During the current discussions on how to reduce the Federal budget, the subject of Medicare has come up repeatedly. Everyone seems to realize that the cost of Medicare needs to come down. Some try to look at Medicare and Medicaid together. But Medicare and Medicaid are not the only Federal government health care programs. There are the civil service health care programs, the Postal workers health care program, the VA health care program, tri-care, etc. Each of these has its own bureaucracy, paperwork, provider screening systems, etc.

What needs to be done is to look at ALL the Federal government health care delivery systems and consolidate them into one with only one uniform system of health care delivery. The cost efficiencies are obvious, but will be met with pushbacks from each of the agencies claiming they are different, they are more cost effective, the people they serve have unique needs and so on and so forth. These excuses are just so much BS.

The civil service system has coverage throughout all fifty states as well as Puerto Rico and the Territories and would be the logical agency to take on this task. People would have the option of how much health care coverage they want just as the people in civil service do today. The baseline program could be provided at little or no cost to today’s recipients of Medicare, Medicaid and VA treatment. If you wanted a more inclusive program, you pay the additional premium. No one gets left out, no one loses their coverage when they move and the insurance companies cannot drop an individual.