You are correct about "the expense of health care and the inability of average folks to afford insurance premiums." But, because the problem isn't a failure of free market economics but idiotic government policy that grossly distorts the market. That's why moving toward a solution entails a drastic change in the government policies that brought the problem about, rather than the extremist totatalitarian control of one seventh of the American economy by Big Brother!
And if you say you still can be a "republican" (I notice you spelled it with a small "r", but I'll assume you made a typo), that's fine and dandy. But, thank goodness, you won't find acquiescence to the inevitability of nationalized medicine in the GOP platform this year.