Do we need comprehensive health-care reform?

I know President Obama wants this to be his signature achievement. But he hasn’t yet persuaded me that America needs to radically overhaul its health-care system.

I’m willing to bet reform won’t happen. Maybe it shouldn’t happen.

The people pushing hardest for it are leftists who embrace the ideology of government control of markets (not to mention “soaking the rich”). Leftists such as the folks at MoveOn.org and the Huffington Post class warrior Jason Linkins.

But Barack Obama knows he can’t sell reform to the American people as a matter of wealth redistribution.

That’s why he hardly mentions the uninsured any more. He’s trying to talk the talk of middle-class populism, saying we must control the “skyrocketing costs” of health care.

Question one: Why is it the government’s business to “control” the cost of health care, as opposed to the cost of food, clothing, gasoline or movie tickets?

Question two: How will a trillion dollars in new public spending “control” the skyrocketing cost of health care?

This morning on “Meet the Press,” NBC’s David Gregory did a good, tough interview with Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s health secretary. (It’s embedded below.) She did not state a clear, compelling case for health-care reform.

If any readers have given thought to this issue and would like to explain it to me, please let’s carry this discussion to the comments section.