Lamont made his remarks at an upbeat campaign stop at Naples Pizza. He spoke one day after the Massachusetts legislature overwhelmingly passed a near-universal health care plan supported by Democrats and Republicans, business and progressive activist groups alike. (Click here to learn more about that plan.)

"I salute Massachusetts for trying to do something on health care. I haven't heard anyting from Sen. [Joe] Lieberman [the man Lamont hopes to replace in the Senate] since he was dismissive of Hillary Clinton" during the ill-fated attempt to pass national health care reform in 1993.

Lamont singled out Republican Gov. Mitt Romney for supporting the Massachusetts plan. "But I have a different strategy," he added. "I come at it as a small businessman."

The Massachusetts plan requires individuals to buy health care, under penalty of law, the way drivers must purchase car insurance. Lamont disagreed with that part of the proposal. Instead, he called for more mandates on employers to offer insurance

"Health care is a university right that should be guaranteed for everybody in this country," he said. "you know who'suninsured in this country? People who work 40 hours a week."

At the same time, he proposed federal help for businesses to deal with the ever-spiraling cost of health care. He'd like small businesses to be able to buy into pools that obtain lower-cost care available through programs like Medicare. And he'd like the federal government to subsidize business's health-care costs directly.

That would help businesses compete better in the global economy, Lamont argued.

"There's no way our manufacturers can compete if we have to spend $2,000 per car on health care," he said, "when across the border in Canada they don't have to."

More than 45 million Americans don't have health insurance, an estimated 400,000 of them in Connecticut. Click here to read the latest data on Connecticut's broken health-care system.