Please demand health care reform

Regardless of inattention at the federal level, believe me Health Care is the one true domestic crisis that is a crisis. It is a time bomb. Just ask anyone who goes without health care or who holds on to a job they hate just because it has health care. This is a bipartisan issue completely. Equality/morality/ethics aside (which of course should always be considered), think of what these people are not contributing at a social and economic level because they are either not healthy or cannot pursue their calling for fear of going without insurance. Give this serious consideration because I guarantee with the status quo these people will be you and I if they are not already. Paul Krugman of the New York Times begins with the facts and will have more in the coming weeks.

Well-informed business executives agree. A recent survey of chief financial officers at major corporations found that 65 percent regard immediate action on health care costs as "very important."

And why, try tremendous loss of competitive advantage. Unstable and hyper-inflationary costs. Don't think they're not considering axing your insurance benefit or moving your job to another (read any other) country in the world.

First, America's traditional private health insurance system, in which workers get coverage through their employers, is unraveling. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that in 2004 there were at least five million fewer jobs with health insurance than in 2001. And health care costs have become a major burden on those businesses that continue to provide insurance coverage: General Motors now spends about $1,500 on health care for every car it produces.

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Finally, the U.S. health care system is wildly inefficient. Americans tend to believe that we have the best health care system in the world. (I've encountered members of the journalistic elite who flatly refuse to believe that France ranks much better on most measures of health care quality than the United States.) But it isn't true. We spend far more per person on health care than any other country - 75 percent more than Canada or France - yet rank near the bottom among industrial countries in indicators from life expectancy to infant mortality.

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To get effective reform, however, we'll need to shed some preconceptions - in particular, the ideologically driven belief that government is always the problem and market competition is always the solution.

The fact is that in health care, the private sector is often bloated and bureaucratic, while some government agencies - notably the Veterans Administration system - are lean and efficient. In health care, competition and personal choice can and do lead to higher costs and lower quality. The United States has the most privatized, competitive health system in the advanced world; it also has by far the highest costs, and close to the worst results.

If you currently have health care, you better start talking and demanding action now. You won't have time to when you don't have health care.