Rush Limbaugh Show,Special Early Edition,M-F,12NOONPM-3PM,September 17,2009

Call The Rush Limbaugh Show program line between 12 Noon and 3PM Eastern Time at: 1-800-282-2882

The e-mail I just sent Rush:

Here is my proposal for true healthcare reform while saving $200 Billion per year. I have added links to the sources for the data coming straight from the federal government to show that this a true figure and where it came from.

The estimated 2009 US per capita government expenditures on health is $3866 according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. see: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/Downloads/proj2007.pdf

A high deductible health insurance plan can be purchased for $3216 per year for a plan that includes 100% coverage in network for preventive medical, vision and dental care services and immunizations, as well as prescription benefits. Example of a high deductible plan is taken from the Federal Benefits Handbook: 2009 showing the Aetna Health Fund Premiums – Consumer Driven / High Deductible Plan of $123.71/biweekly or $3216.46/year (total premium include employee and employer paid portions) see http://www.opm.gov/insure/health/rates/nonpostalhmo2009.pdf

Given that the current US population is over 307,000,000 (see http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html) the government could actually simply provide a voucher to purchase a high deductible plan to every single American and still save about $200 Billion per year instead of adding a huge beauracracy and trillions to the deficit.

(If a person had another plan they preferred, the voucher could be applied to that plan.) Cost savings and universal coverage would be achieved.

John Mackey of Whole Foods has advocated using the combination of high-deductible health insurance and health savings accounts for health care reform because it has worked for them. According to Mr. Mackey: "Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction." Even though people could keep their current health plans under this proposal, I would expect a migration to the high deductible plan by employers over time.

While it would not be necessary to implement the above proposal, my personal preference would be to also pass the FairTax (H.R. 25; S.296) and have the prebates under the FairTax deposited into a health-savings account. The health-savings account would require a minimum balance for the deductible on the high deductible health insurance plan. A person would use the health-savings account for qualified medical expenses and be able to access the account above the minimum balance for any other expenditure or to transfer the funds to another account. Again, the FairTax would not be necessary to implement this proposal and instead the $200 billion in savings might be used to help low income persons with their health savings account.

If the true intent of healthcare reform were to cut costs while expanding coverage wouldn’t this make more sense than anything that is currently proposed? Unfortunately, since the true aim of Obamacare is expanded government control I don't expect anything like this to even be considered.

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