solutions

Often times when someone complains about the government, the retort is what are your solutions, and I have some suggestions. If I were magically put in charge I would do the following:

Reverse the health care bill

Reverse the financial reform bill

Make the Bush tax cuts permanent

Eliminate capital gains tax

Reduce regulations on small business

These things could be done in short order and cost nothing.



Next I would set up a group of five venture capitalist experts and give them the 400 billion left in the stimulus and tell them to accept ideas from around the country for new business opportunities. There are some Steve Jobs and Bill Gates’ out there and we need to find them.



On a more long term basis like the two years I would take care of the social security short fall by:

Raising the retirement age to 72 reminding people that you can still retire at age 62 but at a lesser amount.

I would phase out benefits to single people whose other income exceeds $150,000 per year and $200,000 for couples.

I would deduct social security payroll tax from all income like is currently done with Medicare.

I would resolve the health care problem by:

Leave the 85% of people who have health care alone.

Of the 48 million that remain, about 25% are people, mostly young, who can afford insurance but don’t think they need it. Another 25% are people who are eligible for Medicaid but don’t buy it since is has a small cost and they can sign up after they get sick.

25% are illegal aliens and they will continue to use the emergency rooms until we resolve the problem of illegal immigration.

Finally 25% who need help? For those whose income is 4 times the poverty level the government will pay 25% of the cost, 3 times the level the government will pay 50% of the cost, 2 times the level 75% of cost and 1 times level 100%. This will cost about 60 billion per year.

This will be paid for by using medical savings accounts for everyone. This will eliminate 90% of all claims and thus most of the administrative cost (paper work) which will save over 500 billion per year.

The solution to the Medicare and Medicaid problems are to ration health care, something we have been doing for many years but not talking about it.

Before you get all upset with death panels ask some questions. For example should a 95 year old patient with a bad liver qualify for a heart transplant and then work your way down to less obvious situations and start making tough decisions.



The only thing getting in the way of these solutions is politics.