1. Set a Federal standard for minimum coverage (that does not include abortions or mental illness or addiction) for a minimal catastrophic health care plan with a high deductable.
2. Allow competition among health insurance plans to cross state lines.
3. Either tax health care benefits or give individuals the same tax break.
4. Regulate the health care insurance industry to forbid denial or rate increases for pre-existing conditions or age. Insurance means the risks are shared. Everybody gets charged the same premium.
5. Set up a mediation board to adjudicate denial of claims.
6. Implement all of those cost-saving measures that Obama keeps referring to, in the existing medicare and medicaid systems.
7. Require every adult to have minimal catastrophic health insurance, just like auto liability insurance.
8. Provide a means tested subsidy to poor people (not including illegal aliens) of $5,000, or whatever it takes, per year to purchase health insurance.
9. Put a cap on medical malpractice judgments and make the losers pay costs.
These things don’t even have to be all in the same bill. They can be done one, or a few, at a time. They would cost a tiny fraction of what the Democrats are proposing. Then we could see where we stand, and if anything further needed to be done. What’s wrong with that?