Category: Uncategorized

How the GOP is killing (Yes, literally) America

This is not hyperbole. The Republican party literally is killing Americans.

Column: America’s decline in life expectancy speaks volumes about our problems
U.S. average life expectancies are lowest in the Southeast, highest on the West Coast and the Northeast. But why?(Jeremy Ney / American Inequality), BY MICHAEL HILTZIK, BUSINESS COLUMNIST, APRIL 5, 2023 5 AM PT

Years of widening economic inequality, compounded by the pandemic and political storm and stress, have given Americans the impression that the country is on the wrong track. Now there’s empirical data to show just how far the country has run off the rails: Life expectancies have been falling.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that life expectancy at birth fell in 2021 to its lowest level since 1996, a decline of nearly a year on average from 2020. That was after a decline by 1.8 years from 2019 to 2020, producing the worst two-year decline since 1921-23.

These figures open a window on a set of pathologies unique to America among developed countries.

America is seeing the greatest gap in life expectancy across regions in the last 40 years.

COVID-19 is the most obvious and convenient culprit, both for the absolute decline in life expectancy and the divergence between the experiences of the U.S. and its economic peers.

Most developed countries have begun to recover the longevity losses they experienced during the pandemic; thus far, there’s scant evidence that the U.S. is following the trend.

The U.S. suffered a greater rise in mortality and premature deaths than its peer countries during the pandemic years of 2019-21, according to the Peterson-Kaiser Family Foundation Health System Tracker.

Remember how initially President Donald Trump denied the severity of COVID, and said it would “just go away.” He lied. It didn’t.

His public attitude led to Republicans refusing masks, refusing vaccination, chasing fake cures like  hydroxychloroquine, and foolishly gathering in crowds that spread the infection.

Loyalty to Trump over America demanded a cavalier attitude about contagion and healthcare.

“COVID-19 has erased two decades of life expectancy growth in the U.S., whereas the average life expectancy for comparable countries has decreased only marginally, to 2018 levels,” the Health System Tracker found.

That may not be surprising. Few developed countries other than the U.S. turned COVID and anti-pandemic options into political issues, converting such proven treatments as vaccines into partisan litmus tests.

Hundreds of thousands (!) of Americans died needlessly because of Trump’s lies and the Republican party’s obsequence.

Even now, in 2023, more than 90,000 Americans per year die from COVID. The vast majority of deaths  could have been prevented by vaccination.

A CDC chart showing COVID deaths in the US by vaccination status over a photo of a syringe drawing from a vial.
Unvaccinated people were 6.1 times more likely than fully vaccinated people to test positive for COVID-19 and 11.3 times more likely to die from it.

The GOP ignored warnings from legitimate sources like Dr. Anthony Fauci, who ironically, now is being vilified for not claiming the COVID virus came from a Chinese lab.

Blaming the Chinese for all our ills is a familiar Trumpian coverup tactic. 

Rather than blaming Trump for his role in causing the lethal spread of COVID, the GOP blames Fauci, who repeatedly warned about the dangers of the disease. Such is the GOP mentality.

But COVID is far from the only explanation for America’s dismal trend line.

The pandemic accounted for about half the decline in life expectancy, according to the CDC. “Unintentional injuries,” a category that includes drug overdoses, contributed an additional 16%, followed by heart disease (4.1%), chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (3%) and suicide (2.1%).

Those factors are connected to economic policies and systems, development agendas, social norms, social policies, racism, climate change and political systems.

All of the above are denied and/or exacerbated by the Republican party.

The GOP is the party that wishes to cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security benefits, increase FICA taxes on salaried workers, eliminate the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), reduce the Child Tax Credit, cut the SNAP (food stamp) program, and reduce unemployment compensation.

As an overall goal, the GOP does everything possible to make the poor poorer and the rich richer.

The GOP values dollars over human life, so any Democratic effort to reduce air or water pollution, increase benefits to the poor, or to reduce gun violence, is met by GOP resistance.

Americans with the shortest life expectancies “tend to have the most poverty, face the most food insecurity, and have less or no access to healthcare,” Robert H. Shmerling of Harvard Medical School wrote in October.

