Obamacare

[Peter]

As more people become or remain unemployed, the more people lack medical insurance.

So, if you are Obama, you should expand the well of people who are unemployed thereby expanding the number of desperate supporters of Obamacare.

If he is sincere about being reelected in 2012, then he needs to find one quickly implemented issue that will increase the number of unemployed. That issue is Cap and Trade.

Letters to the President.

Dear President Obama and Vice President Biden.

How can you sell ObamaCare?

Explain that it is not Socialized Medicine.

Few people will decline “on principal” their social security benefits, or Medicare when they reach age 65. And the fact that it may exceed the amount they paid into the system does not bother most people. Our system is subsidized, not socialized.

The same goes for the Veterans Administration. Few veterans, like myself, will pass up medical benefits. Most consider it a contract they had with the Government when they served their country. Veteran’s medical benefits are subsidized but not socialized medicine.

If Medicare is extended to everyone from birth onward it is an extension of our pre-existing policy for seniors.

The big philosophical difference is that a baby has not yet paid into the system like a senior who is 65 years old. Medicare for everyone could be likened to free public schools. The children don’t pay taxes but they benefit from adults paying state and county taxes to pay for their “free” schooling. Even people with no children or grown children must still pay school taxes because everyone profits from an educated citizenry.

What I worry about is paying for Medicare for everyone, and the immediate lack of medical personnel to cover millions more people who rarely if every go to a doctor or an emergency room, because they have no insurance.

Part of any Medicare for Everyone policy must be incentives to get more people to immediately join the Medical Profession at every level. Cash for Clunkers was a resounding success. Use that success story and incentives to power a Medical Training Act now.

Obviously Medicare for everyone can’t run out of money like Cash for Clunkers, and long lines or delayed health care will tick everyone off. And say, shouldn’t Representatives and Senators have the same program as everyone else?

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

A few months later.

Dear President Obama and Vice President Biden.

If folks are unconvinced about the President’s health care reform plan, start small, and convince the skeptics.

Extend Medicare downwards in five-year increments. Currently Americans are enrolled at age 65. They pay around $100.00 a month, I believe, for Medicare Part A and B. The $100.00 comes out of their Social Security checks.

How to begin the Trial? Make it completely voluntary. Drop the minimum age limit to 60. If a person wants Medicare they will pay X amount of dollars per month, or they can keep their current insurance. Have those interested 60 to 64 year olds enroll in Medicare and keep track of how much that they were paying for private health insurance, co-pays and for their medicines.

After one year on Medicare have the costs/benefits analyzed. Interview people and take a poll of these new Medicare recipients. Were they happy with the program? If the program is even marginally successful, drop the minimum age further, and improve the program based on what you have learned in that one year period.

If the program is a failure, and the skeptics were right, give the people on Medicare who are under 65, some time to find private insurance again or keep them on Medicare until age 65 when they can keep it, and then stop the program until a better idea comes around.

If the program is successful, accelerate the minimum age needed in bigger increments, improving the program each time, until all Americans are covered by Private Health Insurance or by Medicare.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

A year later.

Dear Fearless Leader and Assistant Exalted One Biden.

Now that you have taken over all industries in America, I have a request.

My cat Sparks will always drink the juice from your Supper Super before she will eat a bite.

She is white and about 2 years old, in good health, and with good teeth, but still loves the gravy.

Have you ever considered ‘Soup for Cats’ or ‘Gravy for Cats?’

Older cats too, with poor teeth or digestion, could benefit from a product that would keep them healthy and be easy to eat (or drink in this case.) and digest.

You could package it with a small sticky pull tab, like ‘Ensure,’ so it could be shaken, then refrigerated, after pouring.

You could create a product that is a complete, healthy meal or one that is just drunk as a snack or as a supplement to the cat’s regular diet.

It is much easier to pour out a small amount of gravy, than spoon out a small amount of solid food and then refrigerate the rest – no more messy spoons or partial cans refrigerated in a baggy.

This idea is yours, free to read and forget, or to develop as a product to buy. Good luck. I hope I will be able to buy your new product soon.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor