Luckily, a few commonsense reforms would enormously expand access to affordable care within our existing system.

Right now, about five million uninsured Americans are eligible for employer-provided coverage -- but haven't taken advantage of the plans. To start addressing the accessibility problem, employers could begin enrolling their employees by default, with an opt-out option instead of an opt-in option. This would prevent new employees from going months without being enrolled. And it would cut down on confusing paperwork.

Lawmakers should also work to ensure that the 12 million Americans without health insurance who are eligible for Medicare or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program sign up for those programs.

Lawmakers also could expand access to private health insurance coverage by providing tax credits for part-time and low-wage workers to buy their insurance from private companies directly. In this system, health insurance would be portable, so there would be no disruption of service when a person changes jobs. Nearly 27 million of the 45 million uninsured U.S. residents worked at least part-time in 2007.

Expensive government-run health programs that provide shoddy service should not rob young voters of the hope that health care should be available to all Americans. We can start closing that idealism gap now by reforming public health programs and increasing direct access to private insurance.