A comment on this Yahoo News article tries to offer yet another method of health care solutions:

The Solution for Funding Health Care for Everyone. Funded by 1% National Sales Tax

No Insurance Required

Budget Neutral + No Entitlements + Single Payer

Not Government Run, but Government Paid (1% Ear Marked Tax—Single Payer). Health Decisions made by Doctors and Patients. Everyone Covered. No Denials. Everyone Pays.

This plan does not require health insurance by businesses, or individuals.

Example: Cost of a gallon of milk = 3.00. Your payment towards health care = 3 cents.
On the other hand if health insurance is purchased from an insurance company, then the cost would be 300.00 per month or more. That’s = 3600.00 per year + deductibles + co-pays + bureaucracy + denials, etc.

The Solution:

1. Institute a 1% national sales tax ear marked for health care only.
a. No more health insurance premiums for anyone, businesses or individuals.
b. No more duplication of services, overly compensated insurance co. executives and
bonuses.
c. No more confusing complicated
plans/supplements/options/exchanges/triggers/parts a, b, c, d, etc.
d. No more packed emergency rooms.

2. Doctors/Hospitals simply submit their bills and get paid.
a. Bills are processed by IRS or former insurance companies.
b. Doctors are not told what to charge.
c. Costs are controlled by the elimination of excessive profits and duplication.
d. Costs Guidelines are published by the use of “Should Cost Studies” and updated
yearly.
e. Cost guidelines are not enforceable by law.
f. Costs are controlled by peer pressure of other doctors, media, should cost studies,
and jawboning.

3. Everyone pays based upon their rate of consumption, from a quart of beer at a
convenience store, to the purchase of a BMW or Yacht.

a. No class warfare pitting one group against another.
b. Everyone has a stake in their health and pays their share.

4. No one would have to be without health care.
a. Everyone would have “The Same Plan”.
b. No freeloaders.
c. More than budget neutral, it would be a budget multiplier. Tourist and illegals
would be contributing by their purchases.

1% paid incrementally through purchases verses paying thousands per year to insurance companies, padding the pockets of executives with excessive profits, and their employed doctors and lawyers, whose salaries’ and time could be going towards health care, instead of the attendant bureaucracy of doling out health care and denial letters.

Shifting funding to the rich or business owners is not the answer. They are the exact group that provides jobs to us all. Let’s let everyone pay their own bit and give them a feeling of having a stake in their health care rather than making them dependent. 3 cents on a quart of milk will add up if everyone pays.

The only responsibility the government should have is doing the “Should Cost Studies,” publishing the subsequent guidelines, collecting the tax money, and paying the bills. We don’t need any laws that pit one group against another, that tell doctors what to charge, or force individual citizens to buy insurance with the associated waste of duplication and excessive profits. The best policy is to keep it simple. That will go a long way towards preventing gaming of the system. Complex laws, rules, plans, exchanges, triggers, and parts are just mechanisms to frustrate, control the people, build bureaucracy, and provide avenues for fraud.

Everyone has a right to pursue a bigger boat, but no one has a right to better Health Care than another.

It’s well thought out, really, it invokes a lot of common sense principles that sadly are overlooked in this day and age. The thing is, taxes were and are collected to run the various services and operations our government operates and provides. Many are critical to the basic living of life, and many are a complete waste of money. Health care is a very important pillar of life, and I am by no means saying it isn’t, but every time I hear someone say that it is a right, I want to punch them in the face. Since when was it a right? Rather, why should it be a right? Why should you have any more or less priority over the next person who believes they have more priority over you? Why should you receive health care that you will no doubt sue your doctor anyway when it doesn’t come out how YOU expected it to? Health care and costs have spiraled out of control, everyone agrees on that, but the solution to the problem is where everyone splits off their opinions on. Democrats think throwing more money at people will fix the problem, when what they are really doing is just pinching more money off the top to give to the bottom so they can spend it on nothing and drugs for many of them. Republicans just want you to drop dead faster so you don’t end up as a wasting corpse in a nursing home on the federal dime, and everyone else doesn’t have a goddamn clue what they want because they’re so busy with their heads up their ass they’d rather just scream about it to make themselves heard.

See, really, after reading the bill and listening to both sides shove their partisan opinions into it, I actually could live with some of the things this bill is going to do. Insurance regulation, sure, why not? Making insurance mandatory? Eh, auto insurance is already mandatory and some of it covers medical costs these days anyway. Personally I don’t want to be told I have to get anything really, auto insurance I can understand because I am operating a vehicle and I run the risk of hurting others with it, but as a person by myself who barely goes to hospitals or doctors, why do I need coverage? Just in case? Maybe. For that unfortunate accident? Probably. I won’t deny having medical coverage is a good thing, but most jobs offer it and help pay for it.

No, it really comes down to costs, insurance and medical costs are huge, and why? Because health care in this country is taken for granted. Everyday. People walk into ER with cuts and scrapes, or for a light cough and demand attention. Malpractice suits are widespread because people won’t accept “No” for an answer and why should they? They’ve been conditioned over the past 30 years to be coddled and given what they want because we’re such humanitarians, such civilized people, we can’t let children go without health care, never mind the fact there are millions of them born to irresponsible parents and teen mothers. Oh, and let’s not forget how we have a large aging population in need of care, medications, and other benefits promised to them by our government after the last time this country dug itself out of an economic depression.

So really, when I tell you that I think this bill is misguided Liberal trash, I am not invoking Rush, Beck, or any conservative icon, because let’s face it, conservatives don’t know their heads from the donkey’s ass anyway, no, ALL of our politicians have no fucking clue what this country wants or really needs, they only know what THEY need and what their business partners need. It’s all about controlling the money and controlling the people in our government, and until I’m shown some real belief, words are not going to cut it anymore.