“Additionally, groups with lower life expectancy tend to have higher-risk jobs that can’t be performed virtually, live in more crowded settings, and have less access to vaccination, which increases the risk of becoming sick with or dying of COVID-19.”

The most important governing factor is economics,observes Jeremy Ney, an expert in graphically displaying social and economic disparities.

“There’s a really strong relationship between life expectancy and income,” Ney told me. “Income is tied in with a lot of other things, like your ability to afford healthcare, your housing security, your distance from a toxic chemical site, things like that.”

“America is seeing the greatest gap in life expectancy across regions in the last 40 years,” Ney says.

America’s life expectancy is falling behind its international peers, including all high-income countries and Japan.  China’s life expectancy outstripped the U.S. in 2020.

That tells only part of the story. The lowest average life expectancies are seen in the states of the Southeast (the so-called “red states): South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Louisiana, West Virginia and Mississippi all had average life expectancies from birth of less than 75 years. 

The highest life expectancies were generally in states on the West Coast, the northern Midwest and the Northeast. Hawaii ranks first at 80.7, followed by Washington, Minnesota, California, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, all with average life expectancies of 79 or higher.

These geographical disparities aren’t artifacts of pure geography or demographics; they’re the consequences of policy decisions at the state level.

On average, the citizens of solid Republican states have the shortest lives. This is not a coincidence.

Of the 20 states with the worst life expectancies, eight are among the 12 that have not implemented Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.

The consequences of this obstinate Republican-driven resistance to a program whose expense is more than 90% covered by the federal government include closures of rural hospitals and high rates of uninsured residents.

In 1995, U.S. life expectancy was about six months less than those of high-income countries; by 2020 it was about three years, according to the World Bank.

In 1995, the U.S. had a commanding lead over China, which was about 5 1/2 years behind the U.S.; China then roared ahead, outstripping the U.S. in 2020, when its average life expectancy clocked in at 78.08 years, compared with America’s 77.28.

Read this article: The Child Tax Credit is our greatest antipoverty program. Why is Congress letting it wither?

— The enhanced credit, enacted in March 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan, the government’s pandemic relief package, reduced the child poverty rate by about 30%, keeping as many as 3.7 million children out of poverty by the end of that year.

— When the enhancements expired in January, the child poverty rate spiked to 17% from 12.1%, plunging 3.7 million children back under the poverty line. 

When one examines the factors exerting the greatest influence on longevity, the issue comes sharply into focus.

“Inequality in America is about so much more than income,” Ney says. “It’s healthcare and housing and education and taxes and race and gender and location.

Life-expectancy inequality in America is tied up in all these very different factors. “

At this moment, the quest for solutions appears to be moving in reverse. Consider the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned nearly half a century of federal safeguards of abortion rights and has opened the door to punitive attacks on women’s reproductive health care in dozens of states.

Even before Dobbs, health outcomes in Mississippi, the state whose antiabortion statute led to the decision, were “abysmal for both women and children,” the dissent by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan observed.

“Mississippi has the highest infant mortality rate in the country, and some of the highest rates for preterm birth, low birthweight, cesarean section, and maternal death,” they wrote. “It is approximately 75 times more dangerous for a woman in the state to carry a pregnancy to term than to have an abortion.”

Not only do red states refuse to participate in ACA (which gives each state a financial profit), but they actively try to prevent their citizens from avoiding illness.

State seeks to ban mask, COVID testing rules by businesses A House committee Monday approved a bill that would prohibit businesses from requiring people to wear masks or take COVID-19 tests to enter their facilities. By Ryan Dailey News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE — A House committee on Monday approved a bill that would prohibit businesses and government agencies from requiring people to take COVID-19 tests or wear masks to enter their facilities, with the measure’s sponsor calling such mandates “discriminatory practices.”

The proposal would build on prohibitions passed by the Florida Legislature earlier in the pandemic regarding health measures such as vaccination requirements, which are top priorities of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The Republican-dominated committee approved the bill (HB 1013) in a 12-5 vote Monday, with Democrats decrying its potential impact on private companies.

