Republican candidate for governor Kenny Hulshof stopped short of calling his health care plan revolutionary, but says the plan is bold and innovative. He unveiled the plan, called Healthy Missouri Access Exchange, or HealthMAX, in Columbia today.

Hulshof said he has no interest reviving Medicaid and wants his plan, which he stresses includes all Missourians, to be the standard for future health care. HealthMAX would allow each person to create a Health Savings Account and select a plan offered by various insurance companies.

He said the private companies would have to provide coverage to anyone who applies.

“We’re saying you cannot discriminate, but here’s what we’re doing to do to lower the risk that you have is that we no longer are going to require these exclusionary risk pools but we’re going to have a much larger risk pool which is the incentive the private sector to participate,” said Hulshof.

As an incentive to get people to sign up, they’ll automatically get $500 in their account to spend on health care services. Hulshof said he estimates the plan would cost about $50 million, but spokesman Scott Baker later corrected the number and said the estimated cost of the proposal is $590 million.