Employers shouldn’t have anything to do with the insurance at all.

Employers shouldn’t be able to deduct any expenses under a couple thousand deductible. If employers gave catostrophic insurance then a raise to make up the difference we would be better off.

In any given year over 50% of Americans would have no dealings with an insurance company, that is the way it should be.

High deductible, $250 deductible is not insurance it is financing. Paying a 20% surcharge is very inefficient.

Break up Medicare and have payors compete for members, we can’t continue to lose 10% of every dollar to fraud and waste

Stop the mergers and break up BUCA, no insurer should control more then 20-30% of a market, competition will bread innovation in delivery and cost containment.

Set up a federal clearing house like the banking fed to clear EDI transactions both claim and financial. This will allow government to collect data for public health and reduce cost.

Providers must bill electronically by law, and no they aren’t getting a handout to do it, the payors came up with the money to accept them the providers save money by doing it.

That is the first 10%

http://covertheuninsured.org/content/quick-facts-uninsured

20.2% make over 50K

http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7613.cfm

This brief analyzes health coverage data and determines that 25% of the nation’s uninsured population is eligible for either Medicaid or SCHIP.

I know signing up for any goverment program is hard but if my taxes are going to provide them free coverage I expect them to put in the effort to get it. I had to labor hard to earn the money to pay those taxes they can labor to benefit from them

Every study I have read says the exact opposite. Most of the poor already qualify for free insurance and choose not to sign up, and those making over 55K can afford insurance but choose not to buy it. Out of 47 million uninsured only 5-8 million are uninsured by something other then choice.

“For the latter, the idea of doing away with medical underwriting on individual policies has widespread support among lawmakers.”

Of course it doesn, most of them aren’t smart enough to realize if you eliminate pre-ex and don’t have a meaningful mandate with a tax equal to the cost of insurance people will pay the penalty until they need care, then buy a policy they can’t be turned down for, then drop the policy once the bill is paid and go back to the penalty. This is already happening in MA, they have the data that shows people taking policies for 6 months then dropping them and those people have loss ratios considerably higher then the populaiton that stays insured. Individual private insurance will be forced out of business under the current law being proposed. Most politicians would be ok with that.