“The keyword is private. Private businesses have the right to make their own decisions,” Rep. Marie Woodson, D-Hollywood, said before voting against the proposal.

The measure also would impose similar prohibitions on educational institutions, including provisions that would bar institutions from requiring COVID-19 tests or imposing mask requirements.

Under the bill, educational institutions also could face $5,000 fines for violations.

Then we move from the cruel and misguided to the absolute crazy:

The measure also would would require healthcare practitioners to “obtain the informed consent” of a patient or their legal representative before prescribing any medications to treat coronavirus.

Under the bill, informed consent would include an “explanation of alternative medications” for treating COVID-19 and the “relative advantages, disadvantages, and risks” associated with those drugs.

A House staff analysis of the measure included Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, Methanol and herbal medicines as examples of such “alternative” medications.

Use of drugs such as Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin sparked nationwide debates during the pandemic, with DeSantis in 2020 backing the state’s bulk purchase of Hydroxychloroquine, despite research that showed it didn’t work on the coronavirus.

Under the 2021 laws, Florida private-sector workers can avoid vaccination requirements if they provide medical reasons, religious reasons or can demonstrate “COVID-19 immunity.”

In short, the Republican party discourages vaccination but encourages Hydroxychloroquine. 

Lawmakers in 2021 also barred government agencies from requiring workers to be vaccinated and reinforced a law known as the “Parents’ Bill of Rights” that banned student mask and vaccination requirements in public schools.

Mandatory vaccination in schools has helped prevent the transmission of childhood diseases, many of which are potentially fatal.Easy-to-read child schedule

 

Easy-to-read teen schedule

Somehow, refusing vaccination has become a test of one’s loyalty to Donald Trump (who has had all his vaccinations) and to the Republican Party.

To avoid being branded a RINO (Republican In Name Only), one is expected to refuse vaccination on the basis of “freedom,” fake articles about the dangers of vaccination, or manliness.

The GOP has become the “We want you to die young” party. Its followers are paying the price.

In summary, richer people live longer than poorer people, and the GOP is devoted to widening the Gap between the rich and the rest.

In addition to denying the results of elections they lose, the GOP denies science, healthcare, poverty, and via gerrymandering, denies the will of the people. It even attempted a coup, a denial of the people’s voting rights.

In a clear case of “you get what you vote for,” the GOP counts millions of poor people among its voters. And yet, they are the ones who suffer from their vote.

At its core the appeal of the GOP is hatred for, and fear of, the poor, blacks, browns, yellows, reds, gays, Jews, Muslims, foreigners, and the educated. 

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

#1. Inflation or #2. Sickness, Recession, Poverty. Choose #1 or #2. Yes, seriously.

It’s a real question. If you had to choose between #1. Inflation or #2. Sickness, A Recession, A Depression, Poverty, Illiteracy, Starvation, Homelessness, Crime and some other bad stuff I could mention, would you chose #1 or #2?

It may sound like a no-brainer, and perhaps it is in the literal sense of “no brain,” because the vast majority of Americans claim they would rather experience #2 rather than #1.

Do you agree that you would prefer to experience sickness, a recession,  a depression, poverty, illiteracy, Starvation, Homelessness, Crime, etc. than to experience inflation?

Let’s begin with the generally uncontested fact that the federal government created the laws that created the U.S. dollar. Because  the federal government can create any laws it wishes, it can create as many dollars as it wishes, and cannot unintentionally run short of dollars. The experts agree:

Former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan: “The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print the money to do that.”

Former Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”

We could add to the discussion the fact that federal deficit spending does not cause inflation, which we have proved here and here and dozens of other places on this blog.

We could insist that shortages cause inflations, and those shortages can be cured by federal deficit spending. Thus, we can show that rather than causing inflations, federal deficit spending can cure inflations.

What Does Drowning Look Like?
Sorry, but spending money on lifeguards and floatation devices would have caused inflation.

But, wait. Why struggle against a tide of misinformation? Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that federal deficit spending does indeed, cause inflation.

