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Tuesday, June 13, 2017

National Healthcare

Today, Republican representatives in the Senate are meeting to discuss and develop the upper chamber’s version of a plan for the future healthcare of our people that might be accepted by a majority of the Congress and final approval by our President. Let there be no doubt in your mind about one thing. There will be no knowledge presented that is new. Everything said will have been said before—every argument argued time and time again. We know the history of healthcare over and over again, here and around the world. Political ideology, greed, avarice, corruption, and personal gain notwithstanding, the only issue—the only issue—at hand should be the overall good and wellbeing of our country and our people. Again, I submit to you, everything to be known relative to this subject, is known (or available to all who care to know) as well as the results of whichever direction to be determined. The only real question remaining is whether or not our elected representatives in the Congress will truly represent the best interests of our people and our country, politics and all else notwithstanding.

We can put all the arguing and bickering, all the legal confrontations and cases, and all the massive spending associated with such inefficiencies aside as well as to taking a giant step forward toward the reduction of our horrendous national deficit and, eventually, our debt by adopting a single payer universal healthcare system for all. Let’s get this over with. Let’s give relief to our people from their fear. Let’s give relief to business from the burdens of healthcare that they may focus on the management of their businesses.

To those who argue the merits of free markets, I say to you as I have said before: The only free markets that exist in these days and times are to be found on a blackboard in a classroom. Today, they are called chalkboards, but I digress. The closest we have ever come to really free markets was in the eighteen hundreds; and, most certainly, healthcare is not adaptable to such. Are you able to analyze and evaluate drug prices? Are you able to compare prices when you choose a doctor? How much choice do you have in choosing a hospital or evaluating their charges to you or your insurance company? If you are honest with yourself, you know, for the most part, you are at their mercy—there is no free market in healthcare. It’s a myth.

The only question remaining, a question I am confident our representatives in Congress wish to avoid is how to finance such a system. You know as well as I that nothing is free—no argument there. I have discussed this before in my past writing, but I think it appropriate to address this matter again. Healthcare is such a significant portion of our national budget, much if not most of which significantly contributes to our national deficit and, therefore, debt that I believe it is imperative that the financing should be self-funding annually and excluded from the national budget. By this I mean that income to the fund in a given year must be sufficient to pay the expenses of that year—no deficit. The healthcare fund should be a stand-alone fund in the same manner as our Social Security. It is, also, imperative to say that its accounting system be auditable with an integrated data base.

I recommend that a single tax, ear-marked for the purpose, should be levied on “taxable wages” on a progressive basis determined by ability to pay. To this end, I think it fair that healthcare benefits currently paid by employers be incorporated into employee gross income to facilitate employee ability to pay. I also suggest an increase in minimum wage rates to facilitate incorporation of the plan for small business employees.

There are those who believe our nation cannot afford such safety nets as Social Security, Universal Healthcare, public education, unemployment insurance, etc. I don’t believe that. Given that we the people of the United States of America take back our country from the Shadow Government of the Corporatocracy and Power Elite now reigning over us, retain our democracy and sovereignty with equal opportunity for all, a fair and more equal distribution of income and wealth, and a system of progressive income taxation levied according to one’s ability to pay, I believe our annual Gross Domestic Product will enable us to prosper once again as we did in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, the most prosperous period in the history of civilization. Also, to this end, it is imperative that we treat our neighbors throughout the world fairly, and seek peace rather than war and dominance.   Quoting Noam Chomsky, “Violence is a powerful instrument of control, as history demonstrates. But the dilemmas of dominance are not slight” (Ref: Interventions, pg.48, by Noam Chomsky). To this end, you only have to look at our present status in the world and our National Debt.

In the meantime, this is Ronald Miller



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