Chicago, July 26 - Even as President Barack Obama deals with the opposition to his proposed health care bill, he found time to write to a Chicago-based Indian American about his vision of health care reform. Striking a personal note, the president wrote about how he watched his mother struggle with insurance forms during the last days of her life.

'Since I took office, we have done more to advance the cause of health care reform than we have in the previous decade,' the president wrote to Sunita Chopra.

'The rising cost of health care is the most pressing financial challenge for families and for our nation, and controlling this cost is essential to bringing down the federal deficits we inherited,' Obama added.

'There are tough choices to be made, and I will bring businesses and workers, health care providers and patients, and Democrats and Republicans together to create a system that delivers better care and puts the nation on a much sounder long-term fiscal path,' the letter states.

President Obama struck a personal note in the letter. 'I share the sense of urgency that Americans like you have voiced. I watched as my ailing mother struggled with stacks of insurance forms in the last moments of her life. This is not who we are as a nation: together, we will fix it (the health care system).'

Chopra was one of the many Indian Americans in Chicago who volunteered in Obama's presidential campaign. While expressing her support for Obama's efforts at health care reform, she said she had voiced her concern about the high cost of prescription drugs, specially for those with long-term health conditions.