If any Mainers needed a reminder about why we need to reform the nation's health insurance system, the insurance industry is helpfully providing one.

Employers who offer health insurance in their benefit plans are getting their rates for next year, and as the consumers who buy their insurance on the individual market found earlier this year, it's not a pretty picture.

Double digit increases are common, some as high as 25 percent. Companies are considering scaling back benefits, even dropping them completely, adding to the rolls of the uninsured and underinsured. This situation is not sustainable and it won't be fixed with minor adjustments.

Opponents of health care reform warn against monkeying with what is equivalent to one sixth of our economy. But rather than a reason to avoid action, the size of the health care sector is a reason to act.

It should not be so big. Medical inflation is so out of pace with the rest of the economy it slows down job growth, threatens competitiveness of U.S. companies and creates uncertainty for American consumers. The higher costs do not translate into better care -- in fact it's just the opposite. People are getting priced out of insurance, avoiding care and waiting until they get sick when treatment is more expensive and less effective.

It's not just a health issue, it is also an economic one. The current health insurance reform bill now before the U.S. Senate won't resolve the problem but takes steps in the right direction.

Through measures such as taxing Cadillac insurance plans and elective cosmetic surgery, the plan would not only extend coverage to millions of Americans, but would do so with money that is already in the system, creating disincentives for over-use of procedures and encouraging people to look for efficiencies.

It would also create insurance exchanges where companies compete, giving consumers choice and putting downward pressure on prices.

In the long-run, more cost-containment would come from improved access to preventive medicine and programs in which people are encouraged to make better lifestyle choices.

As next year's health insurance premiums show, there is nothing to be gained by waiting another year to reform our system.