'Single payer is not the solution': Mark Cuban goes off on early-morning tweetstorm about healthcare

Billionaire business mogul Mark Cuban went off on a healthcare-related tweetstorm that stretched from late Sunday night through early Monday morning, pitching some of his own ideas on how to improve the US healthcare system just days after the Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was killed in the Senate.

Although Cuban, who has teased reporters about making a run for the presidency himself in 2020, said "single payer is not the solution," he mused about how the government could lower healthcare costs by eliminating insurance altogether.

The owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and star of ABC's "Shark Tank" also suggested that the federal government should invest in doubling the capacity of medical schools while offering "needs-based grants" to double the population of medical students.

"Dear politicians. Let me ask a question," he began his string of tweets. "If every person in our country had health insurance, would we be any healthier?"

Read Cuban's tweets:

Cuban has spoken out on the healthcare issue a number of times during the course of President Donald Trump's young administration. In March, he pitched his own plan to fix the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, as House Republicans were attempting to pass legislation on the matter.

In a post on his blog, Blog Maverick, Cuban outlined a system that amounted to single-payer coverage for chronic physical and mental illnesses and life-threatening injuries, and standard insurance for all other healthcare.

Cuban wrote:

"Whether it's Medicaid or a new program, every single person in this country should be covered 100% for chronic physical or mental illness and for any life-threatening injury.

"The premiums that we are paying to insurance companies as individuals or as company coverage for these significant risks would go from the insurance companies to the IRS. Only the cost of covering the what's left would continue being paid to the insurance companies.

"It would not be hard to do the math. Every insurance company does this analysis already. The government does this analysis already. We all would end up paying more in taxes, but less in insurance and healthcare costs over time.

"There would be no mandates. There would be no individual penalties. No tax credits. No subsidies. No offsets or deductions for buying higher end insurance. This will be single payer (yes I know it's a dirty phrase in this country) for chronic physical or mental illness and for any life threatening injury.

"Everything not covered by the above can be covered by insurance sold on the free market, managed by the states, sold across state lines, without government interference."

A frequent Trump critic, Cuban suggested at a recent event that he may seek the presidency if Trump "lasts four years."

"He's not setting the best example," Cuban said of Trump at OZY Fest in New York earlier this month. "If he lasts four years, I'll be there to kick his a--."