Health Care Crisis

For a long time Republican politicians have been telling us that the best way to solve the health care crisis is to allow the private sector to run it. Isn’t our health care system in the hand of the private sector right now? The argument went on telling us that privatization of the health care system created competition, thus lowered the costs. We saw from our own pocket books that it was not so, otherwise we would have not been talking about this subject right now. They also told us that privatization (of the health care system) allowed us to choose our own providers which, in turn, allowed us to choose our own doctors, our own hospitals. It sounds good, if we have a lot of money. But most of us are not in the financial situation that makes those choices affordable.
We can have a universal health care system that does not require the government to be a provider. We can localize the health care system, like we used to localize the banking system, limiting the service within the boundary of the states or certain regions. A single insurance company or a group of insurance companies can pool together to get a contract with the states to write a health insurance policies to cover everybody in the state. The whole principle is that the premium for individuals in a large group insurance policy would always be a lot lower than if a policy was written for one individual or a small group of individuals. We see that vividly in our work place. The states can collect the premiums through payroll tax then pay to the insurance company (ies).
The state might want to exclude from the universal health care policy those who already have health insurance through his/her work place in order to avoid competition with the health care benefits from companies which many of them use as part of their recruiting tools. It should also be flexible to allow individuals to buy their own private health insurance, if they chose to do so. By the way, not be able to buy your own private insurance is one of the many scaring points against universal insurance that Republicans often raised as an issue.
A state universal health care, not only helps those individuals who cannot afford health coverage, it also relieve pressure from small business owners, who cannot afford to buy health insurance for themselves and their families.