President Barack Obama's push for comprehensive health care reform has focused the nation's attention on the issue. But the thought of major changes to nearly every aspect of America's health care system, which represents about one-sixth of the domestic economy, threatens so many vested interests and raises so many questions that it would be better to scale back the plan in favor of a more incremental approach, dealing separately with different parts of the system, starting with health insurance.

This past weekend, Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., suggested as much, arguing that Democrats should scale back health care reform and work on a more limited, but bipartisan, plan.

The first step should focus on health insurance and on ways to provide universal coverage, while increasing price competition.

Opponents to current reform plans, especially the so-called public option, have demonized nationalized health care in Canada and England. But the consumer-based, mostly private system in Switzerland is being held up as a possible model for America.

In 1996, Switzerland passed health insurance reform — approved by a slim majority of voters, despite being opposed by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

The program accomplishes some basic goals at the heart of proposals now in Congress, universal coverage and price competition.

Health insurance in Switzerland is not provided through work, and therefore is portable. Every citizen must buy health insurance, and the insurance companies are required to sell a basic package of benefits to anyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions.

The Swiss program prohibits insurance companies from profiting on the basic programs, but they can, and do, make profits selling more expansive health insurance plans.

Premiums for health insurance are deducted from paychecks for people working, and low-income people are provided subsidies to help buy insurance.

By putting buying decisions in the hands of consumers, there is far more price competition among 85 or so Swiss health insurance companies than in the American health insurance market, where most parts of the country see one or two companies dominate, which keeps prices high.

According to an article in the Atlantic magazine, competition among Swiss insurance companies has driven down costs so that the insurance companies are spending only about 5 percent on general and administrative expenses. Insurance companies in the United States reportedly spend about 15 percent on those same expenses.

By adopting the Swiss approach to the insurance part of the equation, there can be no fear-mongering over government-run health insurance. In Switzerland, it's estimated that 99 percent of the people have health insurance — through private insurance companies.

While aiming for universal coverage in the United States, the incremental approach, starting with health insurance, also would allow examination of "the 50 million Americans without health insurance" — a number that's been a part of the health care debate for years.

A close examination of the uninsured, whether that number is 45 million or 50 million, will lead to a better understanding of who makes up the uninsured.

It is estimated that maybe 10 million of those 50 million already qualify for an existing government program, but are not enrolled. Another significant amount, maybe 10 million or more, are young, healthy people who simply chose not to buy health insurance because they are young and healthy. Illegal immigrants represent another part of the 50 million uninsured, and while there is debate over the exact number, it could be another 10 million or so.

This examination of the makeup of the uninsured population would be helpful in helping understand the best approach to universal coverage.

This summer's debate on health care reform has been good. But disinformation from threatened vested interests often derails meaningful debate. By scaling back the plan and focusing first on the health insurance part of the problem, the discussion can be narrowed and disinformation reduced so that debate can focus on providing universal coverage, increasing competition, lowering costs, disconnecting health insurance from employment and giving consumers choice among easy-to-compare plans.

For many people, House Resolution 3200, the 1,000-page bill proposing comprehensive health care reform, is, for many people, too much — too quickly. Slowing down, backing up and breaking health care reform into three or four smaller, more manageable parts would get the reform movement back on track.

The current debate over H.R. 3200 is hopelessly bogged down, and ramming something through Congress only supported by Democrats would be a mistake.

Obama and congressional Demo-crats should resist the political pressure to pass a complex reform measure involving insurance, hospitals, doctors and drug companies. Taking a targeted approach focused on health insurance, and following Switzerland's lead would bring a refreshing change to the debate, and would start to actually bring real and positive change to health care in America.