America is once again confronting a health care crisis. Let me just highlight a few numbers that tell the story: Medical insurance premiums are skyrocketing at double-digit rates. America's pharmaceutical bill has been rising at 14 percent to 18 percent a year. The nearly $400 billion that federal and state governments spend a year on Medicare and Medicaid is straining the public purse. Some 40 million Americans are without health insurance, and hundreds of thousands more will join their ranks as employers eliminate costly coverage in a slow-growth economy. The nation is projected to spend some 16 percent of gross domestic product on health care in 2010, up from 13 percent currently, and 7 percent in 1970.

Little wonder a frantic version of the blame game is being played these days. Greedy drug companies, heartless managed care firms, and insatiable consumers of technology are a few of the common, although wrongly accused, culprits. Yet lost in all the rhetoric about out-of-control costs is the fact that rising health-care spending is not quite the devil it's made out to be. Over the years, increased medical spending has improved the quality of everyday life and generated a lot of economic growth to boot. And as medical advances open up new cures and the population ages, Americans may well want to spend a lot more of their money on health care—not less.

For one thing, the health benefits often outweigh the medical costs. One economic study found that the net economic benefit of treating heart attacks was some $60,000. Another researcher delved deep into the returns on medical technology and medical care spending in recent decades. The bill to gain one life year was $11,000 in medical spending and another $1,300-plus in drug research and development. The economic value of a year of life: $150,000. Even Warren Buffett would be jealous of that return.

For another, medicine ranks high among America's most technologically innovative and globally competitive industries. The sector employs more than 9 million workers. That said, it's time for a major rethinking of health care finance. The patchwork quilt of employer-based private insurance, public programs, and non-profit organizations is badly torn. Now, major health care reform has moved to the top of the political agenda six times over the past century. But each time the political climate eventually proved inhospitable to creating a universal system that provided access to basic medical care to all citizens regardless of income. The political will isn't there to do much more than tinker around the edges. But the pressure for fundamental change will push health care reform back into the headlines. And it's about time, too.