The Sage Observer

Health Care

I have written about this before—more than once.

A healthy people are absolutely imperative for a successful and prosperous country, and that's an irrefutable fact. We the people, every last one of us, must have access to affordable healthcare where and when we need it.

To that end, we should and must adapt a single payer healthcare system, i.e. Medicare for everyone, cradle to the grave. We don't have to conduct any more studies. This thing has been studied to death—we have experts “running out our ears”; and, from my personal experience, Medicare, which pays 80%, along with a good supplemental insurance which pays the remaining 20%, is a fine system (I may be off 5% on this). Also, there is a small deductible at the beginning of each year—presently approximately $150. Now, if there are any faults which we can find in this kind of program, we surely have enough representatives in our Congress who are smart enough to correct them in the writing of this new healthcare bill before it is passed.

This having been said, surely we know that nothing is free—there are no free lunches. Our healthcare must be financed. To this end, I strongly recommend that we establish a “pay as you go” self-liquidating stand-alone fund, similar to Social Security, completely independent from our general fund and budget and financed by a designated and fully transparent healthcare tax. At the end of each year, no deficit should remain. I would suggest that in this particular instance a wise government would create this tax as a non-deductible adjunct to the corporate income tax—no payroll taxes, etc. A good time to do this would be when we reform corporate taxes. It’s imperative, however, that the healthcare tax be identified separately so as to maintain its transparency. We need this! We need it now! It makes no sense for us to continue wasting millions, if not billions, of dollars arguing, bickering, and playing politics over it. Let's "Gitter Done". Let's do it now.

I’m certain you all know that, presently, Medicare runs a deficit every year and is one of the largest contributors to our national deficit and debt, as it is underfunded by our payroll deductions. Our adoption of a single payer national healthcare plan in the manner I have suggested will immediately relieve the state and federal governments of the burden of Medicaid, facilitate our efforts toward reduction of the national debt, and, in addition, employee healthcare will no longer be a burden on business—especially small business. We will, also, be better able to better control the upward movement in our healthcare costs and stabilize our spending.

In closing this comment, let me briefly discuss another aspect which I’m sure will be argued by some who will shout, “This is Socialism; this is Communism”. Rubbish! Hogwash! This is no more Communism than the man in the moon by any definition, and it is no more Socialism than anything we are doing now and have been doing for many years in many areas of our government and then some. The people of our nation have enjoyed the conveniences of publicly owned institutions since before we were born, i.e. roads, bridges, transportation, schools, Medicaid, Medicare, etc. Especially in our country, the words Socialism and Communism serve only as pejoratives used to stir up emotions and cause conflict, costing millions of dollars and heartbreak in the process. Adopting a Single Payer Healthcare system will save billions of dollars and rid our people of a major worry as well as leave us with a better government in the process.

In the meantime, this is Ronald Miller, www.sageobserver.blogspot.com.