It’s what most Americans believe.

Because the federal government can’t run short of its own sovereign currency, it could risk inflation by using that currency to pay for:

  1. Comprehensive, generous Medicare insurance for every man, woman, and child in America
  2. Generous Social  Security benefits for every man, woman, and child in America, regardless of age, income, or wealth
  3. All costs of education from K-12 and beyond, including advanced degrees from top universities
  4. Rent and other housing subsidies, for all.
  5. A healthful diet for all Americans
  6. Subsidies for all states, counties, cities, and villages, so that none of them would have to levy taxes.
  7. Ending the FICA deduction from salaries
  8. Expanded research in all the sciences: Mathematics, Biology, Botany, Social Sciences, Philosophy, Geology, Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, and all the other sciences not mentioned.

The purpose of such spending would be to improve and extend the lives of humans and the other living creatures with whom we share the earth.

The government has the ability to fund all of #1 through #8. But many people wrongly object, “But that would cause inflation.”

If those people were correct, and that spending would cause inflation, it only would mean they have chosen a lesser life rather than experience inflation.

They have chosen sickness rather than health, poverty instead of affluence, taxation rather than being tax-free, homelessness rather than sheltered, stagnancy rather than advancement, and ignorance rather than knowledge, all for the fear of inflation.

Would you rather suffer from incurable, painful disease than suffer from inflation? Would you rather risk being impoverished and homeless than to risk inflation? Would you prefer that your children be unable to attend the best colleges having the best resources money can buy, just so you don’t see prices rise?

Would you rather the type of research that amazed you with the Internet, cell phones, artificial intelligence, moon landings, etc. be discontinued for lack of funds, just so inflation can be avoided?

Would you prefer that America default on its debts by enforcing a debt ceiling? Would you rather that the federal government cease to improve our military?

Would you rather see the government do nothing to prevent or cure recessions and depressions, just because the cure – federal deficit spending – might cause inflation?

In summary, even if we admit the belief, just for the sake of argument, that federal spending causes inflation, we are left with very unsavory alternatives.

Think about it. Do you really believe that the possibility, or even the false probability, that federal deficit spending could cause inflation is more important than all of the things federal money could buy?

  Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

The only 3 possible solutions to the entitlements crisis — no, make that 3 fake solutions + 1 real solution.

You often hear about the “entitlements crisis. Here is what it is and the 3 solutions — no, make that the 3 fake solutions + the one real solution.

In US Economics, what is the Entitlement Crisis? Erin J. Hill, Last Modified Date: February 28, 2023 The United States entitlement crisis refers to the deficit between what programs such as Social Security and Medicare will require in comparison to how much funding is available.

Men: We have three solutions to your situation. Man: How about taking the rope off my neck. Men: Hmm, never thought of that one.
 
Immediately, Erin J. Hill starts on the wrong foot when she talks about “how much funding is available.” The U.S. federal government uniquely is Monetarily Sovereign. It created the first dollars from thin air by passing laws it created from thin air. So long as the federal government can pass laws, it can pass laws that create dollars.

(Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: “There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody.”)

This means that the cost of these programs will be more than what is in the federal budget.

There is nothing to prevent the U.S. federal government from increasing what is in the federal budget enough to pay for all the entitlements, twice over.

Government officials have not yet discovered a long-term solution for the issue, although some have suggested raising taxes on certain goods and making some government programs harder to be accepted into.

Those are the two fake solutions to the manufactured crisis, raise taxes and cut benefits. Both solutions would impoverish the middle- and lower-income groups by widening the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest. Here is the third fake solution:

The third rail Republicans can’t stop touching By Natalie Allison Social Security and Medicare are wildly popular. So why do GOP Senate candidates keep talking about privatizing them?

For two decades, campaign after campaign, Republican politicians have floated the idea of privatizing government entitlement programs including Social Security and Medicare. And campaign after campaign — from Paul Ryan to George W. Bush — it’s been a loser.

But for some reason, they keep trying. The latest is Don Bolduc, New Hampshire’s GOP Senate nominee, who advocated privatizing Medicare during a campaign town hall in early August, according to a recording of the event obtained by POLITICO.

