Hillary Clinton has been touring the country with her daughter, Chelsea, talking about “The Book of Gutsy Women.” But she took time to talk with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the DealBook conference about, among other things, health care, impeachment and the 2020 election. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.

I want to talk to you a little bit about health care, because I know it’s an issue that you care so much about, and have thought a lot about. Because we seem to be in a very divided world, not just among two different parties, but even within the Democratic Party. “Medicare for all” versus public option — you look at what Elizabeth Warren presented and you think what?

I think that the debate within the Democratic Party is a very healthy debate to try to figure out how to achieve the goal of covering everybody with quality, affordable health care, O.K.? My view on this, having been working on it for many years now, is that the Affordable Care Act took us to 90 percent of coverage, the highest we’d ever gotten in our country, after many, many efforts, including the one I was involved in, you know, more than 25 years ago.

We have a 10 percent gap to fill, and we have a lot of learning to do about the best way, not only to fill the gap, but then to drive down costs as much as it’s possible to do so, without undermining quality advancements. O.K. So I believe the smarter approach is to build on what we have. A public option is something I’ve been in favor of for a very long time. I don’t believe we should be in the midst of a big disruption while we are trying to get to 100 percent coverage and deal with costs, and face some tough issues about competitiveness and other kinds of innovation in health care.