Needed: Responsible, Capitalistic And Concerned Citizens

Healthcare implies that your health will be cared for.  Who better than you to ensure this happens!  Not an employer, not the government, not an insurance company.  YOU.  Here's how it works:

1.  ALL federal deductions for health insurance premiums by employers and self-employed workers are eliminated, gone, kaput.
2.  Employers pay that equivalent amount to employees as earned income, which is taxed.
3.  Employees take that extra pay and buy health insurance on the OPEN MARKET.  Capitalism as it's shiny best.  Insurance can be purchased from any insurance company, in any state, thru private/public co-ops, thru work, thru any organization that sets up to provide more customers for a lower rate per customer.  Now, the user is the buyer, the customer is the consumer, no middle-man distortion.  You just want major medical, fine.  You want laser hair removal covered, fine.  Buy what you want or can afford.  Insurance companies will clamour for your business like they do for car or life or disability insurance, and they will provide simple, easy to understand policies or consumers will go buy from someone else who doesn't try to fuck them over.
3.  Lower premiums are offered for healthier people.  That's the way life insurance works.  A break for normal blood pressure, cholesterol and BMI are offered.  Provide FINANCIAL incentive for people to get off their fat asses and get healthier.
4.  Tort reform put in place that states, simply, LOSER PAYS - LOSER PAYS - LOSER PAYS.  You want to sue your doctor?  Make sure you have an iron-clad case.  The majority of doctors are good people who care about doing a good job, but they're not fucking perfect.
5.  That extra dough the feds now have with the elimination of the medical premium deduction?  This MUST be used to fund healthcare clinics for people unable to afford health insurance on the open market.  Clinics are located in areas by population and they are administered and operated by cities, so you get down to a civic level of people who actually give a shit about their neighbors.  Free annual exams, free birth control, free pre-natal, etc.  It's cheaper to prevent health problems that to treat them!!!   How to determine if someone is unable to afford private insurance?  Simple!  Every tax return with adjusted income below a certain dollar amount is eligible to receive a card with a fool-proof encryption like a fingerprint.  You don't file taxes?  You visit a clinic and register, but there is a standard waiting period to verify your past.  Eliminates illegals, scammers, tax-dodgers, whatever.  Also, these places are not the Mayo Clinic.  They would be staffed by medical residents, bored retired doctors, maybe even compulsory for a year for new doctors in order to get a license in that state.  They're adequate, clean, but not the first choice of someone with a job.

Now, I can't come up with every little damn detail, but that's the outline.  And maybe it's not all that simple, but it banks on 2 things that Americans profess to be - capitalists and concerned citizens.  Does it restrain soaring medical costs?  Beats me as I've never heard or read anyone's reasons for the out-of-control escalation that made sense.  Tort reform, taking more people out of hospital emergency rooms (they now go to clinics with runny noses), increasing preventative care - it seems to me all these changes would help.  And, charging people higher premiums who clog our medical facilities with their larded up bodies is the first step toward making health insurance a level playing field for everyone.  So get out there, get in the game and for Christ's sake take some responsibility for your health.  Like I said, YOU need to to ensure your care, and quit expecting my healthy lifestyle to subsidize your sedentary, fast-food fueled, prescription overdosed, diabetic existence.  I quit!!