In a statement, Bolduc spokesperson Jimmy Thompson walked back Bolduc’s comments, saying the candidate now opposes privatizing Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

“Having served 10 tours of combat in Afghanistan, General Bolduc relies on his health care from the VA,” Thompson said in an email. “He knows first-hand how important its services are to veterans, and he believes that every American who is eligible should be able to rely on the benefits they have paid into it, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”

Having wilted from the political heat, Bolduc retreated to his military service for shelter. But he wrongly said people should rely on the benefits they have paid into it.

What people have paid may be politically relevant, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt claimed, but it is not financially relevant. Those FICA dollars are destroyed upon receipt by the U.S. Treasury.

FICA payments are made with M2 money-supply dollars. When they reach the Treasury, they cease to be part of any money supply. They disappear into the government’s infinite money-creation system. Infinity + FICA dollars = infinity.

(President Roosevelt, the originator of Social Security: “We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my Social Security program.”)

FICA does not exist for financial reasons. It is all psychological. The government neither needs nor uses those dollars, but FICA makes people feel they are entitled to the benefits.

All entitlement benefits are paid the same way every federal obligation is paid: By the ad hoc creation of new dollars.

Even if all FICA collections ended (as they should), the federal government could continue funding entitlements, forever.

The 3 “solutions” are especially supported by the rich-loving GOP. Sadly, the Democrats agree that “something must be done} about the crisis, though their solutions involve raising taxes or cutting benefits, either of which would recess the economy and widen the Gap between the rich and the rest.

Most agree that the entitlement crisis is a result of poor government budgeting and overzealous spending.

No, the crisis is not due to budgeting and spending. It is an artificially manufactured crisis based on to failure to understand Monetary Sovereignty and the federal government’s infinite ability to pay for things with U.S. dollars.

(Former Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke: “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.”)

Programs like Medicaid have been expanded, and overspending is a large issue within the government. This has resulted in a much higher national debt.

These factors, combined with the housing crisis and government bailouts may result in some programs being downsized or cut altogether.

Overspending is a non-issue for a government that pays for everything with dollars it creates at will. The so-called “national debt” is not even a debt. It is the total of deposits into T-security accounts, which resemble safe deposit boxes. The depositors in those accounts are not lenders. They are owners. The government never touches the deposits which remain the property of the depositors. To pay off the so-called debt, the federal government merely returns the deposits, plus interest, which the government has the infinite ability to do. The sole purpose of those deposits is not to provide the government with spending money. The purpose is to provide a safe, interest-paying place for dollar-users to store currently unused dollars. This stabilizes the dollar by making it safer to own.

As Baby Boomers get older, many expect the Medicare program to be placed under heavy financial stress.

Baby Boomers expect this because that is what they have been (falsely) told.

Some studies have shown that if the entitlement crisis is not remedied soon, in 15 years the only programs that will be able to be funded will be Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, federal employee retirement, and interest on the national debt.

Other programs would have to be cut or funded through deficit spending.

No federal programs ever need to be cancelled for the government’s lack of money. The federal government never lacks money. Federal deficit spending not only is beneficial (It adds dollars to the economy), but it is necessary for economic growth. When deficit spending is absent, we have depressions:

Fact: U.S. depressions tend to come on the heels of federal surpluses.

1804-1812: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 48%. Depression began 1807. 1817-1821: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 29%. Depression began 1819. 1823-1836: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 99%. Depression began 1837. 1852-1857: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 59%. Depression began 1857. 1867-1873: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 27%. Depression began 1873. 1880-1893: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 57%. Depression began 1893. 1920-1930: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 36%. Depression began 1929. 1997-2001: U. S. Federal Debt reduced 15%. Recession began 2001.

Even when federal deficit spending exists, but in too-small amounts, we have recessions:
Reductions in federal debt growth lead to inflation
When federal deficit growth (blue line) declines, we have recessions (vertical gray bars) which are cured by increased federal deficit spending.

One of the primary reasons for the entitlement crisis happening in this time frame is that roughly 78 million baby boomers will reach retirement age during this time period.

