A solution for Universal Health Care

A solution for Universal Health Care

There is no reason we could not have “Socialized” Health Care (instead of it’s true meaning – Universal Health Care,) have it cheaper, and allow it to serve all people, AND still have the ability to bypass the “Lifetime Cap” that so many people are afraid of. It does mean that all sides would have to make sacrifices though, plus the Insurance and Health Care Industries would have to undergo some major changes.

Step One would be to Nationalize ONE major Insurance Carrier. This company would have a cap of 6.5% profit margin. They would operate independently of the US Government, but would answer to Congress, the Judicial Branch, and it’s investors. The 6.5% Profit margin is below high risk funds, but slightly above most medium risk funds making it a good company for larger funds to invest in. The company would have as it’s mandate to reduce costs as long as it is not at the expense of the care their clients would receive. Their secondary goals would be 99% customer satisfaction, 5% or less waste, 90% Employee Satisfaction, and client processes that are as simple as possible. This means Bonuses, company perks, benefits, etc – you want the place to be a happy place to work which means happy and productive workers who in turn give good service to the clients.

Step Two would be to mandate health care upon everyone. Companies would still contribute to Health Insurance just like they do now, and would need to include part time employees in the plan. I would allow them the ability to only need to pay 75% of the cost of a full time employee for the part timers though so it would still be cost effective to have part time employees in certain situations. Although I would not allow the number of part time employees exceed more then one half of the number of full time employees unless special circumstances warranted it.

Step Three would be to put a cap on Doctors earnings, I’d still make it fairly high to make the industry attractive. In return they would be exempt from general malpractice suits, although they would still be liable for gross negligence. I would make it easier for Doctors to consult with each other, including a national database (and forums!) of illnesses and diseases, their symptoms and a step by step regime for each one. Controls would be put in place to allow doctors to step outside of that regime when needed – probably a peer review committee randomly selected of doctors and retired doctors within the local geographic area. Doctors would also need to go through a periodic re-examination. The test would include mental abilities, skills, and face to face behaviors. It would also be partially dependent on their patients treatments, recoveries, and happiness with the doctor in general.

Step Four: Give the FDA more power to analyze and enforce Food and Drug quality controls and tests. They would also have the ability to fast track promising new drugs and greater ability to use human volunteers. The FDA would also have the power to price control drugs, making it cheap enough to be cost effective for general use.

Step Five: Drug and Medical Supply Companies. As above, I’d Nationalize one of each industry. The goals would be the same, with the same profit margins, employee bonuses, etc. Drug Companies would not be allowed to give gifts to doctors and such would be as tightly controlled as campaign donations are for politicians. (Or more so.) Companies would still be allowed to patent and license technologies, plus sell their own house brands of common medications.

Step Six: Consumers/Patients would be able to purchase additional insurance to hedge against costs that went over the lifetime cap – I think most people are saying $3 million lifetime. The exact finances would have to be worked out, but say you want to go to a five million lifetime cap. You’d have to add say $1.5 million to a general fund that is only payable upon your death, or upon your reaching the $3 million dollar cap. Excess monies in the fund at your death would be inherited, taxed at a slightly lower rate (to encourage starting the fund in the first place,) but would only go into your inheritors own fund. Half the interest on the fund would go to the company that administrats these funds and the other half would go back into the fund itself. The companies would only be allowed to reinvest the money in low and medium risk ventures as determined under supervison of the SEC, but would be liable for any decreases of more then 10% over the life of the fund. IE – if a person puts in $1 million dollars over their lifetime, but the funds value decreases to $500,000 the company would be liable for the missing $500,000.

Individual Users would be able to get a .05% tax break per a year that they’re able to see a Doctor for regular check ups. They would also be able to get another .05% tax break once every ten years, providing they either make significant changes to their health (significant weight loss, stop smoking, etc), or maintain within 15% of the recommended standards as approved by a doctor. To qualify for this, they would simply need to have an annual physical/checkup every two years.

There is still a lot more to it, but I believe that this would be an extremely effective system, provide health care for all and answer all the issues people have with Universal Health Care, yet not give up too many individual rights and freedoms.

