Steve Brill wrote a very extensive article in the March, 2013 issue of Time on Health Care in America. I can’t think of any other industry that rips off Americans as much as the pharmaceutical industry. Other countries negotiate and get greatly reduced prices for their people. Congress has passed laws prohibiting the Medicare and Medicaid from trying to lower prices like the V.A.

The factories (often in foreign countries) make the pills for pennies and then sell it for thousands of percent mark up. Every week brings another news item of a drug that was a dollar a pill and now a hundred dollars or a new Medicine costing $35,000 – $75,000 a year. Ever wonder what a European or Canadian will pay?

The ACA was a good first step and the AHCA kept some of the good, but got rid of some of the things the poor needed and cut expenses for the rich.

The critics of ACA and Medicare say the programs are too costly to the government. The ACA’s insured are sick and/or older but not 65. The younger healthy people don’t sign up to balance the costs.

Many people and think tanks have found our current mish-mash is the reason so many other countries’ citizens are healthier than we are.

By covering the healthy kids, young adults, middle-agers, and seniors, the flat cost to everyone balances the programs income and expenses. It could be adjusted up or down to make it revenue neutral. Additional private insurance could be purchased by each individual at the level of coverage they want. The poor might not be able to afford expensive private coverage and the rich could buy complete coverage.

Two more criteria: our government would not pay any more than other governments, and doctors and hospitals would cost what the local living standard requires.