EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The United States of America is the wealthiest country in the world, and spends more money on health care per citizen than any other country. Yet complaints about our health care system come in from all sides; consumers, doctors, nurses, public health officials, legislators, etc... the list goes on. We believe that our health care system suffers from bad organization and inefficient allocation of resources. This is due to its decentralized form that relies on ad-hoc combinations of public and private sources of treatment and funding, and results in widely varying qualities of health care across geographical and socio-economic lines.

We propose a national health care system for all Americans that will be administered by a committee of representatives, with one from each state. The federal government will become the primary health insurer for Americans, and every employee will pay a monthly premium to the government. Every employer will also pay a monthly premium to the government for each employee they have. The premium rates for an employer will depend on how well that employer promotes a healthy work environment and lifestyle of their employees. Lower rates will be rewarded to those who provide safe work environments, long sick leaves, long maternitylpaternity leaves, and other benefits that benefit their employees' health. Likewise with employees: lower rates will be rewarded to those who lead healthy lifestyles as exemplified via good dietary and exercise habits, and full use of preventive care such as vaccines, routine physicals and eye exams, etc... Additional health care costs for the unemployed above what is covered by all the monthly premium payments will be subsidized via national sales taxes on alcohol and tobacco products.

All health care providers, both individuals (doctors, nurses, dentists, etc...) and organizations (pharmaceuticals, nursing homes, hospitals, etc...) will remain privatized and be subject to the same laws as other employees and employers in this country. Therefore, the federal government does not provide any health care to anyone, but only acts as a universal health insurance company. Any individual is free to acquire supplementary health care from other sources with government restrictions.

The federal government will annually provide funding for medical and related research that can be done by private and public organizations.

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