more than any other issue - that we are all children of the same extended family.

More than five million seniors have already saved money on their prescription drugs, and almost 33 million have benefited from free preventive services. The president cracked down hard on Medicare and health care fraud, recovering a record-breaking $10.7 billion over the last three years, protecting our seniors. That's what change looks like.

Insurance companies can no longer refuse to cover Americans with pre-existing conditions. That's what change looks like.

The Democratic plan in the 'Affordable Care Act' has, I would say, more government support, more government regulation around trying to protect the finances of individuals, trying to protect people who had pre-existing conditions, making sure that they could actually be in an insurance market and not set off to the side.

But the dollars spent on economic incentives and new investment strategies are wasted unless we seriously address the two most important economic issues in Kansas: education and health care.

I believe we all agree that, for the health of Kansas, nothing is more important than education.

In many ways, human health is the great global connector.

We have by far the most expensive health system in the world. We spend 50 percent more per person than the next most costly nation. Americans spend more on health care than housing or food.

If you're self-employed, between jobs, or can't get insurance through work, you'll have access to affordable health insurance as good as Congressman Paul Ryan's.

Although black and white Americans live, work, and learn together now, there is still injustice in America.