A civilized society needs sound and affordable health care and educational systems. This is simply because a civilized society needs healthy and well educated people to flourish. In our country, the health system is both expensive and broken. According to World Health Organization 2006 statistics, our country was No. 1 in terms of health care spending per capita but ranked only 39th for infant mortality and 36th for life expectancy.

Statistics are not the whole story, but at this level, they are certainly telling us something. To fix the health care system has become a matter of urgency, and it should therefore be addressed first. The education system is still not broken but it is not affordable to most. It should be the subject of our next big reform.

Pierre Bouchard, Ellicott City