As a civil and moral society we, the people, create institutions to do things that are done better together than as individuals. We don’t each build a piece of road in front of our homes, or independent paths to a grocery store. Because roads, schools, national defense, satellites, and countless other resources are of utmost importance to our continued existence, we the people collectively finance them. They are not free. We all pay toward them in the form of taxes, because it's impossible or unduly burdensome to do it individually.

How can we not look at health insurance in that same light? How could we have sold our health and financial well-being and allowed them to be traded like commodities? You cannot be pro-life and support a health insurance system that leaves millions uninsured.

Insurance companies have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits for their shareholders. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that based on our current economic model. From the insured person's point of view, the sole purpose of a health insurance company is to pay a medical bill if one gets sick. Paying a bill requires no innovation and very little skill other than verifying a bill is not erroneous or fraudulent.

Health insurance companies add one complexity: Risk. In other words, because there are several insurance companies and they all must make a profit, they must limit risk. Before Obamacare, risk was managed by making sure only the healthy could purchase affordable insurance. Before Obamacare, they had the ability to rescind policies. Before Obamacare, pre-existing conditions left many uninsurable. Before Obamacare, insurance companies could cap their payments. Before Obamacare, women paid more for health insurance than men did.

There are several health insurance companies, and each one must have its own CEO, CFO, board, advertising, shareholders, buildings, and staff. The cost of duplicating all these expenses is the reason why up to 20 percent of every post-Obamacare insurance premium dollar goes into someone’s pocket instead of into healthcare. We are asked to unlearn basic arithmetic in order to accept that the above system could somehow be less expensive or more efficient than a system where we all pay a premium to a single entity, which then pays the medical bill for those who get sick. Then there's no need for advertising, multiple CEOs and CFOs, multiples boards of directors, and shareholder expenses.

Obamacare left several evils within our healthcare system. Insurance companies are still dictating health care. Insurance companies determine which drugs they will and will not pay for. Insurance companies decide which doctors you can see. The reality is that health insurance companies are a clear and present danger to the physical and economic well-being of Americans.

Drug companies continue to gouge Americans under the pretense that the exorbitant cost for drugs (which are often researched with taxpayer dollars) ensures more research and better drugs in the pipeline. That is patently false. Is Clarinex any better than Claritin? Does anyone believe Daraprim, a very old drug, should be allowed to be sold for $750 per pill when it used to be $13.50 before an immoral CEO decided to hold sick Americans hostage?

During the Affordable Care Act debate there was a public option that would have simulated a single-payer system, with no unnecessary overhead. Lobbyists were successful in getting it removed because had it made it into the act, it would soon have become clear that the public option would be less expensive than any given plan. Obamacare would have morphed into a single-payer system by attrition. That would not have solved all the structural problems. However, it would have been a solid start. Drug companies would have taken notice, as they would be next.

There are several different pathways to reach the same goal, but what's most important is that the paths are built. Obamacare is a path built with gravel and sand, and it's better than the muddy road of years past. As drivers demand smoother rides, they won’t yearn for a return to the mud paths again. They will demand paved roads. Americans will not go back after tasting the possibility of health care and health insurance as a right. This is why the GOP continues to fight the battle against Obamacare, hoping that just maybe they can kill it before it metastasizes.

Obamacare is extremely imperfect. But its genius isn't that it solved the problem in its entirety—its genius is that it made reverting to an immoral health care system untenable. That is, if Americans don't succumb to misinformation.