Sen. Bernard Sanders has announced that he will introduce a bill ensuring that all children in America have access to health care.

Sanders' approach focuses on the most vulnerable citizens. It is hard to argue that children's health ought to be neglected in the name of an economic theory that sanctions a dysfunctional system. Caring for our children is the fundamental responsibility of society. Thus, Sanders was joined by video at his press conference by Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, who gave her support to his bill.

Sanders cited figures showing that there are 9 million uninsured children in America and that 90 percent of them live in households where at least one adult is working but who does not have health insurance. In half of those houses, two adults are working, Sanders said.

The failures of the present system are becoming an important political issue, with the Democratic presidential contenders offering a variety of progressive health care proposals. Patience is wearing thin. How many children will be allowed to pass their childhoods subject to disease and neglect because the grown-ups who are supposed to be managing the society in which they live cannot figure out a system that will get them to the doctor or dentist.

The dentist is important to include in the discussion. Sanders noted that, according to the surgeon general, tooth decay is the most common chronic childhood disease.

Focusing on children makes an important moral point. It highlights our responsibility as a society to ensure that health care is available to those who need it. But it is worth asking why a distinction ought to be drawn between children and adults. It is obvious that children need health care. But adults do as well.

We recognize this obligation for some adults. We established Medicare in the 1960s to ensure that the elderly have the health care they need. Rather than burdening society, Medicare lifted an enormous burden off of families who lacked the means for providing care for grandparents while they were also raising children. And senior citizens were accorded a measure of dignity in their final years.

As it is, our system robs many working people and their children of the security and dignity and freedom from fear that comes when they can rely on a health care system that will dependably serve them. Extending coverage to working men and women whom the employer-based system fails to cover remains the long-term goal. The states are trying out a variety of solutions, including Vermont, which is working to put Catamount Health in place.

One idea that has received some attention is to cover all children, as Sanders has proposed, and to keep them enrolled as they move into adulthood. That way adults would gradually be worked into a system until finally everyone has reliable care.

It is impossible to say how far Sanders' plan will go or whether it will serve primarily as a talking point in the prolonged debate we can expect in the next few years over health care. But it is clear Sanders is pointing in the right direction.