Ryan Streeter
The Pledge By America is our commitment to our elected leaders that we'll do our part to fix the nation's deficit - and save our future.
Yesterday, I argued that we need to save more if we are going to be a deficit-killing generation. Before that, I talked about how we need to be self-sufficient and to work longer if we're going to get serious about our deficit.
Today, I hit on three critical components of reform. Here are the seven points of our Pledge, with today's components highlighted.
- I pledge to do all I can to be self-sufficient, and to raise children – if I have them – to be self-sufficient.
- I pledge to work until 70 years old.
- I pledge to save more of my income than I do now, by a few percentage points a year, to prepare for the future.
- I pledge to allow a portion of my payroll taxes to be deposited into a savings account for my retirement, rather than relying only on Social Security.
- I pledge to be a cost-conscious consumer of insurance and health care when I am age 70 and older, and to use a fixed contribution from the government each year to get the insurance and care I need rather than expecting the government to pay for whatever costs I rack up.
- I pledge to live with less from the government in retirement and health benefits if I’m fortunate enough to be well-off when I retire.
- I pledge to give more to charity, my place of worship, or elsewhere in my community to address the needs of those around me.
First, we need to pledge to be a cost-conscious consumer. What does this mean? In summary it means that we'll live with the government paying us an up-front amount rather than a back-end amount for our health care. Currently, the government tries to set prices, and then pays for whatever health care costs seniors rack up. If we're going to slow the growth of Medicare, we need to reverse this. We should all get an annual amount of moneh from the government up front that we manage. That means: we purchase our own insurance and pay for our own health care. Market forces, which don't currently exist to any significant degree in Medicare, will keep costs down through competition - as in any other part of the economy. Providers willl get paid for how well they do, rather than for how many people they can see (as things go currently). This is probably the single most imporant element of successful entitlement reform.
Second, we need to means-test the programs. Means-testing is this: you pay out benefits to people based on how much money they've got. If you're rich, you get less. If you're poor, you get more. Currently, millionaires get Social Security and Medicare regardless of their wealth. What this really means is that younger workers making a lot less than their richer elders are supporting the latters' retirement. Shouldn't we be focusing our resources on those with the greatest need? Since that's not our current practice, we are effectively wasting a lot of taxpayers' dollars by sending them to people who don't need them. So let's change the law so that we target resources to those who need them the most.
Third (and this may be the most important of all), we need to help those around us. A truly civil society is one in which the non-governmental institutions of church, neighborhood, community, and enterprise meet the needs around them without any "incentives" or coercion from the state. The more civil society we've got, the less state we've got. Entitlement reform should not be an effort to "offload" responsibilities to nonprofits, but it shouldn't shy away from them either. America has a long, Tocquevillian tradition of mediating the costs and role of the state through a vibrant network of formal and informal civil society institutions. If the next generation is more intentional about giving and volunteering than the previous generation, the effects will be less need for the state.
These three components are essential ingredients for reform. They are also based on the idea that by increasing freedom, justice and compassion in our approach to our older fellow citizens, the care will be better and the costs lower.
The writer forgot the most expensive problem of all in health care, and that is the total corruption in the FDA and AMA. They are nothing more than the marketing arm of the big drug companies. We need a thorough and honest investigation with serious jail time for corrupt officials and misleading drug companies. Currently they are occasionaly fined, but that cost is simply passed on to the consumers.
While your at it, go back to the former law that prohibited drug company ads.
Posted by: David Luepke | February 11, 2011 at 08:17 AM