Letter: A plan to provide health care for everyone

Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 | 8:45 a.m.

Health care or wealth care, what has President Bush proposed? It depends on your perspective and your financial situation.

It's time to eliminate the hodgepodge of special interest health plans and options. Just think about all of the overhead involved, ranging from IRS tax subsidies to Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, military families, health savings accounts, private insurers, COBRA, state plans, local government plans, charities, etc. - a whole lot of administrative jobs that are of little benefit to the general public. This current approach is simply a bad implementation of the trickle-down theory.

What Americans need are individually renewable health care trust fund accounts beginning at birth and lasting for life. This basic, all-inclusive, primary care, single-payer plan would focus on preventive care and everyday health needs.

Citizens who follow prescribed health care procedures, annual checkups for example, would have their trust funds renewed annually and adjusted for inflation. Private insurers, if necessary, could still participate by offering, at some level, catastrophic or enhanced supplemental health insurance.

Richard Rychtarik, Las Vegas