Ezra Klein on insurance reform

Ezra Klein is the best. He's got a couple good posts today, one on the malicious side effects of our perverse health insurance industry, and the other on our cutting off our noses to spite our faces in not giving immigrants health care, which is a disaster for public health.

His post on the insurance market is a link to news that it just became impossible in Washington State for many more people -- including people who've had breast cancer -- to buy insurance on the individual market. Ezra writes,

This is the real problem with reform plans that lack a full coverage component (be it a mandate, voucher systems, automatic enrollment in a national market, or whatever). The issue isn't the folks who will be uninsured, but the damage that does to your ability to reform how insurers work. To create a working market you need to create a fair market. And that means setting up the rules such that neither insurers nor individuals can game the system.

It's probably obvious I think people concerned with single-payer should just go to Ezra's site on a daily basis. He's the best.