All Americans should have health care coverage within six years.

That’s the position of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who set this ambitious goal soon after jumping into the 2008 presidential race.

“The time has come for universal health care in America,” Obama said at a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group.

“I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country.”

According to CNN, Obama is previewing what is shaping up to be a theme of the 2008 Democratic primary - and beating other advocates to the punch.

His chief rivals, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), also are strong proponents of universal health care and have promised to offer their plans. Clinton championed the universal health care crusade during her husband’s first term as president, though no measure ever made it to the House floor.

Obama said while plans are offered every campaign season with much fanfare and promise, they collapse under the weight of the bureaucracy, leaving citizens to struggle with skyrocketing medical care costs.

He said it’s wrong that 46 million in this country are uninsured when the country spends more than any one else on health. He said Americans pay $15 billion in taxes to help care for the uninsured.

“We can’t afford another disappointing charade in 2008, 2009 and 2010. It’s not only tiresome, it’s wrong,” Obama said.

Obama’s call was an echo of a speech he made last April, when he said Democrats need to remain true to the core values that make them Democrats - the belief in universal health care and universal education.

His argument Thursday not only will be viewed through the prism of the upcoming 2008 campaign, but weighed against rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ill-fated plan to overhaul the entire health care insurance system when she was first lady.

Even after leading that calamitous attempt in 1993, Clinton remains in favor of universal health care and has made it a central theme of her presidential bid.

“One of the goals that I will be presenting … is health insurance for every child and universal health care for every American,” she said at a community health clinic in New York Sunday, the day after entering the 2008 Democratic field.

“That’s a very major part of my campaign and I want to hear people’s ideas about how we can achieve that goal.”

On Thursday, she criticized President George W. Bush’s proposal, outlined during the State of the Union address, to make health care more affordable through tax breaks, arguing it would lead to less funding for hospitals.

Addressing the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Mrs. Clinton was self-deprecating in describing her own experience in the health care debate, joking that Bush would need some heavy-duty protection as he wades into the fight.

“I welcome his participation in the health care debate. I’m going to send him a suit of armor because I know anybody who puts a foot in the health care debate is gonna need that. I’ve got the scars and experience to show for it,” she said.