Proposal on Health Care Fraud

Watching a 60 Minutes program, billions of dollars have been wasted on fly-by-night organizations. Because Medicare is required to pay a bill submitted in 45-60 days, fraud is rampant.

My proposal: Every organization that requests medicare fund must have it's officers and owners submit photo ID, fingerprints and DNA before any payments can be made. This will prevent repeated abuse and allow the criminals to be tracked down.

Proposal for Medical Insurance.

Each person would be given up to $5000 tax credit. Thus a family of four would be given up to a $20,0000 tax credit.

To pay for deductibles, medicine, eye care, dentistry, etc, a separate health care account can be established. This account would carry over from year to year. Funds can be transferred to other health accounts. Any money left over after death would go to a government health care account.

So if a married couple with two children buys insurance for $11,000 a year, they would be able to tax $11,000 off their taxes. They could then add an additional $9,000 to their health care accounts.

This would provide an incentive to shop around for insurance so that savings can be added to the health care account.


Any company supplied insurance would count as ordinary income.

If the tax credit exceeds the amount of taxes paid, the additional amount would go the the health care account.

Example. John Doe pay no federal income taxes. He pays $300 a month to Blue Cross, for $3600 a year. He would get back from the federal government $3600, plus $1400 would be added to his health care account.

Example: Jane Smith has a husband and two kids. Her company pays $22,000 a year for her insurance. Jane's income would go up $2000, ($22,000 - 4*$5000). At a 30% tax rate, Jane would pay $600 more in taxes.


Population of United States is under 310 Million. So that would be $1.550 trillion per year max cost.

Proposal: National Lottery

I propose a national tax lottery. The prizes. $1 million for each congressional district ($435 million). Two $10 million for each state ($500 million). 5 $1 million prizes for all those outside a state. ($5 million). And one $60 overall grand prize winner. For a total outlay of $1 billion. [Other option: 10 $100 million prizes for an additional $1 billion].

The prizes would be tax free.

Every person would be able to buy an entry for $1 which would provide an entry to the overall grand prize(s), and entry to state and districts drawings. In addition, an entry would be provided for each dollar paid in federal taxes, income and social security. Workers would get a credit for employer portion of social security taxes paid. An entry would be valid only if the taxes are paid on time.

Why do this? Two billion is a miniscule amount of the total federal budget. It would encourage those to pay their taxes on time. It provides a possible reward to those who pay taxes. And it could actually increase total revenue if people (and foreigners) buy entries.

My Proposal for the Auto Industry

Limit the combined salary and benefits for everyone in the company to six times the minimum wage until the government loan is paid back. After the loan is paid back, the company can then pay the forgone wages.

Bailout Proposal - An Addendum

The government proposes to take all the bad loans and hold them til they become valuable again. I suppose this is needed to free up the financial markets. Banks are now buying short term treasuries at 0.02% interest because they are safe, not even loaning money to other banks.

But here is my proposal.This proposal will affect all executives of any firm that "sells" it's loans to the government. Since Obama thinks 250K is rich, I propose that all salaries, bonuses, pensions, golden parachutes, etc. for executives of above that amount be placed in a special account until the government rids itself of all the loans from that firm. Money from that fund could be used to pay taxes. It could also be used to pay existing obligations, like mortgage payments, provided that those assets are pledged as collateral. These monies would be invested in U.S. treasuries. Upon completion of the sale of the loans, any losses would by made up by these funds, the rest returned to the executives.

Energy - Increase Security By Drilling More

Certain of the United States' current adversaries gain a significant amount of income from oil sales. If we start drilling in all available areas now, even though it may takes years before any oil is produced, those that produce oil will know that in the future they will find it harder to sell oil.

If the U.S. combines drilling with an aggressive alternative energy program, those that sell oil will realize that there will be less demand in the future. This will produce a desire to sell as much oil as they can while they still can. More overall supply will lower the price, thus leaving the current adversaries with less funds with to do mischief.

Can we handle benefits better?

The way we handle cut off points for denying benefits seems counter-productive. Example: Social Security disability benefits. Assume you are receiving benefits but decided to try to go back to work. You are allowed to work so much but once you achieve a certain point you lose all benefits. This is an incentive not to work unless the new individual income is greater than the current benefits receiving plus taxes paid on the new income plus the cost of working. The cost of working includes possible increased costs in transportation, clothing, meals, baby-sitting, etc, plus the lost of time.

A better system would be a partial cut in benefits. For example for each additional $3 earn, a $1 decrease in benefits. This would provide an incentive to work while also decreasing the cost to agency. In this case the agency actual cost is decreased by $1, plus $0.45 ($3 *15% combined SS tax, individual and company match). And if they person is "wealthy"enough, the state and federal government will also receive income tax.


Links:
substantial gainful activity (SGA)

trial work period

Health Care - Socialized Medicine - Vaccines

Whether or not you believe in socialized medicine, there maybe a few areas where the government should participate.

One area is the distribution of vaccines. Because vaccines protect not only the health of the individual but also of the whole population, the cost of vaccines should be shared by the government. Vaccines should be made available to everyone.

But we also need to protect those who suffer adverse reactions from taking vaccines. To insure the viability of the companies making vaccines, we should limit being able to sue the manufactures. In return, a fund would be set up to pay for those injured by taking vaccines. This will take out the "lottery" mentality out of suing manufactures. Those that are severely injured would be compensated fairly without having to overly compensate lawyers and battle manufactures in court.

The government would save money by increasing the overall health of the general public, reducing lost wages from those becoming sick and those taking care of the sick. Also the court system will save money by having less trials. The manufactures will save money by having a sure customer for their product (the government) and by reducing litigation costs. Because their risks will be less, they can lower the overall return needed to attract investors. These saving can be passed on it lower drug cost or in increased research and development.

Energy - A Jobs Program

We need to revitalize our energy production and delivery system. A side effect will be a massive jobs programs that will benefit all of us with lower energy cost. Jobs to build windmills and solar panels. Jobs to build pipelines and drilling platforms. Jobs to build nuclear plants and clean coal plants. Jobs to build shale oil conversion plants. Jobs to build electrical transmission lines from the desert solar plants and windmills in plains to the populous cities.

Like the national highway program., a national electrical system will benefit everyone in eventual overall lower energy costs.