Our nation’s health care system is broken and in urgent need of repair. We need to figure out how to insure the 47 million Americans living without coverage, fix what’s broken with our current system, and rein in the skyrocketing insurance premiums that far outpace our wage growth.

Three fundamental areas of health care reform need urgent work: reforming Medicare to link doctors’ pay to quality of service, not quantity; guaranteeing patients’ access to primary care doctors; and ensuring that people do not need to exhaust their savings to qualify for Medicaid and long-term care.

Our congressional delegation has made some headway. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell has already succeeded in including a Medicare reform proposal in committee and is pushing for proposals that will increase the number of primary doctors in the workforce and improve the availability of long-term care.

I agree wholeheartedly with Sen. Cantwell’s proposals and urge Congress to include them in any reform package.

State Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Anacortes
40th Legislative District