Two interesting reads: an article in the Boston Globe and an editorial in the Seattle Times.

Our health care system is broken. Excess and escalating costs are unsustainable, uncovered individuals are being paid for by the rest of us, and the beat goes on. The new normal is our abnormal, perverse and out of control system. Care is all too often driven by factors other than best practices and rational use of resources.

Employers have somehow found themselves being responsible for paying for health care. Regardless of the historical antecedents to this reality, it lacks rationality. Employers do not directly pay for food, housing or education for their employees and their families – all equally essential to society. Why is healthcare alone an employer mandate? Why do we ignore what works elsewhere, or at least offers some interesting tradeoffs, when it is not invented here?

 One can reasonably argue about the best solution, but one is hard-pressed to claim that our current system is viable for any constituency on the mid-and longer term.

 Change is inevitable and overdue. One day we will look back on our times and wonder what were they thinking!