Obama's discussion in Colorado on health care included the following points:

"First of all, what we’re proposing is a common-sense set of consumer protections for people with health insurance, people with private insurance. I expect that after reform passes, the vast majority of Americans are still going to be getting their insurance from private insurers. So we’ve got to have some protections in place for people like Nathan, people like you.

So insurance companies will no longer be able to place an arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive or charge outrageous out-of-pocket expenses on top of your premiums. That’s what happened to Nathan and his wife. Their son was diagnosed with hemophilia when he was born. The insurance company then raised the premiums for his family and for all his coworkers who were on the same policy. The family was approaching their cap.

And so on top of worrying about taking care of their son, they had the added worry of trying to find insurance that would cover him â€" plus thousands and thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs. Nathan and his wife even considered getting a divorce so that she might possibly go on Medicaid.

Now thankfully, Colorado’s law doesn’t allow coverage for small businesses to permanently exclude preexisting conditions like his son’s, so eventually they found insurance. But they’re paying increasing premiums and they still have to face the prospect of hitting their new cap in the next few years.

Those are the stories I hear all over the country. I heard from a teenager in Indiana diagnosed with leukemia. The chemotherapy and intensive care he received cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. His family hit their lifetime cap in less than a year. They had insurance. So the insurance wouldn’t cover a bone marrow transplant and the family couldn’t afford all the money that was needed. The family turned to the public for help, but the boy died before he could receive that transplant.

If you think that can’t happen to you or your family, think again. Almost 90 percent of individual health insurance policies have lifetime benefit limits. And about a third of family plans in the individual insurance market have lifetime limits under $3 million. If you or your spouse or your child gets sick and you hit that limit, it’s suddenly like you have no insurance at all.

And this is part of a larger story, of folks with insurance, paying more and more out of pocket. In the past few years, premiums have nearly doubled for the average American family. Total out-of-pocket costs have increased by almost 50 percent â€" that’s more than $2,000 per person. And nobody is holding these insurance companies accountable for these practices. And by the way, your employer is paying even more, and you may not even see the costs of it except for the fact that’s why you’re not getting a raise â€" (applause) â€" because it’s going into your health care instead of your salary and income.

So we’re going to ban arbitrary caps on benefits. We’ll place limits on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses. No one in America should go broke because they get sick. (Applause.)

Now, insurance companies will also be stopped from cancelling your coverage because you get sick or denying coverage because of your medical history. (Applause.) Again, if you think this has nothing to do with you, think again. A recent report found that in the past few years, more than 12 million Americans were discriminated against by insurance companies because of a preexisting condition. When we get health insurance reform, those days will be over. And we will require insurance companies to cover routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies. That saves money; it saves lives. (Applause.)

At the same time â€" I just want to be completely clear about this; I keep on saying this but somehow folks aren’t listening â€" if you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan. Nobody is going to force you to leave your health care plan. If you like your doctor, you keep seeing your doctor. I don’t want government bureaucrats meddling in your health care. But the point is, I don’t want insurance company bureaucrats meddling in your health care either. (Applause.)

So just to recap here, if you’re one of nearly 46 million people who don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options. If you do have health insurance, we will help make that insurance more affordable and more secure. Under the reform proposals that we’ve put out there, roughly 700,000 middle-class Coloradans will get a health care tax credit. More than a million Coloradans will have access to a new marketplace where you can easily compare health insurance options; 87,000 small businesses in Colorado will be aided by new tax benefits, so when they’re doing the right thing for their employees, they’re not penalized for it. (Applause.) And we will do all of this without adding to our deficit over the next decade, largely by cutting waste and ending sweetheart deals for insurance companies that don’t make anybody any healthier. (Applause.)

Now here â€" if you don’t â€" I know there’s some skepticism: Well, how are you going to save money in the health care system? You’re doing it here in Grand Junction. (Applause.) You know â€" you know that lowering costs is possible if you put in place smarter incentives; if you think about how to treat people, not just illnesses; if you look at problems facing not just one hospital or physician, but the many system-wide problems that are shared. That’s what the medical community in this city did, and now you’re getting better results while wasting less money. And I know that your senator, Michael Bennet, has been working hard on legislation that’s based on putting the innovations that are here in Grand Junction into practice across the system, and there’s no reason why we can’t do that. (Applause.)

So the fact is, we are closer to achieving reform than we’ve ever been. We have the American Nurses Association, we have the American Medical Association on board, because America’s doctors and nurses know how badly we need reform. (Applause.) We have â€" we have broad agreement in Congress on about 80 percent of what we’re trying to achieve. We have an agreement from drug companies to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors â€" $80 billion that can cut the doughnut hole that seniors have to deal with on prescription drug plans in half. (Applause.) The AARP supports this policy, and agrees with us that reform must happen this year.

But look, because we’re getting close, the fight is getting fierce. And the history is clear: Every time we’re in sight of reform, the special interests start fighting back with everything they’ve got. They use their influence. They run their ads. And let’s face it, they get people scared. And understandably â€" I understand why people are nervous. Health care is a big deal. In fact, whenever America has set about solving our toughest problems, there have always been those who’ve sought to preserve the status quo by scaring the American people.

That’s what happened when FDR tried to pass Social Security â€" they said that was socialist. They did â€" verbatim. That’s what they said. They said that everybody was going to have to wear dog tags and that this was a plot for the government to keep track of everybody. When JFK and then Lyndon Johnson tried to pass Medicare, they said this was a government takeover of health care; they were going to get between you and your doctor â€" the same argument that’s being made today.

These struggles have always boiled down to a contest between hope and fear. It was true when Social Security was born. It was true when Medicare was created. It’s true in today’s debate.   ..."