Nowadays, everyone seems to think that America’s health-care system is a mess. That’s why Barack Obama is expected to quickly revamp this system, given his change speech during the presidential race. However, people do not expect major changes in a hurry, but they do expect the new president to attend the issue, even if the nation’s economic problems are taking center stage for Obama. He talked about the benefits of a single-payer system, where competition among insurance companies is eliminated, and one agency is put in charge of administering health coverage and paying providers.

A local group from California, the Butte County Healthcare Coalition, has promoted a single-payer system for years. Several of its members told the Enterprise-Record that they expect incremental changes from Obama and they believe the single-payer is the only fix for America’s health-care system. The term “universal health care” can have different meanings. To some people, it means everyone has health insurance of some sort, but it should mean that everyone has access to the care they need, and the single-payer is the only way to achieve it.

Other people think that it’s a mistake to get rid of insurance companies, because that would eliminate what health care needs more of – competition. Democratic senators Ted Kennedy, Max Baucus and Ron Wyden, have all proposed their own health-care plans, all of which limit insurance companies’ profits and prevent the firms from denying people coverage. Whatever his decision may be, Barack Obama has the overriding task to restore the strength and confidence of the American health-care system. It’s clear that the best programs are the simple ones and they must have a clear justification not just for the numbers crunchers but in terms of what is fair and who deserves it.