The governor shouldn't hold his breath. If the companies had an economic incentive to offer affordable plans, they would already have done it. But the current system offers disincentives. That's why it must be reformed in a way that draws all people into a universal insurance pool and causes them to pay into it. Obviously, no one could be denied coverage.

The governor's posturing is political theater. He probably anticipates that the insurance companies won't suddenly find it in their economic interest - bless their profiteering little hearts - to offer affordable coverage. Then he can say to the Legislature, "Well, we gave them an opportunity to help solve the problem, but they left us no choice. We must proceed to mandates."

Of course, the health-insurance crisis reached that point two decades ago, but there you go. Remember, this is political Kabuki, not reality.

We suspect that the governor also is trying to convince legislators, most of whom believe as an article of faith that the private sector is the solution to all problems, to open their eyes and see that, in this case, the private sector, that is, the insurance industry, is not the solution to the problem. The private sector is the problem, or at least a big part of it. Another difficulty is the rules under which the insurers operate, which actually induce them not to cover the people who most need it.

We do not pretend to have all the answers to health-insurance reform. But we are convinced that any reform must include universal coverage and universal buy-in. Otherwise, health-care costs will continue to be shifted from those without coverage to those with it. The simplest way to achieve that would be a single-payer government plan. But there may be alternatives that could employ the private sector to do what it does best: compete to contain costs and drive innovation.

A possible solution is to mandate that everyone buy coverage. The "m" word is offensive to many legislators, but it seems to have worked pretty well with no-fault car insurance, which the state mandates that everyone buy. It eludes us why that lesson should not be applied to health insurance.