The federal government should then stop levying those taxes, so that states could then collect more and run their own programs. The federal Medicare tax is already so high that the federal healthcare spending per capita is already exceeding healthcare spending per capita in almost all European countries, yet Medicare/Medicaid only cover a fraction of the population. Seriously, with the same amount of money (in per capita terms) that US government already spends on healthcare, UK or France are able to provide universal coverage. If the federal government is too inept to do the same, it should give up trying, and instead make space for states to do that instead.

Most European countries are of the size of US states. If they can run their healthcare just fine, it only makes it dumber idea to try to centralize it in US at the federal level.