Simple solutions to complex problems.

• Author: Adams, Tucker Hart
• Position: [the] ECONOMIST

My father was an engineer, and he always insisted on buying the simplest piece of machinery available, arguing, "The more complicated it is, the more opportunities there are for something to go wrong."

In listening to the various proposals to deal with the problems facing the U.S., I think that piece of advice from 60 years ago still applies. Take the health insurance issue, for example. There are various proposals wending their way through Congress, each hundreds of pages long. Everyone can find something with which to disagree.

The solution isn't complicated. First, it needs to be mandatory that everyone purchase health insurance. There is plenty of precedent. We already have to purchase auto insurance if we are going to get a car licensed, to pay into Social Security and Medicare.

This eliminates the voluntarily uninsured. Of course there will be people who can't afford the premium, just like there are people who can't pay for food or shelter. We'll have to provide subsidized insurance, just as we provide food stamps and subsidized housing. But this help will be available only to the truly poor.

And having to make payments on two cars and two televisions sets doesn't qualify a family for a subsidy. Maybe they have to manage with one car and one TV. My husband and I decided a couple of years ago, when the lease on our second car was up, to do our bit for the environment by getting by with one car. Sure, there are times when it is inconvenient, but with a little advance planning and cooperation it works, just as it did with my parents for their entire life and for my family for the first 1 5 years of our marriage.

I was in Georgia a few weeks ago at an engagement party for my grandson and his fiancee and had a chance to talk with lots of the currently uninsured--young couples in their 20s with good jobs who could afford insurance but choose not to purchase it because, as they told me, "We don't get sick, and we can afford to pay for our children's health care."

That may be true, but it leads to the problem of adverse selection, which occurs when only the riskiest purchase insurance, making it extremely expensive. When everyone pays a share, the price comes down for all--the young...