For socially conscious health care reform advocates, the primary goal of reform is to see that every individual receives the health care that he or she needs, But what has really driven the reform process has been the concern over the very high costs of health care that have challenged individuals, employers and the stewards of our government health programs.

Uninsured trauma patients are more likely to die than insured patients in spite of the fact that treatment is mandated by law. This study did not explain the reasons for the differences.

Peter Hussey and his colleagues at RAND, in their NEJM article, try to make the case that a “bundled payment” approach would be one of the most promising options for controlling health care spending. The Prometheus model of bundled payment, described the other NEJM article cited above, would shift the risk for preventable costs from the payer to the providers of health care services.

How about that! A conservative Republican who has decided that single payer is the best way to go. Wow!

From the very start, the two most important goals for reform allegedly were to cover everyone and to control health care costs. But the precondition that reform be based on an expansion of private health plans within our dysfunctional, fragmented financing system immediately eliminated universal coverage as a goal. It proved to be impossible to balance all of the variables in this dysfunctional system to ensure that everyone would be covered. So they gave up.

How can we continue to support a fragmented, dysfunctional financing system that allows some of our veterans (not to mention tens of thousands of others of us) to die merely because we have placed a higher priority on nurturing the private insurance industry than we have on improving access for everyone through a more effective health care financing system? Our veterans. How can we let them down like this?

eHealth is ready to become the nation’s broker for private health insurance. Watching the two minute video at the “Ready to Connect” link above will demonstrate just how ambitious their plans are.

The fact that single payer got so far along in the House is a testament to the strength of our single payer movement. The huge number of calls by single payer advocates in support of single payer and the Weiner amendment in recent days have been noted by several members of Congress.

There is no person more qualified to discuss health system design than William Hsiao.

Of the many flaws in the very expensive and highly inefficient model of health care reform that Congress has selected, one of the more important is the financial impact that it will have on middle- and upper-middle income individuals and families. Let’s look at the example of a family of four with a very good income: $102,100.