Every American deserves access to good quality, basic health care.

In almost every case, it should be affordable and access should be reasonable.

That's not the case.

If you are waiting for Congress to take care of this problem, good luck. The move to reform health care at the national level has the Obama administration swimming upstream as opposition the AMA, Republicans, Democrats, insurance companies and Americans who do not want socialized medicine becomes more powerful.

Private health care has become too expensive for many, and the idea of a government plan has visions of waste and incompetence dancing in the heads of many Americans.

The Tribune on Monday ran an Associated Press story titled "Don't get sick after June," describing the failings of the Indian Health Service, and there were many. It gave rise to letters to the editor suggesting the inadequate and dismal health care on the reservation would be the health care all Americans would enjoy if the government takes it over. What this says about race relations in North Dakota does not qualify as healthy.

The truth of the matter is that North Dakotans know a lot about providing rural health care. We've all seen the typical rural clinic and hospital failures, the stretched resources and services, and we've seen successes like the West River Health Services in Hettinger.

North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven should host a rural health care summit, one that includes representatives of the University of North Dakota's medical school and rural health experts, legislators, state agencies, representatives of the tribes, managers from Medcenter One, St. Alexius and West River Health Services, and other stake holders. The state will need an integrated system, whether the federal government decides to get involved in health insurance or not. And it's more likely, negotiating with the five reservations in the state, that North Dakota can create a system that addresses its own health care needs better than Washington can.

The health care problem here isn't just on the reservations. Many clinics and hospitals in small North Dakota communities are having a difficult time. They face escalating costs and shrinking numbers of residents. They face many of the same problems the Indian Health Service faces on Standing Rock, difficulty attracting and keeping doctors, maintaining state-of-the-art medical facilities and patients without or with inadequate insurance.

The state has had more than a little success dealing with complicated, complex problems in education, for instance, the higher education round table and the recent work on education adequacy for elementary and high schools. Perhaps we can do for health care what we've done for education.

Repeating the same failed strategies on health care and expecting a better result just will not suffice. Waiting for the federal government to take care of the problem isn't going to happen. Looks like we need to do it ourselves.