In social and professional venues here leading up to the recent re-election of President Barack Obama, there seemed no shortage of pointed opinions on the looming implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

Most people I encountered seemed either strongly supportive of it or vehemently opposed, with few in between.

For a perspective outside that span of discussion, it was insightful last week to listen to visiting journalist, author, lecturer, and filmmaker T.R. Reid, who—in a nutshell—believes Obamacare doesn't go far enough in striving to establish good health care for all in this country.

Reid is a former reporter and foreign bureau chief for the Washington Post whose 2009 book "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care" became a national best seller and launched him into a national role of speaking on ways to improve health care in the U.S.

Reid also has made documentary films for National Geographic Television, the Public Broadcasting System, and the A&E Network, according to his website, and his latest documentary, "U.S. Health Care: The Good News," premiered on the national PBS network earlier this year.

He spoke and answered questions at an informal Nov. 13 box lunch gathering attended by about 80 people on the Riverpoint Campus and addressed a crowd of hundreds that evening at the Spokane Convention Center.

His visit here was sponsored by Spokane-based Providence Health Care and Eastern Washington University's College of Business & Public Administration, and amounted to an encore of a visit he made here last year that was well received.

Why does his opinion matter? It's because his extensive research has made him more knowledgeable than most people about health care delivery systems worldwide, and his talents as a journalist have enabled him to analyze critically why many countries offer better overall care at a much lower cost than the U.S.

He told the attentive luncheon crowd last week that this country offers world-class health care services and technology, but also has the most unfair, wasteful, and expensive health-care system on the planet. U.S. health insurers, for example, spend 20 cents or more of every health care dollar on nonmedical expenses, such as paperwork, which is quadruple the amount spent on administration in many other countries, he said.

The big problem here, though, is "the people who don't get in the door," he asserted, noting that thousands of people die in the U.S. every year of treatable diseases due to a lack of access to health care.

Obamacare will add about 16 million uninsured Americans to Medicaid, but still will leave upwards of 20 million without health insurance, he said, adding, "In my view, it doesn't get us to where we ought to be."

Also, unlike in most other countries, insurance companies still will be allowed to deny claims, he noted, adding, "That should have been banned, in my humble view."

There's no doubt that implementing Obamacare fully is going to be expensive, he said, predicting that the total cost is "probably going to be twice as high" as the official estimate of $938 billion over 10 years.

"I think in the beginning the economics don't add up," he said, hinting that will be something Congress will have to tackle as actual costs begin to add up.

For the most part, though, his comments reflected optimism about the transformation that will be reshaping the health care landscape over the coming years and about what it means for consumers of health care services. Locally, it will be interesting to see whether those changes soften the polarized views that currently dominate casual health care discussions.