Contrary to the thinking of some of my detractors here on Room Eight New York, I don’t have a thin skin; that’s why I have stayed on New York’s blogs for the past three years, mixing it up with the best of the anons and with the few who are brave enough to use their own names when they critique me. I spent years in the boxing ring, I do know how to give and take.

Today, I am going to apologize here for the many times I used profanity to express myself; I should have done this better over the years (Chris Owens is absolutely correct about his critique in this regard); and yes my mother never used profanity, and she did teach me to be better than that. My Papa didn’t take any mess but he didn’t use profanity either. I cut across the grain sometimes.

So I have proposed universal healthcare financing at the national level. How would I pay for it? My view is that we are already paying for it, directly or indirectly, through existing government programs, subsidies, and tax exclusions. My goal would not be to send health care soaring beyond its already world-leading nearly 16 percent of GDP, nor to increase the share of GDP devoted to health care by the government. My goal would be to shift government health care funding to basic, established care for everyone, rather than wasteful, luxury care for some and nothing for others. People could buy more, or contribute to charities that provide more to others, by choice. We need to avoid having the government force people to pay for wasteful, luxury care today, at the cost of national bankruptcy, and no care for today’s young people when they are senior citizens tomorrow. Federal politicians, including members of Congress and Presidential candidates, shrink from a simple, federally financed system for two reasons. First, they do not wish to confront those who benefit from the system as it is. Second, they do not wish to raise federal taxes for health care, and then get blamed, while saving businesses and state and local governments money, for which they will receive credit. Neither is an excuse for the disaster that is our existing health care finance system. Let’s move forward.

In probably all states of the Union, one Monday in mid January is set aside to publicly celebrate the life and ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King, jnr. This public holiday is meant to coincide with the birthday of the man who was christened Michael Luther King, and who later changed his first name to Martin. He was born on January 15th, 1929. He died on April 4th, 1968. He never saw his 40th birthday.

He sacrificed his life in a fight for freedom and equality for all humans (and not just for blacks only); by giving some of the most inspiring speeches ever, by any human anywhere. Before being assassinated, he had sacrificed time, money, brainpower, energy and anything else you could think about, in order to realize his dreams of justice and equality for all.

My experience in public policy tells me that in general anything that isn’t simple is a ripoff, and in the dark corners of back-door funding, money flows to power not to need. So what would I do about healthcare finance in the United States? Something like Senator Edwards proposed when he said “Health Care Markets will offer a choice between private insurers and a public insurance plan modeled on Medicare, but separate and apart from it. Families and individuals will choose the plan that works best for them.” And that’s all. People would be allowed to keep their current employer-provided insurance, but the back-door government subsidy for it via an exclusion from personal income taxes would be replaced by a front door subsidy that was equitable. Existing senior citizens could stay in Medicare as it now exists, but it would phase out and be replaced by the new “Medicare” as it would be. Medicaid would disappear, except for the custodial care of adults (mostly seniors and the severely disabled) with self-care limitations. And even in that case the continuation of Medicaid would be temporary, because the custodial care issue is massive and needs to be rethought carefully, and separately from health care for everyone else.

If the financial markets overseas tomorrow are like they were today and Wall Street follows, I have a suggestion for Governor Spitzer. Cancel the budget presentation, throw the document in the trash, and start over. He should probably do it anyway. Going along with a fantasy until after the November elections, at the price of far more severe damage to our public services and economy, is unethical — but absolutely consistent with past practice. Note the difference between Mayor Bloomberg’s already-announced budget cuts and news of spending increases already leaked from the Governor’s budget.

Well, I’ve read through the healthcare sections on the major candidate’s websites, even in cases where it wasn’t made easy (Hey Edwards, if you want fair comparisons and accurate citations, don’t put you policies in PDF), and I’ve got some good news.  If you take the best parts of the plans of Senator Clinton, Senator Obama, Senator Edwards, Senator McCain, Governor Romney, Mayor Giuliani, and Governor Huckabee (yep even he had a good point or two), the U.S. could have a plan that addresses the inequities, economic damage and waste in the U.S. healthcare finance system that I discussed in my prior three posts.  All of them accept there is a problem, and that public policy is at the center of it.  All of the Democrats propose reducing the inequity by creating a universal health care finance system.  Most of the Republicans accept the need to limit the economic damage by separating health insurance from place of work, and some assert the need to force people to make cost-benefit choices in health care.  In my next couple of posts I’ll lay out my suggestion, and to my surprise I’ll be able to do so while quoting all the candidates.  The problem is that if you take all the bad ideas and put them together, you have a disaster on your hands.  And most of the bad ideas are not the result of ideological beliefs; they are the result of bending those beliefs to accommodate those who benefit the mess as it is.  This post is about the bad ideas.

There is this trick in politics that seems to work well: tell a lie; tell it over and over and over again; and eventually people accept it as truth. We the people could only hope that when a presidential race comes around, that mainstream media helps us sort out truth from fiction; helps us in fact-finding. If they don’t, then we the people become prey to many lies and exaggerations of over-ambitious candidates (like the Clintons). So here is a note from me to the gatekeepers of the fourth estate: do your job; please.

Mainstream media folks (and all of us) should not forget that in 1992 when Bill was running for president, a story broke whereby some audio tapes belonging to a woman named Gennifer Flowers had surfaced. This woman claimed to have had a lengthy affair with Bill Clinton. On the tapes were recordings of Bill making disparaging statements about a potential rival for the presidency (Mario Cuomo). Bill eventually apologized to Cuomo (Italian descent) for suggesting on said tapes, that he Cuomo (or his relatives) was in some way connected to the underworld (Mafia). Then Bill and Hillary Clinton went on the “Sixty Minutes” television program (CBS) and denied the affair between Bill and Ms. Flowers; in essence they called her a liar. This woman suffered greatly because of this; like many others before and after.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01192008/news/regionalnews/spitzer_lets_215_killers_go_loose_496829.htm

SPITZER LETS 215 KILLERS GO LOOSE

Records show that 12 of the 19 current members of the Parole Board were appointed by Pataki.

According to the 2008 Statistical Abstract of the United States, health expenditures accounted for 15.3% of GDP in the United States in 2004, up from 8.8% of GDP in 1980. That is vastly more than healthcare’s share of GDP in Canada (9.9%), France (10.5%), Germany (10.9%), Denmark (8.9%), Norway (9.7%), or Sweden (9.1%), all countries with publicly financed universal health insurance (see attached spreadsheet). In the United Kingdom, which also has public provision of health care via the National Health Service, healthcare only accounted for 8.3% of GDP. Italy and Japan have some of the longest-lived people in the world, but their healthcare expenditures absorbed only 8.4% of GDP and 8.0% of GDP, respectively. And not only did the U.S. have the highest health care expenditures as a share of GDP in 2003/2004, it also had the largest increase since 1980. So, from a public policy perspective, how large should U.S. healthcare expenditures be as a share of GDP? Well, according to public policy how large should U.S. entertainment expenditures be as a share of GDP? How large should housing expenditures be as a share of GDP? How large should travel expenditures be as a share of GDP? Perhaps you get the idea. That is not the right question.

I hate to say: “I told you so”; but I did. And whenever I remind people on the blogs of things I predict coming to pass, there is this constant resentment that predictably emerges from certain perpetual corners. That resentment usually manifests itself by snide remarks or nasty comments in the threads of my columns. But that’s okay; I will plug on.

I told you all that racism will eventually rear its ugly head in this presidential primary and sure as day it did. Go back and see when I did my first part of this series, and ask yourself why I said there will be three parts to this column. It’s called clairvoyance. I am very clear about my voyage/lol.