In his Jan. 1 In Focus column, Mike Lawrence correctly said that the American health care system is a mess. He recounted his own experience with the British system, finding it better. He expressed confidence that the Affordable Health Care Act, coupled with tort reform (yes!) and systematic rationing of health care would solve our problem. But this overlooks one important consideration -- the British and American governments are being bankrupted by entitlement programs. More and bigger entitlement programs are not the answer.

The British and American systems are like having your car insurance company pay for oil changes. How much would an oil change cost if your car insurance paid for it? How much would it cost if a government program paid for it? Health savings accounts (HSAs) make the consumer responsible for controlling costs by connecting them with cost reality.

If we are looking outside of the U.S. for answers, Singapore provides a much better model than Britain. Considered one of the most effective systems in the world, it's based on HSAs coupled with catastrophic coverage and a safety net for the poor. Singapore adopted this system after scrapping their failing British-based model.

Dave Brown, Richland