Healthcare Fix

I think it is time to take big government out of healthcare. Here is what I suggest. First, we go to a single healthcare coverage form. This form is for everybody. That includes all United States citizens and military personnel. We eliminate all employer based healthcare coverage, all individual plans, Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration; this includes all government employees including elected officials. We all have the same plan!
To keep the insurance companies competitive, they could bid the program with all their rates (like they do now with Medicaid & Medicare) for defined geographic area such as congressional districts. Congressional districts would be a great demographic as the average district is just over 700,000 people. The states could monitor the financial stability of the insurance companies just like they do now.
The coverage costs would be treated as a separate tax collection similar to Social Security. There would be no premiums collected from the citizens with a billing process. Taxes would be collected as determined by the tax code. No more arguing about the rich not paying their fair share. The co-pays would be the same for everybody. The insurance companies and the providers would commit to a lengthy contract to add stability to the provider group. With everybody automatically covered the administrative costs are greatly reduced. The only requirement is you must be a US citizen or be a member of our military.
The plan could work with the government defined coverages. Every US citizen would be covered for everything. Co-pay could be low. Something like:

$xx office visit
$xxx / day hospital stay
4 tier drug plan
Preventive care $0.00
On and on
With the elimination of all of that government there has to be enough money to manage the system. And there is this; if all the government elected people are on the plan I’m pretty sure there would be by-partisan agreement, just sayin’.

Emil DeLuca
Chesterfield, MO