It was a cold Friday morning in late January - hardly the time of the week you'd think many people would show up for a town hall meeting with their senator. But when I walked into Goodwin College in East Hartford at 8:30 a.m. for the first stop on my “Connecticut Prescriptions for Change” tour, some 700 people were waiting to make themselves heard on the same subject: the need to reform our health care system.

Over the next few months, as I traveled around the state listening to people talk about health care reform, at every stop and whatever the time, people were desperate to share their ideas and their anxieties and the sentiment was unanimous: We need reform and we need it now.

Health care costs are rising faster than our economy is growing, crushing family budgets and businesses alike. Already Americans spend 18 cents of every dollar on health care. If we continue down this path, that figure will double by 2040. This week, we learned that 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies were caused by medical problems. And today, nearly half of all home foreclosures are attributable, in part, to financial issues stemming from medical costs.

We've clearly reached a tipping point. Today, some 46 million Americans are without health insurance - including more than 322,000 in Connecticut; millions more have insurance that costs too much and covers too little. Meanwhile, premiums and out-of-pocket costs for individuals and families alike continue to skyrocket. Here in Connecticut, they're up 42 percent over the last eight years alone.

That's not only unacceptable - it's completely unsustainable.

This week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will put forward a historic health care reform proposal. As a senior member of that committee, I've been asked by its chairman, Sen. Edward Kennedy, to help lead these efforts, working with President Barack Obama and our congressional colleagues.

For me, the bottom line is that we need to preserve the ability for people to choose their own doctors, hospitals, and insurance plans. If you like what you have, you can keep it; if you don't, you'll finally have affordable options available to you. In my view, that must include a public health insurance option in addition to private options.

Almost equally as important, the bill must drive down costs for families, businesses and government alike. The Council of Economic Advisers just found that if we shave a mere 1.5 percent off the growth of health care costs each year, families will have thousands of extra dollars in their pockets to spend on a down payment for a first home or to send a child to college. Small businesses, which pay higher premiums than larger businesses, will have more affordable choices they need to compete and innovate. Reducing costs is absolutely essential to getting our economy back on track.

Thirdly, we need to expand coverage. Eighty-six million Americans go without coverage at some point every year; millions more live in fear that they may lose their job and with it their health insurance. Failing to cover everyone costs the average family in Connecticut $700 every year.

At one event in Connecticut, I met a mother terrified about what losing her health insurance could mean for her disabled toddler's future. At another, I spoke with a cancer survivor who now pays as much for her health care as she does for her mortgage because her husband passed away from leukemia and she lost his employer-sponsored health insurance.

Stories like these remind us that we need to insist upon tough protections for consumers.

That is why a top priority for me will be putting an end to unfair practices that make insurance unaffordable or unattainable for American families. No longer will people be denied coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition such as a heart attack, cancer, or because they were a victim of domestic violence. And the days of rescinding a policy after it has already been issued will be over.

We have tried to do this before - in 1994 - but were unsuccessful because we had a host of opposition lined up against us. Today, some of the very same people who torpedoed those efforts are now at the table, sharing ideas and proposing solutions for our health care crisis.

This is the moment for health care reform.

With a new president, a new coalition and a real sense of urgency, I believe 2009 will be the year that change begins.