John Aravosis of AmericaBLOG has what strikes me as one of the encapsulations of the health care reality that I’ve read. Aravosis writes:

Our health care system is being run by thieves. These people don’t care if you stay healthy or get better, they’re the nasty chairman of the board on House a few seasons back who was simply interested in making money, nothing more.

Democrats need to keep reminding themselves that the problem isn’t just costs. The problem isn’t just the uninsured. The problem is that all of us are bought into a system that doesn’t work. And even those of us who make a good salary for a living (well, in other years) will be in serious trouble if we ever come down with any serious illness that requires $2000 a month in prescriptions (such as MS or HIV).

We need a fix that doesn’t just add more people into a bad system. We need more people in a better system. And the better system needs to benefit everyone, not just the poor, not just the middle class.

This really resonates with my views on health care and the need for reform. It’s not just about covering more people, but giving all Americans coverage that works, that meshes with the reality of treating acute illnesses or chronic diseases. Unless and until we can have a health care system that addresses Aravosis raises in this passage, we will not have an adequate health care system in America. What’s unfortunate is that the volume of opposition to any reform is so strong that anything is likely to win out over the right things when it comes to what is actually done.

The metric for success that the administration and stakeholders should be using when assessing the adequacy of any reforms that are considered should not be how many more people get coverage who don’t currently have it, but if we’ll need to pass another round of reform in the foreseeable future to fix what was not achieved in this round of legislation.