FREE LUNCH!
For our defense, we need totally free healthcare for all and expense-paid education at all levels. Currently, over 75% of applications for military service are rejected for reasons of health and/or education. The cure? Finance patients and students exactly as we finance soldiers! It could well be part of the defense budget (where it may escape notice!), with an army of auditors and sheriffs to fight waste, fraud, and abuse. Of course, without question, every family should always be able to buy their own healthcare and education in a totally free marketplace!
Cost? Other nations have government-supported healthcare and education with lower costs than those now saddled upon our old and young. Anyway, our problem is NEVER availability of money but rather inflation, which the Fed controls. If necessary, Congress could increase taxes, which should not be our major concern. It’s after-tax earnings that matter most and that’s what “deficit spending” really is: the annual net increase in private savings, domestic and foreign.
And of course, after-tax earnings bring prosperity! World War II spending created our suburbs and gave us 30 years of prosperity. Spending on the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, Cold War rearmament, nuclear energy, NASA, Vietnam, etc., also contributed to our post-war prosperity.
Federal debt? As explained* by Ben Bernanke, Princeton U. economist and ex-Fed Chair, the Fed, with consent of Congress, can buy federal debt directly from the Treasury! No problem!
With Social Security numbers identifying all individuals, computers would manage everything with minimum personnel. Congress would negotiate prices and fees for all goods and services, pay everyone their just worth, and never ever send a bill for service to a patient or to a student!
Yes, there will be growing pains! The first “Free Lunch” problem will be the scarcity of physical resources, especially dentists, whom many of our poor have never seen. And there will not be enough rural hospitals and doctors. Until the system is fully grown, such scarcity will require a process of triage to set priorities. That is why “Free Lunch” would be implemented gradually!
Education now has or soon will have all the needed resources but healthcare will be lacking. In ten years or so, if we can teach doctors and build like China, there may be enough medical resources for slack to appear. By then, there should also be no more sk**led labor shortages. And much of our huge prison population could and should be trained to care for sick and old.
Let’s start now by extending Medicare to children up to age 19 and to students up to age 30. We need only augment our current system. Annually, we should increase the entry age for Medicare one year (age 19 to age 20) and decrease the entry age for Medicare one year (age 67 to age 66). When possible, annually increase/decrease by two or more years, until EVERYONE has Medicare. Then, fire the health insurance industry and declare all healthcare and all education, including neighborhood nurseries, day-care, and pre-K to be totally free, cradle to the grave!
Totally free education at all levels and totally free healthcare for all with just enough taxation to prevent inflation will create high deficit spending (= high after-tax earnings!) and prosperity!
Fire the deficit hawks! Elect Social Democrats! Make America REALLY Great and Totally Free!
*
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/04/11/what-tools-does-the-fed-have-left-part-3-helicopter- money/
© 2018 Marvin Sussman. All rights reserved. Search: YouTube.com for Marvin Sussman!
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