In an audacious and sweeping proposal, Congressman Brian Baird called on Congress on Tuesday to throw out the health care reform bills currently being debated and rebuild the nation’s publicly funded health care system and tax code from the ground up.

Baird, a Democrat who represents Southwest Washington, called for abolishing the national tax code and replacing the existing myriad government health care systems with a single agency that would offer more services to more people. While stressing anyone can keep their existing health care plan, Baird also called for mandating that everyone have health insurance.

The move, Baird said, may appear “bold and perhaps dramatic.” But, he said in an interview Tuesday, the health care reforms currently being considered are “based around a system that is fundamentally flawed.”

The reforms being considered now may improve things a bit, he said. But they are not “bold” enough, and they require committing to unnecessarily complex and inefficient health care and tax systems.

In addition, he said, the current health care and tax systems are not what lawmakers would adopt if they were building the system from scratch, he said.

“If you could start with a clean slate, what kind of health care system would you build?” he asked.

The current health care proposals in Congress are trying to fix a hodge-podge of programs governed by vast and complicated bureaucracies, Baird said in a statement.

“This complication adds to the confusion and to the costs, but it does not improve health care,” he said. “Instead of duct-taping the problems and locking us into a poorly structured system, we need to explore new ideas that will create real, lasting reform.”

The Congressman’s plan would replace the federal income and payroll (social security) taxes with a progressive national sales tax. The sales tax rate would increase with the cost of the purchase, Baird said. He also said there would be exemptions for the purchase of a primary residence.

“Any discussion of real health reform should ideally be done in the context of remaking the federal tax code,” Baird said in his statement. He noted that the code is 21,000 pages long and “as a whole is the most confusing and inefficient system ever devised.”

In a white paper on the proposal, Baird’s office said it is not “absolutely necessary” to overhaul both the health care and tax systems simultaneously. But, the paper said, the current system linking health care payments and tax incentives is inefficient and hamstrings the nation’s economy.

“If we are going to grow our economy, we ought to take this opportunity to fix both health care and the tax code,” the paper says.

Under Baird’s proposal, all federal- and state-run health care programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, would be rolled into a single program “open to all Americans in need.” The Veterans Administration, which handles medical care programs for veterans, would be untouched, Baird said.

People would qualify for government health care only if they their incomes are limited, he said. The plans also would cover dental, vision, mental health and long-term care, which isn’t covered in the current bills. Yet, he said, they would be cheaper because only those who need publicly funded insurance would receive it. That, he said, would limit the program’s impact on the federal budget deficit.

Asked why he didn’t speak up about these ideas earlier in debate about health care reform, Baird said, “I thought it was fair to let President Obama and the leadership of the House and Senate take their best shot.”

Baird hasn’t been shy about making waves. He irritated his base several years ago when he backed the Bush Administration’s troop “surge” in Iraq after a visit to the country. And he drew criticism last summer when he harshly criticized the tactics of certain health care reform opponents after he said he and other lawmakers received a death threats.

Baird, who said he still hasn’t decided how he’ll vote on a final health care reform bill, said he has already discussed the idea with several lawmakers, who told him, “You know, I think you’re right, but I don’t want to go there.”

“My colleagues applaud the simplicity,” Baird said. “But many of them are afraid of the political hit.”

He said he has sent a letter outlining his ideas to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and is drafting a similar letter to his colleagues in the House. He said he didn’t know whether the proposals would reshape the debate, but he hoped they would at least prompt lawmakers to consider more dramatic reforms.

“It’s asking a lot of people,” especially after months of hard-fought debate, Baird said. But, he said, “I really want to persuade people just to take a breath.”