We Need to Fix Our Health Care System, Stat

Editor's Note: This will be the first in a three-part series looking at health care reform and how it might affect the presidential election and the future of health care in America.

Michael Moore's new movie, Sicko, should spark a conversation on health care reform. And we desperately need it to.

Beyond, and indeed before, the negative attention the movie has generated, our health care system has received constant attention in the press for all the wrong reasons: its failures. We have all heard the horror stories about people denied care and the soaring costs, but little has been done politically to change the health care system.

Do we really need change in our health care system? I believe so. Consider the following:

At the present time, more than 47 million people lack health care coverage in the U.S. This number is greater than the population of most Europe nations, and all of Europe has universal health care for its citizens.

Health care costs have soared. They are rising at a rate that's several times faster than inflation, according to page 11 of this Kaiser report, and growing faster than wages. Middle-class Americans have started to feel the pressure that the poor have known for years.

The squeeze in rising costs has also been felt by American businesses. According to the Kaiser report above, many entrepreneurs and small businesses cannot offer health insurance that's affordable to their employees, and large corporations find it increasingly difficult to compete globally against other industrialized nations.

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