Universal healthcare: getting closer to critical mass

Via Steve Benen guest-blogging on Kevin Drum’s Washington Monthly site comes a reference to an excellent review of the healthcare situation in the LA Times by Ezra Klein, who has developed considerable expertise on the subject. The essential message that is catching on fast: the time for employer-based health insurance is long past.

The U.S. healthcare system cannot, in its current form, go on forever, or even for very much longer — employers can't afford it, individuals can't handle it and the country's conscience won't countenance it.

And change may come sooner than most think. Across the country there are unmistakable signs that the gridlock and confusion sustaining our sadly outdated system are coming to an end and that real reform may finally emerge, possibly even starting in California, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is promising to spend his upcoming State of the State speech explaining how he will push the Golden State closer to universal healthcare in the coming year.