Time to legalize illicit drugs?

Is it time to legalize illicit drugs?

Listening to NPR can elicit some sobering thoughts sometimes. It’s becoming more and more obvious that the United States really needs to become more practical about a lot of issues, and less emotional. One of the biggest issues that affects our country much more then most people realize is illicit drug use.

According to the White House.Gov budget web pagethe Drug Enforcement Agency’s budget was $1,761,000,000 in 2007. The page gives estimates $1,937,000,000 for 2009. There are several other agencies who overlap into the drug trade on that page too. Add in the FBI, Marshals service, Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force, BATF, and Attorney’s and we’re talking about another $1,196,400,000. If we use an extremely conservative 10% of their actual budget is directly related to drug enforcement, that still comes out to $119,640,000

Now, according to Criminal Offenders Statistics half of all prisoners are serving for violent or drug related crimes. Again, being conservative lets say half of those are drug related crimes. Going back to the Federal Budget, $5,534,000,000 is for the Federal Prison System. A quarter of that is $1,383,500,000.

So on the Federal level we have an extremely conservative number of $5,081,500,000. This is the direct MINIMUM cost of the Drug War to taxpayers in 2009.

Now, according to White House Drug Policy report, US Citizens spent $63,700,000 on illicit drugs of all types in 2000. Other sources state that drug use has stayed steady since 1993, so we can assume this number is still pretty close. So at a Federal level, not including individual states, we’re spending over five billion dollars to stop sixty million dollars of trade.

In Mexico, over 10,000 people have died in the drug war violence in the past few years. There are no hard numbers for drug related deaths in the United States, but no doubt a huge number of those violent crime statistics I mentioned above are drug related.

In 2003, Alcohol and Tabacco Sales were $115,900,000,000. Without any other hard data, lets assume that sales are the same in 2009, although they’ve most likely increased since then. With an average (low-balled) tax of 5%, all the states are making a combined $5,795,000,000 from the sale Alcohol and Tabacco products. Yes, these may not be the same as the hard drugs, but they all come into the same class of Luxury products in their recreational use.

After Prohibition ended, the cost of illegal alcohol decreased to ten percent of it’s Prohibition-era costs. Let’s assume the same would happen if the current crop of illegal drugs were legalize and we find that the drug trade would decrease to $6,370,000 over the entire United States. At the same 5% tax increase we’d see a mere $318,000 in tax revenue.

To break it down:

Cost of “Drug War”: $5,795,000,000 (Federal Level Only)
Tax revenue generated off legalized drugs: $318,000
Cost of education at Federal Level in 2009: $45,400,000,000
Cost of Iraq War, 2009: $136,000,000,000

Now, I didn’t add in costs of rehabilitation from drug use which is already factored into our current health costs. Nor did I also factor in the cost of putting in a legal distribution system (free to tax payers), tax enforcement system (minimal and covered by IRS as part of regular duties,) any age limit enforcement laws that would need to be taken care of before drugs were legalized, and of course drug tests for employment. There is also the current cost of cleaning up illegal drug production sites, especially in National Forests. Such costs would be rolled up into the production and manufacture and thus taken away from the Taxpayer.

It’s interesting to note that after Prohibition, the consumption of alcohol went DOWN by 30%. While there is no reason to believe drug consumption would decrease also, it’s hard to imagine it would increase by more then ten or fifteen precent.

I have also not mentioned any monies that would be generated by commercial hemp production as product demand would likely remain fairly low. Although Hemp seems to be one of the best plants to convert into biofuels, so those revenues could potentially increase dramatically.

The last thing we have to factor in is the affect legalized drug would have on other countries. To take Mexico for an example as their citizens are responsible for a huge percentage of illegal drug production, in addition to their own savings in having to decrease drug enforcement program, there would be more money flowing into their overall economy. Small scale farmers could afford to cultivate currently illegal products and raise their own economic level to name just one example.

Economically I think we really only have one choice. The moral arguments against currently illegal drugs is the exact same as it was against alcohol during Prohibition and will probably never be solved. But having just under six billion more dollars, a decreased prison population, less pollution, and most of all, less violence seems to counter just about any moral argument one can make.