WA Insurance commissioner on health care: Reforms needed, fears overblown

This morning on radio station KUOW, Washington state Insurance Commissioner discussed the nation’s health care system, saying it’s unsustainable and badly in need of reform. He also said that many of the concerns being voiced at town hall meetings are overblown. Excerpt:

“I think that a single-payer system is something that, while certainly having some broad support with a lot of people in our society, is never one that’s going to be broadly applied to everybody in the country. Even if there might be cost advantages to it and you can come up with some pretty logical reasons why it would be preferable, politically it will never happen. We’re not Canadians, we’re not the English, we’re not the Swiss or the Germans or the French. We’re Americans and we’re going to come up with an American solution. Virtually every one of those countries built on the private system that they had that people were knowledgeable and comfortable with. That’s what we’ve got to do in this country. It’s a private insurance market. It’s an employer-based system. That’s what we have. We need to build on that.”

KUOW podcast over the interview is here.