In an era where it seems that people are more divided than ever, we can all agree on one thing: Our healthcare system is broken. We stand united as Americans with disdain for the rising costs of healthcare, the inexplicable wait times, and the complicated bureaucracy that only the unholy marriage between healthcare and insurance could create.

Patients aren’t the only ones who are sick and tired of the healthcare structure. Healthcare workers are often the first to point out their many frustrations with the system. Whether it’s the lack of staffing, insurance companies, or government mandates, our medical professionals want a change.

Any proposed solution to this broken system is likely to drum up controversy. But our nation does not need unity of opinion to thrive. We can differ on what health insurance should look like. And we can debate whether Big Pharma is the hero that creates life-saving drugs or the spooky, greedy villain that puts profit ahead of people.

And, most importantly, we can look to the states for meaningful reform. The founders of our great nation wrote the perfect prescription for our healthcare ailments: federalism. We don’t need a one-size-fits-all edict from our overlords in the federal government. America is made up of 50 individual states, each of which plays its role as a laboratory of democracy, showing the public a variety of approaches and allowing the voters to determine which ones worked and which ones failed.

This is its own form of competition, which is what the healthcare industry desperately needs. Certificate-of-need laws consolidate services within a few monopolistic hospitals, leaving patients with little choice of providers. And people are often stuck with either the insurance their employer provides or government-sponsored health insurance.

Indeed, government-sponsored health insurance, whether it’s Medicaid , Medicare, or Tricare, which provides coverage for active duty military, veterans, and their dependents, accounts for more than half of the market share. The federal government uses this leverage to force the healthcare industry into conformance with its mountain of administrative rules. It writes the checks, so it gets to write the rules, essentially creating a national healthcare system with little room for states to distinguish themselves from one another.

Healthcare needs a heavy dose of competition. We received a taste of what competition can do during the coronavirus pandemic, during which states had plenty of latitude on how to manage their response. This fostered intense competition between the states, each one trying to best the others. States learned from each other and adjusted their responses accordingly.

It’s time to bring that same healthy level of competition to healthcare. The federal government needs to greatly reduce its impact on healthcare policy and instead hand it off to the 50 laboratories of democracy.

The monopolistic anti-competitive model has failed everyone. Now is the time to restore federalism and the competitive spirit for which we are known. Let governors such as Florida’s Ron DeSantis and California’s Gavin Newsom battle it out and see which state can craft the policy that best benefits the health of its citizens.

Washington will never fix our problems. But maybe, just maybe, some state out there will stumble upon the right formula to remedy our chronic healthcare issues.

Steven Johnson is a fellow at the Center for Practical Federalism at the State Policy Network.