We kind of have somewhat of a combo system already what with Medicare, Tricare, Medicaid, and all the government subsidies (including tax deductibility of employer-paid health insurance).

The real issue is that 50% of all health care dollars are consumed by only 5% of the population per Kaiser Foundation.

50% of the population, conversely, consumes only 3% of total health care dollars. So, no savings there!

The other 45% consume about the same percentage in health care dollars.

It's safe to assume that the explosion in costs is not due to the presumably healthy young 50% of the population using only 3% of the dollars. Nor really to the people in the middle.

Nope, it's the chronically ill who consume unending amount of health care dollars. Old, sick, obese people with chronic illnesses.

Younger people (usually obese) with chronic illnesses like Diabetes II.

People on the left screaming for single payer and eliminating private health insurance entirely don't seem to understand is that health care expenditures will have to be rationed one way or another--if not by market forces, then by governmental fiat. But the rationing will happen because it has to. And the low hanging fruit is your Great Aunt Tilly. Death panels anyone?