Now that some kind of reform to the nation's health-care system is conceivable, a massive assault on the effort is under way by those who want to protect profits or see President Obama fail.

In one television advertisement designed for maximum fright effect, a woman who says she's Canadian warns that she would have died waiting under her nation's health-care system so she came to the United States for brain surgery. The ad attacks a straw man. Obama isn't seeking to institute a national single-payer health plan like Canada's, nor does any such plan have a ghost of a chance of passage.

Many ads - and some Republicans in Congress - are repeating, ad nauseum, that what's under way is a government takeover of health care. That is not true either. The government will not employ doctors, dictate treatment or eliminate private insurers. It must, however, take steps to control the health-care costs that are strangling families and crippling employers. That will require a turn away from fee-for-service medicine, which makes providing unnecessary care profitable.

Reform opponents are trying to convince the public that they will be worse off if changes are made. Some even oppose the use of the comparative effectiveness studies, research pioneered at Dartmouth College by Dr. Jack Wennberg. The studies are done to determine which treatments or medications work best. Opponents say it could lead to rationing, which, in this case, means a refusal to pay for health care that doesn't work. But that's exactly what must be done if Wennberg is right that one-third of all the money Americans spend on health care is wasted.

What will the 90 percent of Americans who have health insurance get from health care reform? The biggest benefit will be hard to measure: relief.

People purchase insurance for peace of mind. The current rapacious system no longer offers that to even those with excellent coverage. Lose your job and, unless you can pay the full cost of a new policy or afford COBRA payments for the old one, you could be one illness or accident away from bankruptcy. An affordable, portable health-care system, one that offers subsidies to help those who fall on hard times, will put an end to the fear that getting ill means going broke.

Here are some other benefits:

• People trapped in jobs they don't like because a better one may not offer health insurance will get a chance to change. And if health care cost increases are slowed, employers might have the money to hire people and give decent raises again.

• Potential entrepreneurs, fearful of leaving jobs that offer health insurance, will get the freedom to engage in the kind of innovation that drives the economy.

• If done right, the insured will be spared the nasty surprise and financial hardship caused by treatments or procedures that, as the fine print on the policy that no one reads until after the bill arrives explains, aren't covered.

• Those who are underinsured or paying exorbitant prices because of pre-existing medical conditions will certainly see savings. But, particularly if the reform package includes a public plan that has no need to make a profit or spend heavily on marketing and administrative costs, so will most people. That's exactly what for-profit insurers fear. But the goal of health care reform isn't to keep insurers in business. It's to cover everyone, improve health, and reduce the health care costs that are killing America's ability to compete globally. Those costs have more than doubled in the past decade. If they double in the next one, everyone will go broke.

Correction

Friday's editorial on the U.S. Senate vote to eliminate funding for seven additional F-22 Stealth fighter planes reversed the votes of New Hampshire Sens. Judd Gregg and Jeanne Shaheen. Gregg voted with the majority to cut funding for the planes, a decision we applaud. Shaheen, unfortunately, voted to build them. (next page »)