Health care is a serious headache for this nation. Finding a magic pill that could cure all that ails us would be nice. But it isn’t going to happen.

We are firm believers that a myriad of small cures will be needed to ease this problem. That’s why we support a prescription that includes all 50 states searching for a better health care delivery system.

The latest progress in this effort surfaced recently when Gov. Matt Blunt announced plans to give a $53 million pay raise to doctors who treat lower-income Missourians. The proposal makes sense.

State payments provided to physicians under the Medicaid program averaged just 45 percent of the amount provided by Medicare as recently as last year, according to the Associated Press. The budget for the current year included about $66 million to bump up those payment rates to a minimum of 55 percent of the Medicare reimbursement rate.

The governor’s budget proposal will require the support of the General Assembly. But if the $53 million raise wins approval, the AP reports, the physician payment rates under Mo HealthNet would climb to a minimum of 65 percent of the Medicare payment rate.

That leaves room for improvement. But it also should help the delivery of health care services in Missouri.

This governor attracted plenty of negative press shortly after taking office when he signed legislation eliminating or reducing Medicaid services to hundreds of thousands of people.

He contends the move was needed to slow the rapid growth of a program on a path to crippling the state budget. We agreed then and still do today.

The governor corrected course in 2007 with legislation that shifted the focus of the state’s effort on preventive health care while restoring some benefits, according to the AP. This is the beauty of using states as incubators for new cures for this difficult problem. States can try new approaches and then make adjustments.

We will never be able to spend our way out of this problem. That is the federal cure for most problems.