Positive Change

Change can be good as long as you have a good idea what is broken and how the change will fix it.

All too often we confuse motion with progress. A great example of this is the mantra of the current health care reform debate. The premise that health care has to be reformed is built upon by saying that it has to be the government that changes it. Then the argument is presented with the new premise that health care must be reformed by adding bureaucracy and if you don't agree with that then you must not want anything to happen and therefore you are evil, want children to die and probably kick puppies when no one is looking.

Any time you start with a bad premise you have a weak and most of the time unsupportable argument. Change is only good if it improves a process. As any good lawyer will tell you, you never ask a question that you don't know the answer to. The same can be said of changing our system of health care. You only change it to something that you know will improve the process so in this case I say no change is better than a change in the direction of the current plans in Washington.

Here are some simple steps that will cost the tax payers nothing:

Tort Reform.

Sell Insurance across State lines to increase competition.

Multiply tax credits for business that provide insurance to workers.

Remove quotas from medical schools to increase the number of doctors. An increase in the supply of doctors will lower the cost by increasing competition.

Push the Medicare/caid and Social Security eligibility age up by five years.

Ban all publicly funded medical care for non-emergency treatment of illegal aliens.

Allow for the creation of non-business related insurance groups and provide tax credits for individuals or groups who buy personal insurance for themselves or relatives and friends.

Not a single one of these line items costs tax payers a penny that they do not volunteer. These are simple to implement and would be a good start. The bill would be about 20 pages long and everyone could read it before they vote on it.

Tony Hines
November 24th 2009