"Europe may not be a bad thing"

The frustration with access to care in the U.S. has forced health insurance to the top of the domestic policy agenda for next year's presidential campaign. Today's Wall Street Journal has a front page story documenting one family's struggle to obtain help for a rare, inherited disease that affects the tissues that hold joints together. The story concludes with the 52-year-old woman contemplating moving to Belgium, where she would not only have access to one of the world's leading researchers, but would get her care paid for without hassles from insurance companies. The husband is given the last word:

Mr. Calder, whose father was a doctor and mother was a nurse, grew up believing the U.S. health-care system was the best in the world. But he says his wife's struggle has eroded that faith. "I've actually turned around to where I'm thinking, 'Yeah, Europe may not be a bad thing.'

In last night's Democratic debate, the leading candidates attacked each other for minor differences in each other's health care plans, all of which save one rely on extending private insurance to cover the uninsured. None of those plans will end the problems of people like Mrs. Calder. Only Dennis Kucinich backs a European-style single-payer system, where the extraordinary costs of treating rare diseases can (not necessarily will, since a government-run plan can decide to be just as stingy as a private insurer) get spread across the entire population.