National Health Care

While my primarily libertarian philosophy does not favor another big government entitlement program my more pragmatic side reasons that like highways and the post office a national health care system is a necessary evil of a modern industrial society. It is not often that I agree with Senator Kennedy but I do concur with his assessment that the best way to achieve basic national health care for the US would be to make the Medicare system universal. Why add another layer of bureaucracy when we have a working system? Some tweaking of the current Medicare framework would be necessary but for the most part it would expand easily. The current system requires the payment of a monthly premium that is withheld from monthly benefit payments this should probably be eliminated in a universal System as the collection process would be impractical; possibly it could be replaced by extending the Medicare tax to income not currently taxed for Medicare purposes (ex. interest, dividends, and capital gains). Universal coverage would probably require doubling the current Medicare tax rate of roughly 1.5% to about 3% but the impetuous to the economy and general welfare of the country would make it well worth the cost. Since the current programs co-payment system seems to work very well I see no reason to change it. The prescription program should be restricted to only the Social Security recipients until the system can be better assessed.