Now, two years ago, we acted to extend health coverage to up to five million children.  Now we should go beyond that.  We should make it easier for small businesses to offer health insurance.  We should give people between the ages of 55 and 65 who lose their health insurance the chance to buy into Medicare.

And we should continue to ensure access to family planning.  No one should have to choose between keeping health care and taking a job.  And therefore, I especially ask you tonight to join hands to pass the landmark bipartisan legislation proposed by Sens.  Kennedy and Jeffords, Roth and Moynihan, to allow people with disabilities to keep their health insurance when they go to work.

We need to enable our public hospitals, our community, our university health centers to provide basic, affordable care for all the millions of working families who don’t have any insurance.  They do a lot of that today, but much more can be done.  And my balanced budget makes a good down payment toward that goal.  I hope you will think about them and support that provision.

Let me say we must step up our efforts to treat and prevent mental illness.  No American should ever be able—­afraid ever to address this disease.  This year we will host a White House Conference on Mental Health.  With sensitivity, commitment and passion, Tipper Gore is leading our efforts here, and I’d like to thank her for what she’s done.  Thank you.  Thank you.

As everyone knows, our children are targets of a massive media campaign to hook them on cigarettes.  Now, I ask this Congress to resist the tobacco lobby, to reaffirm the FDA’s authority to protect our children from tobacco and to hold tobacco companies accountable, while protecting tobacco farmers.

Smoking has cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars under Medicare and other programs.  You know, the states have been right about this.  Taxpayers shouldn’t pay for the cost of lung cancer, emphysema, and other smoking-related illnesses, the tobacco companies should.

So tonight I announce that the Justice Department is preparing a litigation plan to take the tobacco companies to court and with the funds we recover to strengthen Medicare.

Now, if we act in these areas—­minimum wage, family leave, child care, health care, the safety of our children—­then we will begin to meet our generation’s historic responsibilities to strengthen our families for the 21st century.

Today, America is the most dynamic, competitive, job-creating economy in history, but we can do even better in building a 21st century economy that embraces all Americans.

Today’s income gap is largely a skills gap.  Last year, the Congress passed a law enabling workers to get a skills grant to choose the training they need.  And I applaud all of you here who were part of that.

This year, I recommend a five-year commitment to the new system, so that we can provide over the next five years appropriate training opportunities for all Americans who lose their jobs and expand rapid response teams to help all towns which have been really hurt when businesses close.  I hope you will support this.