Medical disenfranchisement is fueled by a host of factors that include worsening shortage of primary care doctors in needy communities and a troubling scarcity of providers willing to treat the uninsured or publicly insured. Adding to the trend are fewer medical students choosing primary care over more lucrative and specialized fields.

In the Affordable Care Act, Congress provided access to medical care for nearly 30 million uninsured Americans. Access is critically important, but offering access to an already broken system won't provide a lasting cure. We need to ask and answer the underlying question: Access to what?

In our own state, we came up with, I think, what was a very novel approach to closing the gap on the uninsured. To harmonize medical records - which was a major step in getting costs out of the system.

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.

Instead of forcing everyone to buy health insurance, Congress should pass a law protecting the uninsured from being charged more than the insurance companies are for a given service.

High-quality health care is not available to millions of Americans who don't have health insurance, or whose substandard plans provide minimum coverage. That's why the Affordable Care Act is so important. It provides quality health insurance to both the uninsured and underinsured.

Too many Americans who are uninsured or under-insured do not receive regular checkups because they can't afford coverage or their insurance doesn't cover enough of the costs. The lack of preventive care results in countless emergency room visits and health care disasters for families.

Our health care system is the finest in the world, but we still have too many uninsured Americans, too high prices for prescription drugs, and too many frivolous lawsuits driving our physicians out of state or out of business.

In our own state we came up with I think what was a very novel approach to closing the gap on the uninsured. To harmonize medical records - which was a major step in getting costs out of the system.

If you're under 26 you can stay on your parents' plan. You can go back to school or get extra training without fear of a health catastrophe bankrupting your family. Over three million previously uninsured young adults are now on their parents' plans.

Our health care system is the finest in the world but we still have too many uninsured Americans too high prices for prescription drugs and too many frivolous lawsuits driving our physicians out of state or out of business.

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.