Politicana

I have no idea how many people even visit this site any more (besides Russ).  However, I have been posting my opinions to President-Elect Obama like crazy on Change.gov.  Suddenly, it occured to me (mere moments ago, in fact), that I should also post those comments here.  Well, I’m sorry that you have missed several of them that I now cannot remember (though the first two were just versions of my letter to Barack already posted on this site).  Here is the one I wrote today:

On Health Care Reform:

I believe this should be included in the economic stimulus package.  That may seem like over-reaching but this is a critical issue and it is the one Republicans will fight the hardest against– if you make adequate health care available to the rural South, the Republicans will lose their last stronghold in this country.  So, Health Care must pass when this new administration is at its strongest (during its first 100 days) and with the wide mandate the American people have given you to fix the economy.

I would like to see a radical change in health care, with the Federal Gov’t picking up all or most of the costs.  Individual employers would still facilitate the legistics of connecting people to their providers but then would be reimbursed by the Gov’t for all/most of the cost.  Employees would pay nothing.  The system would look effectively the same from the average person’s point of view: they would keep the exact same provider with the exact same services facilitated by their employer in the exact same way.  Except they will see more money in their paycheck.

As there is no additional cost to them, employers could then be expected to extend COBRAs indefinitely (or at least for a significant amount of time) until former employees found other work.  Chronically unemployed people could get their insurance directly from the State/County.  They would have access to all the same providers as we currently do but the local Gov’t would act much like our employers do.  As the sole purchaser of health insurance, the Fed could force costs down.

While, some of that would take time, where this would be an immediate stimulus for the economy is on the employer’s end.  Freed of the huge burden of health care costs, employers could spend that money on job creation, program development or expansion.  In fact, they could be mandated to do so (rather than on executive bonuses) for X amount of time (eg 24 months).

I think this could be sold to the American people: though it is a huge change, most of it occurs behind the scenes (ie health care functions exactly the same way on a day to day basis for most of us).  American’s like familiarity.  The change they will see will be the increased money in their checks and the increased health care benefits for the unemployed.  And they will understand the value of putting money in employer’s pockets.  In fact, big business would probably love the idea.

So, the only question is… can we pay for it?  Well, if you don’t change your mind on repealing Bush’s tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy, that would help.  But, I’m not an economist, so I’ll leave that up to you folks.