The primary reason for the “entitlement crisis” is people being told there is a crisis, when the so-called crisis is an invention of the rich. They want to grow richer by widening the Gap between the rich and the rest. This widening can be accomplished by reducing the net income of the rest. The government easily could fund entitlement programs, not just for the 78 million baby boomers, but for every man, woman, and child in America.

While many agree that the entitlement crisis is a huge issue facing the American economy, others believe that the issue has been blown out of proportion.

It hasn’t been blown out of proportion. It doesn’t even exist. It is pure fiction.

Some even go so far as to say that it is a sham used to raise taxes and scare the public out of their money.

I’ll say it. It is a sham used to raise taxes and to scare the public out of their money. Pure and simple.

There is no debate, however, on the United States economy being in a tough position. In order to stop a crisis, either now or further in the future, changes need to be made to remedy government spending.

Raising taxes to pre tax-cut rates would also allow more breathing room, along with downsizing many government programs.

The author restates the pitifully wrong “solutions” to the non-problem of federal insolvency.

(Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency.”)

Deficit growth declined before the recession. Increased deficit growth cured the recession.

If nothing is done and lawmakers continue to turn a blind eye, the coming economic crisis may bear many similarities to the one which started in 2007.

The recession of 2007 was caused by reduced deficit growth from 2003 through 2007. It was cured by increased deficit growth from 2007 through 2009.

Fortunately, the problems at hand are not insurmountable, and changes in Social Security and Medicare can be made so that both programs can be sustainable.

These changes need to be implemented sooner rather than later, though, before it’s too late.

The “changes” lead us to the 4th, the real solution: The federal government should eliminate all FICA taxes and should fund:
  1. Comprehensive, no-deductible Medicare for every, man woman and child in America.
  2. Social Security benefits for every man, woman, and child in America, regardless of age, income, or wealth
  3. School for grades K-12 + graduate levels for everyone who wants it.
That one tax cut and those three easily affordable benefits would enrich America far beyond current myopic visions. They permanently would eliminate the crippling and false financial equivalence between our Monetarily Sovereign U.S. government and the monetarily non-sovereign states, counties, cities, businesses, euro nations and people.

Scott Pelley: Is that tax money that the Fed is spending? Ben Bernanke: It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.

And finally, lest you believe the myth that federal spending causes inflation, it’s just that: a myth.
There is no relationship between changes in federal debt (blue) and changes in the consumer price index (red).
Ofttimes, the simplest solutions are the best solutions. Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

The insurance mystery solved

I often listen to the public radio show, “Freakonomics Radio” by Stephen J. Dubner. Today, the story was about insurance and how intractable it is, both from the insurance providers’ and the buyers’ perspectives. We all have some forms of insurance: Life, health, accident, liability, home, personal property, unemployment, retirement, and many others. Lloyds of London has a reputation for creating individualized policies to insure anything: An actress’s legs, a quarterback’s arm, a pianist’s fingers. Among the several insurance problems, the fundamental problem is adverse selection. The insurance company wants to cover people who will not have an immediate claim. The buyer wants to get his money’s worth in claims. A life insurance seller wants young, healthy customers who will not make claims for many years while paying premiums all those years. All insurers want the insured to buy as soon as possible, then wait a long time before making a claim (for instance, a health policy) or never make a claim (an auto liability policy), But the insured ideally would like to purchase his insurance as late as possible — just before making a claim — or never. To minimize adverse selection, insurers hire actuaries. These people use research and probability formulas to determine the likelihood of a person making a claim and how significant that claim is might be. This leads to another problem: Adverse denial. Suppose those who will make the fewest and most minor claims are the only people accepted, and all others are denied. In that case, many people will be denied insurance, and the basic premise of insurance — to protect against misfortune — would be lost. For example, on average, black people get sick and die sooner than white people. If the law allowed, insurance companies would charge blacks higher premiums than whites or refuse insurance to blacks altogether. However, the law does not allow this, so the premiums charged to white people must be higher than they ordinarily would be to make up the difference. Any time an insurer accepts something other than the lowest possible risk, the lowest risk people must pay more. Some, but not all, of this can be baked into the premiums. For example, most life insurance policies consider age and prior illness when determining premiums. But no insurer can consider every possible risk category and remain competitive. So, in general, the lowest-risk people do, in part, fund higher-risk people for all sorts of insurance. That said, a substantial portion of our population is not financially protected by insurance, either because no company will insure them or because the premium is higher than what people wish to pay. In short, the risk is too high for any potential insurer, and the premium is too high for potential insureds. The fact that the problem is considered intractable puzzles me because we already have solved it, not just once, but many times. Medicare, for instance, solves it for the worst health risks: Older people who already are sick with terminal illnesses cannot be refused when they reach the qualifying age.

