The Economist on the Massachusetts Plan for Universal Access

"As was discovered by Hillary Clinton a decade ago, it is politically impossible to fix America's health-care system all at once. Congress is too angrily divided, and the federal government lacks the muscle to impose a grand vision on unwilling states. The riddle of how to provide health insurance for the 46m Americans who lack it will have to be solved by trial and error in the states. This week, Massachusetts offered an intriguing proposal. The state legislature passed a bill that would make health insurance compulsory. Just as everyone who drives a car must insure it, so everyone with a body must insure that, too. "