If politicians are to be beholden to their funders, those funders should be the taxpayers. In AZ and ME about 70% of the elected politicians refused private money (which is a requirement for the public grant). Under this arrangement government is NOT corrupt. If they take money on the side they either go to jail or lose their seat. Over 70% of these state’s voters selected these systems by forced referendums.

Why do politicians not want it? Because it works, and they don’t like being hampered by a level playing field.

Just WHO do you claim is “the smartest person in the USA?”

Yes, social security, Medicare, and Medicaid are not sustainable “in their current forms.” They must be changed, but as long as the political cash is flowing the only way we can change the system is to change the politicians. The fat cats are blocking reform because it would require tax changes they don’t like, so they give more cash to the politicians that write the laws.

Please see Price competition in health care is a pipe dream. Capitalism does not work in Health Care.

The numbers are the numbers? It has little to do with right or left?

I disagree. See Are we having fun yet?

BTW Clinton, the saint of liberals every where paved the road with weak national defense and an artificially inflated economy and artificially “balanced budget” to smooth over the white house sex scandal.

The numbers are the numbers. It has little to do with right or left. fact is that welfare programs (socialism or communism in smaller forms) don’t work. They sound great but collapse in time. Only reason it has worked so far is the baby boomer pyramid scheme. sorry if this upset people.

I do NOT believe in big government, but I do want an efficient government. I’d give every department a six year lifespan and govern it with a nonpartisan board like the Federal Reserve Board (with 14 year staggered terms).

The first issue is our corrupt political system. Politicians are controlled by corporate campaign contributors and decisions that should be made in the best interest of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and etc, are instead made in the best interest of the corporate contributors.

Until we get the money out of the political system, no other issue will get fixed. But the last thing in the world politicians want is to lose control over a system that generates funds for their re-election. That’s why we need a complete turnover in congress.

lets say for a moment that i agree we need campaign finance reform (i don’t know enough about it to know you are right or how to do it). So please explain HOW you want to make this happen. How do you get fat politicians who are getting money from coporations to vote them selve out of receiving money. The media has been chasing these ideas for a long time. They sound grand but all i ever here is talk. I don’t see a single viable plan to make this happen.

JW

JW

The method is to shop around and get quality health care from the most valuable source. When I talk about “private industry” I am not talking about the big wigs. I am talking about demanding up front pricing (transparency) and there by forcing the medical providers to compete for the consumers dollars. This is called “capitalism” and it is what built this country. Having the government run everything is called either socialism or communism. Its a great idea but it did not work out so well for the Russians. ; )

BTW……I have friends in iraq, afghanistan, Liberia, kosovo. I served on a UN mission as a paid contractor in africa. No one else was willing to do the dirty job so they offered me a lot of money tax free (foreign earned income exclusion under IRS code) to do the job. I was not and none of my friends are “mercenaries” as a mercenary will do whatever for $$$. My friends and I have served in bosnia, east timor as well as all the countries listed above. We have always done our best to help the people of those miserable little locations i just mention but alas we are not miracle workers.

Scary thing is I come home and start to get educated about what the bankers, oil companies, medical community, and politicians are doing to MY COUNTRY and I am truly afraid. My friends and I all understand how a country slips into chaos, how easily it can happen, and how close we are getting.

The answer IS NOT in letting big business run the show. The answer IS NOT in asking the corrupt politicians to mess things up anymore than they already are. The answer IS in people waking up, becoming as SELF SUFFICIENT as possible, burning home made bio-diesel and waste vegetable oil in diesel cars instead of oil from our friends in the middle east who would like us all dead. The answer is in demanding a level playing field so I know what my doctor bill will be BEFORE I get treatment, the answer is in insuring just the big stuff with a major medical policy and eating the little expenses (just like we do with home and auto insurance + that would be insanely expensive if we insured every dent and scratch as well). More solutions are in making as much of the food we eat our selves (oil is used to grow it and drive it across the country) and we just might be more healthy as well (organic instead of oil based fertilizers.)

I do not claim to be the smartest person on this board. But I think David Walker is the smartest man when it comes to this stuff. Read my prior post. SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE, AND MEDICAID are DOOMED in their current form. The only reason it has survived so far is a pyramid scheme. The baby boomers (78 million people) and their kids were paying for a small group of benefit receivers. When the pyramid is inverted and the small groups have to pay for all the baby boomers it will cease to work (if it is working now). Manitowoc county just lost their public health care center because they lost $40-$60 per person, per bed who was on medicaid. Look around public care homes are CLOSING left and right. These are the warning signs. Yet people still believe in BIG GOVERNMENT to come rescue them. Social security has given people a -0.09 rate of return. If you are smart you would fire your financial guy for this kind of performance. But for some reason we should trust the government. I have worked with and fore those people, they have a hard time planning a b-day party.

Jason Wilterdink

P.S. I love the conversation but I do have a life. I enjoy the debate but in a few days i gotta get back to work.

BTW…. here is another example

78 million baby boomers. If they all receive a $1,000 a month Social Security check (a low number) that would equal $78 Billion per month. That is a hurricane Katrina EACH AND EVERY MONTH until those people pass away. We obviously can not afford it. The system is in more trouble than anyone realizes.

Jason Wilterdink

That’s why we are (a) paying private Medicare contractors 15% more to provide less health care coverage to seniors, and Iraq mercenaries up to ten times more than we pay our troops. Follow the money and you’ll learn why.

Can you imagine privatizing our police and fire department, where they are paid on the basis of how many tickets they write or fires they put out? Everybody is paying for 100% of health care costs as we speak, through cost sharing, bankruptcy costs and even when employers add their costs to their product price and we reimburse them at the cash register. But we are paying 31% more than we should and only cover 85% of Americans.

Let me repeat my comment above: “It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of energy that can go into a project just to avoid doing the right thing. The best, simplest, least costly, most effective thing we could do is expand what has been working so well for years, Medicare. You get sick, you get care, and the caregiver gets paid. Nothing could be simpler.”

The point is social security, medicare, medicaid and ANY government entitlement program (welfare by a different name) will not work. The ONLY reason this mess has been held together this long is we have the baby boomers (a 78 million person bubble in a 14 year period) who were funding people in need. When the new people (we only add 25 million people every 10 years through birth, legal, and illegal immigration) have to pay for the 78 million babyboomers and the older than baby boomers this pyramid scheme will fall apart. It will get ugly. Do politician dare piss off old people who need care and cant get out of the nursing home to vote, or do they tell the young voters that there is no money for college. Ugly, ugly business.

Jack….I thoroughly read it all but just giving it a quick scan again I love solutions #6, 7, 8, 10

I am opposed to letting government control any aspect of private industry. that is the problem now. We have already been too trusting of elected officials. We have allowed the wolves to watch the chicken coupe too long. States run medicine in any form is giving the wolves a bib and a frying pan for the yummy chicken breasts and omelets.

Jason Wilterdink

I am not sure that attempts to regulate hospital capacity and medical group purchase of diagnostic equipment are quite what we want. Granted that the current fee for service reimbursement system encourages the production of too many medical services. I am wishing that there were some way to bring health care providers financial incentives into line with society’s need for efficient, humane health care so that we could avoid a layer of regulation.

I have some ideas on this one but they are still not all that clear.

I prefer Medicare to a health care system run by a corporate CEO on the basis of profits. See the book I referenced above:
http://www.makingakilling.org/chapter1.html

The system we have today is the result of putting power in the hands of politicians…… who incidentally get their campaign funds from the corporate executives.

Politicians are too corrupt to be trusted but they should run health care. It makes so much sense.

Putting that much power in the hands of the politicians is foolish.