More than 18 percent of Americans depend on Medicare for their health coverage, and in 2019 Medicare the enrollment reached over 60 million.

You can start receiving Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) benefits with no premium once you are 65 or older if you or your spouse worked and paid Medicare taxes for a certain period. You can know you are eligible for premium-free Medicare A if one of the following applies to you:

You currently receive or are eligible for Social Security. You currently receive or are eligible for Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) benefits. You or your spouse served in a Medicare-covered government job.

You can purchase Medicare Part B benefits if you are eligible for Medicare Part A. It is a voluntary program that requires you to pay monthly premiums. For 2022, the standard premium is $170.10 (or higher, depending on income).

No matter how sick you are, even on death’s doorstep, you can receive insurance if you meet the above requirements. How does the government avoid adverse selection? Mostly, it doesn’t. Yes, there are qualifications; adverse selection is not the consideration. Why can the government afford Medicare when private insurance companies must worry about adverse selection? Contrary to popular belief, people with FICA deducted from their salaries do not fund Medicare. The federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has the infinite ability to create U.S. dollars. It neither needs nor uses tax dollars to pay for anything. Even if total FICA collections equaled $0, the federal government still has the infinite power to fund something better than our current Medicare. The government could fund a comprehensive, no-deductible Medicare for every man, woman, and child in America.

Alan Greenspan: “There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to somebody.” Quote from former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke when he was on 60 Minutes: Scott Pelley: Is that tax money that the Fed is spending? Ben Bernanke: It’s not tax money… We simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account.

And that is the solution to the healthcare insurance problem. The federal government should “use the computer to mark up the size of the account” and fund a form of Medicare far better than current Medicare. I have Medicare, but I also pay for a concierge primary care doctor. I pay her an annual fee in addition to what she receives from Medicare. My previous primary care doctor, who received Medicare reimbursement, had about 2,500 patients. My concierge doctor self-limits to about 600 patients. This allows her more time to do precisely what she studied for years to do: Treat patients. She spends time studying my particular needs and discussing my health with me. If I go into the hospital, she has admittance privileges and can oversee my treatment there while discussing my case with all the doctors and nurses. The federal government has sufficient resources to pay every primary care doctor to be a concierge doctor who can spend the time each patient deserves.

(The federal government also has the resources to provide free medical schooling for all prospective doctors, so there would be plenty of people available to be the abovementioned concierge doctors.)

All drivers need auto liability insurance. The federal government should provide it free. All homeowners and renters need insurance. The federal government should provide it. There is no logical reason why more affluent people can afford insurance while poorer people cannot. Ironically, it is the poorer who need insurance more than, the richer. The Freakonomics radio show ignored the fundamental truths about the American economy:
    1. Our government is Monetarily Sovereign. It has infinite dollars.
    2. Our people have needs that can be purchased with those infinite dollars
    3. The federal government should use #1 to fund #2.
The solution to many of life’s problems stares us in the face, yet disinformation from the top prevents it. No, federal financing is not the dreaded “socialism” (which is government ownership and direction, not just government funding.) And no, federal spending does not cause inflation. On the contrary, federal spending can reduce inflation by acquiring goods and services, the scarcity of which is the real cause of inflation. There is a solution. We need only to recognize it. Rodger Malcolm Mitchell Monetary Sovereignty Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY