While the term health-care reform is generally used, what really is being negotiated is health-insurance reform. No congressional bill is perfect, but I believe the current proposals go a long way toward ending the monopoly of the health insurance companies.

Only by including a public option, or in reality an extension of Medicare, can true competition be established. People with pre-existing conditions, people who have had their insurance arbitrarily terminated when they need it most, people who found out only too late that the insurance they had does not cover all of their needs, will now have a way of being protected.

Keep competition alive

Also, private health insurance companies will not and should not go away. They will reinvent themselves and come up with products that will still appeal to many people. That is what true competition is all about.

Those who complain about a government takeover of medicine forget that Medicare is a government-funded health system administrated through private health insurance companies. Medicare has been active for more than 40 years, and except for Libertarians who want to do away with it, I know of no group that advocates its demise.

Expand the shared risk pool

To make the currently proposed system work and to bring costs down requires that as many people as possible be insured. It has to be a shared risk pool, but it means that our children and their children need not fear for lack of the availability of health care or that health care will force them into bankruptcy. It will help save countless lives and reduce suffering. The passage of the currently proposed legislation will be as important as the original Medicare legislation.

Rise above your self-interest

Those House representatives and senators who have risen above self-interest to truly work for the benefit of the American people deserve all of our credit. Generations will be eternally grateful to them. They are on the right side of history.

The position and proposals of the Campaign for Liberty are all a rehash of the Libertarian ideology that is totally out of step with the needs and desires of the vast majority of the American people. They offer a complex list of fanciful proposals that will only bring chaos and not solve problems.

Marvin B. Brooks, M.D., has served as the founding physician and senior attending urologist at Eisenhower Medical Center since 1971. He participated in the recent Town Hall Discussion sponsored by The Desert Sun and AARP. E-mail him at SBROOKSPSP@aol.com