My Health Care Proposal

The Congressional Budget Office has now weighed in on the probable costs of the Kennedy-Dodd health care bill, i.e. universal single payer government run national health care. It is $1 trillion. It could be higher, but the CBO can't say for sure at this point, because neither Kennedy or Dodd or the President or any other Democrat currently running our government cares to give out all the details of this plan to massively restructure 1/5th of the American economy.

The most commonly cited reason for this health care bill, repeated over and over, is that our current system fails to insure 45 million people. That's a lot of people, and I hesitate to even describe the terrible consequences they face when they get sick. Believe it or not, they have to do what every one did back in the dark ages of the 1920's and actually pay for any medical services they receive. Of course, they aren't paying $1,000 per month for an average family insurance plan like the rest of us, but that is small comfort when the rapacious health care industry surrounds them, demanding payment.

As deeply as I feel for these people, however, I wonder: isn't $1 trillion a tad excessive to fix this utter injustice of our current system? As an alternative, I might propose that we simply pay the annual premium of a standard individual health insurance policy for each and everyone of these poor, benighted creatures. At $500 per policy, that works out to a hefty $22.5 billion. After the first year, however, costs should go down as the 45 million uninsured are actually identified rather than just extrapolated in accordance with the inner desires of the extrapolators, and I suspect the reasons they are not insured might indicate something well short of the national nightmare envisioned by our leaders today.

In this era of solving problems with nothing less than $1 trillion of taxpayer dollars, such a solution as I propose might well be a refreshing change for Washington and a welcome relief for the taxpayers. It is true that my proposal at base is just another costly government boondoggle, but I think if we are going to throw money away, we ought to at least do it in billions rather than trillions.