Gubmint Healthcare

Health insurance premiums are eating a big hole in my company's budget. We've changed coverage to reduce the costs, but we're getting to the point where anything more than a couple of office visits and short of hospitalization is coming out of our pockets... Not pleasant, however, ... The government goofs could try a couple of things first:

• make the state's insurance regulators to adopt a uniform list of stupid demands
• make the insurance companies offer a low cost "government minimum" package
• make it mandatory for people to have some insurance coverage
• The feds should pay retirees' private insurance premiums instead of MediCare
• The state should subsidize people's private insurance instead of MediCal (or the flavor in your state)

I hate "government mandate" ideas, especially enacted at the federal level (when a city or state forces you to do something you hate, you can always move), but cannot think of a better way to make basically healthy people "fork over the dough". MediCare is going broke (along with Social Security) and will drag the government's budget into the tank with it. Furthermore, when the VA hospitals are considered the pinnacle of effective and efficient health care providers, then, and only then, will I think that the government has any chance to run/dictate/regulate the health care industry without driving yet another part of this country into the sewer.