On one side you have a group of people that have the strong belief that healthcare should be free to all.  Everyone should be insured they say.

On the other, you have the belief that government shouldn’t be involved in healthcare whatsoever and that we should be focusing on the economy and not healthcare.

Both arguments are flawed.  Healthcare isn’t free, so someone has to pay for it at some point, and the government shouldn’t be trying to fix the economy because government really doesn’t have the ability to fix it.

So there’s our false choice – which do we fix – healthcare or the economy?  As if we have the power, or testicular fortitude to fix either.

Healthcare

We can’t fix healthcare because we won’t talk about the root of the problem – insurance.  We need to get rid of all insurance.  We can’t do that though because there is no way to force the abolition of a business in our government framework – and this is a good thing.

Rewind 120+ years ago, back to a time when health insurance didn’t exist. People paid hospitals and doctors directly.  Of course we didn’t have near as many treatments available, but healthcare wasn’t so primitive that it didn’t cost money.  When people couldn’t afford it, they were generally able to find a doctor or hospital that would provide free care, or make payment arrangements.

Those payment arrangements weren’t as steep to meet though, because there wasn’t the hidden tax of health insurance baked into the bill like it is now.  The cost of medical services were exactly what they really cost, plus a decent profit, depending on the provider.  Adjusted for inflation, healthcare was just a fraction of the cost it is today, and people got by as well as they got by today.

The right complains about socialized medicine, but we essentially have it now.  The left complains that a single payer system is the only answer, but we can’t afford to make the problem worse by expanding the healthcare insurance industry into a large government organization. You think you hate how health insurance is now?  Just wait until the government takes it over.

Even if there were a way to provide healthcare to everyone for free, the government infrastructure to provide this service would be horrendous, and we wouldn’t like the consequences.

My plan for healthcare would include the following:

• Call on Americans to take personal responsibility for their own healthcare – stop eating junk food, watch what you put into your body, and do everything you can to reduce the need of healthcare services.
• Explore homeopathic remedies – there are many out there, and they work well, sometimes better than modern medicine.
• Call for a nationwide boycott of healthcare insurance – pay your healthcare provider directly!  Can’t afford to pay them for their services?  Just wait, the price will come down dramatically after the healthcare insurance industry removes its talons.

I know the plan isn’t perfect, and I don’t claim to be a model of health myself – but it’s a good start, and I bet would accomplish more than what’s being proposed now.

Economy

The government can’t fix the economy, because they’re in bed with some of the same folks that messed it up in the first place – the Federal Reserve!  The economy seems to unravel more and more no matter how hard we try to push it to grow.  That’s because you can’t make something grow by papering more money over it.  Printing borrowing money isn’t the answer, and only makes the problem worse.

Why do we expect the same people that caused the mess we’re in now to come up with solutions to fix it?

So how do we fix the economy?  The short answer is we can’t without a bit of pain, but the pain would be a lot less than it will be if we continue down the road we’re on.

Essentially my plan would involve the following:

• Have a jubilee – forgive all public debt – start from scratch.  All tax debts, federal loans, and debt owned  or owed by the federal government, would be included.
• Bring the US dollar back under control of the treasury and re-link it to the value of a basket of precious medals, like gold, silver, and platinum.
• Enact carefully thought out, constitutionally valid financial reform.
• Relinquish government control of all private companies (i.e. Government Motors becomes General Motors again) back to their private owners.  If this means they fail or go bankrupt, so be it.
• Get rid of federal agencies like the FDA, FCC, Department of Education, etc. and use the money save to reduce or eliminate income taxes at all levels – federal, state, and local – and watch the economy grow.  Supplement when necessary with sales tax, but you’d be surprised how little you need when you trim the fat.
• Reduce our military spending to cover a decently large standing army ready to protect America’s homeland only.  We don’t need troops overseas unless there’s an active conflict we must be involved in (and by must, I mean a direct threat to our homeland security).
• No more bailouts – if a company is about to fail, let it.  Get the pain over with fast.

Final Thoughts

If we really want to fix both, or either problem, we have to make some gutsy moves, and get to the core of the issues.  Both issues can be solved with minimum government, brief minimum pain, and a long term sustainable solution that isn’t a paper over until next year like everything being proposed now.

The left and right paradigm no longer serves us.  It gives us false choices, ideological battles that can never be won, and a false sense of democracy.  It’s time for a fresh, yet surprisingly unoriginal perspective on our problems – a return to the framework that the country was built on.  The problems left over can be addressed by the good will of all Americans coming together to help those in need and to fix problems larger than ourselves.  When done voluntarily, as part of charities, community groups, and religious organizations, the power of these good deeds is amplified.  When done through force of government, the human spirit is diminished to its lowest common denominator.

I'm no economist, but I really don't think it takes one to see that the state of our economy isn't really brought about by some outside force that we didn't really have control over. It has been brought about by, as George Bush called it, a drunken Wall Street. Do we all share in this blame to some extent? I suppose, but your average working citizen doesn't have much ability as a single individual to influence the behavior of large corporations and investors, so any guilt that would be applicable may only be by default association.

Investors got greedy. CEO's were driven, above everything else, to raise their stock price. Not for the benefit of the company or it's services, but strictly for its investors. This is what is supposed to happen, right? Investors should be the primary beneficiaries of a company's success. If the drive is so large for that success and the pressure so high that it encourages executives to make bad long-term financial decisions though, can we really say that's in the best interest of the investor, or the economy at large?

And then we have the bailout. A fund of over $700,000,000,000.00 dollars (looks bigger when you use the 0's, doesn't it) to purchase up bad debts and toxic mortgages that should have never been made, and fund banks that made bad decisions that are now on the brink of bankruptcy. In plain terms, this is lunacy. It's no different than the gambler who tells his family that they just screwed out of their life savings that with just a bit more money, they can win it all back. If ever we needed an example of codependency, this is it.

How can we go along with this bailout plan and still fit within the spirit of the constitution and the free-enterprise market system? We can't. There's no way to justify it. Giving food and aid to people hit by natural disasters is one thing, bailing out people who made bad business decisions is entirely another.

If the wound inflicted by one of the most negative aspects of the human condition, greed, is not allowed to bleed a little, the infection will simply be contained, only to spread again.
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The problem concerning the presidential primary calendar has intensified this week as the Democratic party voted to strip Florida of its 210 delegates if it didn't delay its primary elections by a week. While the wisdom of upsetting Florida voters in a presidential election is debatable, the headline underscores the growing controversy over the primary process.

All of this calendar shuffling to see which state can have the first primaries has gotten ridiculous. I agree that it is unfair to give New New Hampshire and Iowa a vastly disproportionate representation in the primary process, but states moving around their calendars to see who can get in first is simply not the answer.

The way out of this mess is astonishingly simple. In fact it's so simple it's likely never to be done. Simply have all states have their primary elections on the same day. Pick a day, any day, say in January, February, or even March, and stick to it. All presidential primary candidates would have to appeal to and campaign in the entire country, giving every state a voice in who political parties end up having as their candidate.

This isn't groundbreaking and I'm sure it has been suggested before, but it would seem that it is the simplest and most fair way out of the mess.