Our country faces the significant challenges of fighting two wars, nuclear proliferation, a fiscal crisis, rising debt, dependence on foreign oil, rising energy costs, and a failing health care system. We have a simple choice: Do we confront our problems head-on or do we continue to ignore them?

America spends nearly 50 percent more per person on health care than any other country. Health care premiums have doubled over the last decade. Medicare and Medicaid pose one of the greatest threats to our federal deficit.

We cannot accept a future where more and more Americans choose to die and forego health care because they can’t pay for it, where American business is not competitive with their foreign counterparts, where American business cannot afford to hire American workers, and where our American government goes broke shifting the burden to our children.

In Utah, nearly one-third (32.2 percent) of us went without health insurance for a significant period during the past two years and 84 percent of them were employed. Families’ benefits are eroding because they can’t keep up with higher premiums, co-pays and deductibles. Seniors are choosing to cut their medications due to the high cost of prescription drugs. People are staying in jobs they hate and are unproductive because their current job has health care benefits. And parents are skipping a doctor’s visit for their children because it’s just too expensive.

Health care costs are the single largest reason for bankruptcy. More than half of filers are financially ruined by medical bills, including many who had previously enjoyed a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, a good education, a decent job, and good health insurance. No matter how well off we are, we are all two illnesses away from bankruptcy.

Skyrocketing health care costs are robbing us of the choices we value most: How do I keep my family healthy? What can I do for a living? Where do I have to live? Can I still see my doctor? Can I afford the treatment the doctor recommends?

To put it plainly: our health care system is broken. Washington was beholden to special interests with politicians failing to make tough choices, imperiling our economy, our security, and our health. Thankfully, change has come to Washington.

President Obama is working in an open, inclusive, and transparent manner with members of Congress, hospitals, doctors, businesses and unions and seeking their best ideas regardless of their political background.

The President and Utah Democrats are committed to reform that builds on the existing American system and strengthens it, not radical reform replacing our system with something foreign. President Obama has consistently said that if a family likes what they have, they will be able to keep it.

President Obama has laid out three principles for reform: reducing rising health care costs for families, businesses and government; allowing all patients choice in their own coverage and their own doctor; and ensuring that quality, affordable health care is available to all Americans.

Working together, we can reduce long-term growth of health insurance costs, guarantee choice of doctors, invest in prevention and wellness, end barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, and ensure every American receives the health care they need. This reform will lead to faster economic growth, higher take-home pay for workers, greater employment opportunities, a more level playing field between small and large businesses, and deficit control.

The time to act is now.