Economy

Medicare-for-all—There Is No Better Solution

Posted on by Joseph Sparks

Republicans have been saying for many years that the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, needs to be repealed and replaced with something better. Medicare-for-all is that something better.

Unfortunately for Republicans and the rest of us, after six years of complaining, they still have no idea of how to replace Obamacare. Their latest proposal is to repeal Obamacare, then delay the repeal for two to three years in the hope that they can force Democrats to negotiate a replacement.

Republicans argue falsely that the current problems in our health care system have been exacerbated by Obamacare. In fact Obamacare has mitigated some of the worst problems by reducing the number of uninsured by about 12.5 million and allowing people with pre-existing conditions to get insurance.

However, even Obamacare has not been able to fix the systemic problems that cause the United States to have the most expensive health care system in the world with some of the worst health outcomes of any developed nation. We pay for a yacht, but get a dinghy.

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Trickle-up Economic Stimulus and Investment

Posted on by Joseph Sparks

The economic news has been contradictory in the last few weeks. Bad news started the cycle with real gross domestic product decreasing at an annual rate of 2.9 percent. Good news followed with solid job growth and the lowest unemployment in five years, 6.1 percent.

Regardless of whether the economic news is good or bad overall, many people think the economy is stuck in low gear. While people at the upper end of economic ladder have seen their incomes substantially increase, those in the lower- and middle-class have seen their incomes stagnate for the last several decades.

If we want robust economic growth for both the short- and long-term, then a bold plan is needed that combines stimulus with investment in physical and human capital. The right plan would lift everybody, especially those people who have not seen economic benefit for decades.

The country anxiously awaits leadership that will provide such a plan. Neither party has produced this.

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Why Obamacare Will Be A Successful Failure: Single-payer Is The Solution

Posted on by Joseph Sparks

President Obama has been almost giddy, with good reason, about the success of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.  After a rocky start, the president celebrated the numbers: more than 11 million people now have insurance because of the Health Insurance Marketplace, his expansion of Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Supporters of Obamacare should be cautious, however, because the ACA is doomed to fail, though it will succeed at the same time. To understand why, it is necessary to review the health care mess we had before the ACA, why the ACA will not solve this mess, and what can be done to make health care truly available and affordable to everybody.

Before the ACA, we had a deny-care system instead of a health care system. The health insurance companies were virtually unregulated and used their independence to enroll people who were unlikely to need medical care, to refuse payment of claims, or to drop coverage, often on minor technicalities, and to move individuals to policies with high deductibles and co-pays to reduce their payouts. The insurance companies’ goal was to avoid paying claims by denying care.

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Trickle-down myth

Posted on by Joseph Sparks

Economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz makes a compelling case against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement in this editorial.

At the end of the editorial, Stiglitz makes a statement that every politician and policy maker must know:

“Trickle-down economics is a myth.”

Stiglitz says he has repeatedly emphasized this point, but obviously many people have not received the message. So the next time anybody tries to justify policies by advocating trickle-down economics, tell them they are wrong and to base their policies on something that actually works.

Actions 2014

Posted on by Joseph Sparks

At the start of 2013, I published a list of actions that would solve the health care crisis in the United States, improve the economy, and create better government. Unfortunately, as 2014 starts, all these actions still need to be enacted, and some new ones need to be added. Here is the update list.

1. Enact single-payer health care system.

2. Properly fund programs for SNAP (food stamps), housing, etc. for people in need. Increase spending for food programs and housing programs so everybody has enough to eat and adequate housing. Extend unemployment insurance for those in need.

3. Commit to education fully. Let’s establish that class sizes should have no more than 20 students though high school and work to increase the number of teachers to meet this goal. Provide public funding for students through at least the undergraduate level of college.

4. Address income inequality by requiring that top executives pay increases or bonuses must be less than or equal to the increases or bonuses paid to employees.

5. Make gun safety laws stricter by enacting the following requirements:

  • Require background checks for anybody buying a gun.
  • Require training in gun safety.
  • Make straw man purchasing of guns illegal. Require valid gun registration to buy ammunition.
  • Allow researchers and law enforcement officials to use the gun registration database to track guns in crime.

6. Enact a stimulus bill. Debt is not the main concern now, jobs are. We can start by rebuilding infrastructure and allowing the debt ceiling to increase automatically.

7. Get rid of corporate welfare and prohibit special tax breaks (incentives) for individual companies.

8. Make the following changes to the tax code:

  • Enact a financial transaction tax.
  • Change tax laws so that only amount of income determines tax rates, not source of income.
  • Change tax laws to remove loopholes so profitable companies must pay taxes and remove tax breaks on foreign profits.
  • Change tax law to remove separate taxes on wages. Have only one federal income tax and allocate percentages to pay for Social Security and Medicare.

9. Require complete disclosure of all financial donations to politicians and political campaigns.

10. Require that all lobbyist meetings be documented with a summary of issues and what the lobbyist requested. (These should be posted every week on the Internet.)

11. Only allow citizens who are eligible to vote in an election or who can register to vote in an election to contribute to campaigns. This would require overturning Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission either by the Supreme Court or with a constitutional amendment.

12. Research and support clean, renewable energy.

13. Get rid of the debt ceiling. The cost to the economy is too great if the government shuts down, and many experts consider the debt ceiling unconstitutional.

14. If the government does shut down, then all members of Congress should lose wages just like other government employees.

15. Increase penalties to at least three times the profits made via fraud or other criminal acts. Too often firms engage in illegal activity and are hit with minimal fines. Not only should fines be increased, but the executives responsible should be prosecuted, and if found guilty, required to spend some serious time in jail.

Too often it is unclear what actions need to be take to improve the U.S. These actions provide a starting point for reforms that would significantly improve the quality of life in the U.S. and provide a government that is more accountable.