Our entire screwed up future deficit problem is due to health care costs.

[dkf]

"The U.S. health care system is possibly the most inefficient in the world: We spend twice as much per person on health care as other advanced countries, but we have worse health outcomes, including a lower life expectancy. The government, through programs like Medicare and Medicaid, pays for approximately half of the country's health care, almost all of which is actually provided by the private sector. Thus, the bulk of our projected rising budget deficits are due to skyrocketing health care costs.

The CEPR Health Care Budget Deficit Calculator shows that if the U.S. can get health care costs under control, our budget deficits will not rise uncontrollably in the future. But if we fail to contain health care costs, then it will be almost impossible to prevent exploding future budget deficits. "

http://www.cepr.net/calculators/hc/hc-calculator.html

We the people need to get used to the idea that the health care system as we know it will bankrupt us and we need to change it's structure to stay solvent.
Is this scaring seniors? Maybe but it's either scare seniors or scare everyone else that comes after them.

[WinkyDink]

1. The Defense Dept might beg to differ.

[kentuck]

2. Sell Medicare to everyone 55 and older.

That would save Medicare and do a lot to solve the high cost of medical care.

[dkf]

4. Medicare costs are still exploding.

I'm not sure the structure has what it takes to get us to where it needs to be. It needs even more control than what Medicare can bring.

[theophilus]

10. It can be fixed. The insurance/pharma industry and hospitals for profit bunch need to be

reigned in. If a doctor needs to make 100 times what an average worker makes (most docs don't make a huge pile) then they need to be educated on what medicine used to be like in this country and what it is like in civilized nations today. IT CAN BE FIXED. What do you want to do, scrap it?

[theophilus]

8. Exactly. n/t

[Capitalocracy]

3. There's just about no problem in the U.S.

that you can't solve with single payer, reduced defense spending, and a living wage.

[dkf]

5. Living wage is $55,000 for a single mother with two kids in Hawaii.

I wonder how many businesses can swing that. Not that I'm saying we shouldn't pay a living wage but is it feasible for a small business?

[Capitalocracy]

6. It would be eventually.

I think it should be implemented intelligently, subsidized for small businesses to start with, for example. The increased wages won't take long to improve the general economy enough to make it easier for small businesses to pay that amount.

[theophilus]

11. What is a "small business", do tell? I have a small business. Some businesses

with 150 employees say they are "small business". The rightwing def is often these very large businesses, to me, as "small". Bullcrap! A living wage varies but with good government healthcare, free college educations (or highly subsidized), etc. you don't need nearly as much to "live" and let live. Just look at other nations that don't have a fraction of what we have. WE CAN DO THIS. Just tearing it down and privatizing is not the answer. It is not AN answer.

[dkf]

17. An auto shop, a tinting shop, a gas station that actually makes .01 a gallon,

A family run restaurant or independent grocery, a shave ice shop, a little boutique, etc.

[theophilus]

7. Yep. Time for single payer government healthcare. Like most other developed countries.

Screw this Insurance/Pharma greed crap. Time to defund the insurance industry and get them off of the government teat. Time to stop subsidizing Pharma. Time to do things that work: Single Payer. Time to care about our fellow Americans (not just the wealthy rich) and care for them and all have a reason to feel good about being an American!

[Overseas]

14. +1.

[leveymg]

9. It's not just health care costs. Other cost of living factors in US are due to industry price

fixing and the lack of anti-trust enforcement in the United States.

Transportation and housing costs are still among the highest in the world because of the infrastructure built according to a post-War oil-dominated model that keeps the costs of essentials -- housing, energy, transportation, food -- high. Because energy and other costs have been allowed to rise to global levels, the real earnings that get passed down through wages to the vast majority of Americans have declined.

Real wages and employment continue to decline in the United States because multinationals dominate both political parties and government has lost the will to regulate them. Huge multinationals and conglomerates control the full spectrum of the economy - commodity supplies, prices, employment and wages. Profits and prices continue to rise, while American wages are contracting for all but the top one or two percent who have an ownership stake in or essential skills that serve globalized corporations.

One alternative is to allow "market forces" to continue to drive down wages and commodities prices up to global levels. Of course, that will mean that many millions of Americans will no longer be able to afford a middle-class standard of living. The middle-class will never recover the equity -- and the borrowing ability -- it once thought it had in residential real estate values during the bubble. That will continue to impact the ability of most people to make large purchases and to provide higher educations for their children. That will increasingly bar most from better-paid occupations and the ability to compete in a world economy.

The other alternative is to break up the largest corporations and re-regulate those that are essential, raise taxes on companies and upper-income earners, impose strict laws and severe penalties for lay-offs and capital transfers. Impose domestic hiring quotas and wage floors for all federal contractors and impose lending guidelines on banks that have taken tax breaks and subsidies in the past for these practices. Prosecute some executives for criminal antitrust conspiracies. This regulatory and tax scheme and economy would be akin to that America had during World War Two until the early 1960s. We can start by breaking up the health insurance and Big Pharma industries.

There still are choices.

[DCKit]

12. France does it for less than half our cost and covers all their citizens.

We hosted a guy I've known since 1972 who is now a resident of France, and he was horrified that we were even having this debate.

SOME things NEED to be socialized. It's laid out in the Constitution.

[theophilus]

13. I guess the message from the cracked teapotters is that Americans

are too stupid to do what the French or the Danes or the Swedes have been doing for ages. Well, I guess a lot of Americans are not very bright but the argument just proves the point. Let the real mature Americans solve the problems and quit yelling "SOCIALIST!!!111" at them. We'll all be better off and avoid our places in the Soylent Green package.

[leveymg]

15. The Teapotters should be allowed to opt-out of all social programs, including SS, Medicare.

In exchange, they won't be allowed to vote, and can form their own autonomous Galt region in northern Idaho. No WMDs. I would guess that there won't be many takers.

[lonestarnot]

16. Couldn't have anything to do with 3 wars and oilers now could it.