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First, in order to control costs, the Federal Government will pick ONE insurance company from each state to cover people within those states. This is the ONLY company you will buy your insurance from, and the government will subsidize those at poverty level.
The reason this will be a way to control costs is because of risk pools, the larger the risk pool, the lower the premiums for each individual who pays into the system, in addition, with such a large risk pool, coverage is expanded to everyone within a state.
Health Insurance isn't like most "markets" if you can even properly call it that, the more competition there is in health insurance, the higher the cost for each insurance company in the system, because their potential and actual risk pools of healthy people shrink accordingly.
So a monopoly would be the most practical way to control those costs, in addition to being able to cover all necessary medical procedures. So you would have Federally mandated State Insurance companies, of course, these companies, being monopolies within the state will have to be heavily regulated so they don't take advantage of their position as the only available medical insurance company for medically necessary procedures.
I would imagine the best way for them to be regulated is for the individual State Governments to buy them out, and run them directly, as State Owned Corporations. Of course, this would be optional, something for each State to decide on its own.
Premiums in the states where this insurance company publicly owned may opt to replace them with simple payroll taxation, others with monthly fees, etc.
Hmm...I wonder where I've heard of a system like this before.
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