It is an American myth that we get things done quickly. The truth is that the federal government can’t get health insurance right and the Rhode Island state government can’t get regionalization right.

As one who lived in Canada from 1971 to 1978, I witnessed the Ontario provincial government institute regional government in an orderly and efficient fashion from start to finish in a matter of a few years. I also had first-hand experience with the Ontario government’s user-friendly, single-payer health-insurance program that required employers to participate in the program.

We don’t need to “reinvent the wheel” with a lot of discussion or study on the need for regionalization or health-insurance reform. It has already been done for us by many developed countries. Take three or four of the best health insurance/health-care systems in the developed world, e.g., Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, etc., and tailor their features to our needs.

Look at Ontario’s regionalization of municipalities surrounding the metropolitan Toronto area in the 1970s.

It’s simple except for the fact that the current health-insurance program in the United States is a multibillion-dollar industry whose executives and stockholders will fight to the death to preserve their profits, and Rhode Island’s elected officials have been focused for years on doing favors for the few who are politically connected and continue to re-elect them. The world is passing us by. We are stuck in the mud of a backward-looking nation and state.

GERALD M. McCARTHY

Narragansett