A federally funded Medicare program that doesn’t just begin when you reach a certain age but covers every man, woman, and child in America, regardless of age or physical condition.
That Medicare has no deductibles, so Medicare Supplements are unnecessary. All doctors, hospitals, nurses, and other healthcare professionals would be covered.
It pays for all approved drugs, 100%.
It covers every body part, including teeth (dental), eyes, and brain (psychiatry).
It covers all equipment, from crutches to wheelchairs to eyeglasses.
It covers all forms of long-term care with no age or dollar limits.
It covers all forms of approved preventive medicine, including spas, gyms, fitness centers, exercise equipment, etc.
It would be free to all. No healthcare taxes (FICA) would be collected. Companies would not fund employees’ health care insurance.
Further, visualize (correctly) that for the Monetarily Sovereign federal government, money is no object. The federal government can afford anything.
Is that too good to be true?
I thought about that question again when I read an article about Medicaid terminations. Here are some excerpts:
Lawsuit accuses state of ‘illegal’ Medicaid terminationsBy Caroline Catherman, Orlando Sentinel
Three Florida residents are suing the state’s Agency For Healthcare Administration and Department of Children and Families, alleging the public health insurance program for low-income and disabled people sent out illegal termination notices.
Healthcare cancelled in Florida
A class-action lawsuit was filed Tuesday by the National Health Law Program and Florida Health Justice Project on behalf of a mom, her 2-year-old daughter, and a 1-year-old.
The suit alleges that Florida violated the Medicaid Act and the U.S. Constitution’s Due Process Clause by failing to give adequate notification to people losing coverage and failing to give them a shot at appealing.
The Due Process Clause has been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court as requiring “prior notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard when an individual is in jeopardy of losing benefits,” according to the National Health Law Program.
Why did Florida terminate the health insurance coverage for some low-income and disabled people? The answer, of course, is “money.”
Some bureaucrats, at the behest of Governor Ron DeSantis, decided that certain low-income and disabled should lead their miserable lives in greater misery so that the state of Florida can save money — money that perhaps could be used for shipping poor migrants to some other state?
But why does the state of Florida need to save healthcare money when the federalgovernment has infinite money? The Feds could pay for the above-described Medicare, so low-income and disabled people wouldn’t need to lack care.
Here’s why:
The politicians on both sides of the aisle claim (falsely) that the government’s money supply is limited [Being Monetarily Sovereign, the federal government never unintentionally can run short of its sovereign currency, the U.S. dollar.
They claim (falsely) that the federal debt is “unsustainable” and will bankrupt the nation. [The federal government can instantly pay any bills of any size merely by clicking computer keys. It cannot be bankrupt for lack of dollars.]
They claim (falsely) that federal spending is funded by federal taxes and that Medicare itself is headed for insolvency. [Because the federal government has the infinite power to create dollars, it neither needs nor uses tax dollars, all of which it destroys upon receipt. As a federal agency, Medicare can run short of money only if the federal government wants it to.]
They claim (falsely) that federal spending for Medicare would be the dreaded “socialism.” [All governments spend money, but socialism is government ownership and control, not just spending.]
They claim (falsely) that federal deficit spending causes inflation. [Inflation never is caused by federal spending. All inflations are caused by shortages of critical goods and services, more commonly oil and food. Federal spending can cure inflation if used to obtain and distribute scarce goods.]
The federal government and the media have been crying “wolf” (or, in this case, “poverty”) since 1940, calling the federal debt a “ticking time bomb”. Yet, no one seems to notice that it never explodes.
Some people were told they had exceeded income limits but weren’t told Medicaid’s limits or how much DCF determined they made.
There is no reason for federally funded medical insurance to have income limits. It’s possible to be wealthy while having a low income.
Further, there are all kinds of income, each with different implications for a person’s ability to pay for medical services: Taxable, tax-free, liquid, hidden, deferred.
No public purpose is served by income limits.
The government simply should fund Medicare for everyone rather than creating Byzantine rules that accomplish nothing.
The mom of the 1-year-old named in the suit didn’t realize that the toddler was losing coverage until after her pediatrician told her that her child no longer had health insurance. She didn’t understand how to appeal, the suit states.
There is no reason for an infinitely rich government to put people through such heartache. It should pay everyone’s bills the same way, without “gotcha” rules.
“People don’t know that the reason for termination might be incorrect, that DCF was using the wrong information, or they made a wrong determination.
“They don’t know that they ought to challenge it.
More than 182,000 Floridians have been issued notices saying they are no longer eligible for coverage since April, after the end of a COVID-era policy that banned states from dropping people from the program for low-income children, families, and young adults, even if they became ineligible.”
It’s ridiculous that the bureaucratically determined “end of COVID” policy should mark the beginning of rules that already have punished 182,000 Floridians and millions of other Americans.
“The scope of terminations in Florida and the State’s knowledge of inadequate notices are certainly egregious.
In a news release, “Unfortunately, similar patterns are happening in states across the country,” said Amanda Avery, senior attorney at the National Health Law Program.
The suit says Florida has known for years that their Medicaid termination notices are flawed.
In a 2018 case study of the state’s termination process, state officials reported “being well aware that notices sent to beneficiaries generate confusion” and that the “current notices that describe applicants as ineligible are considered insufficient explicit in terms of an explanation.”
The lawsuit asks that people who received “unconstitutional” notices regain Medicaid coverage until they are given new notices, with enough information to understand how and if they can appeal, Harmatz said.
Over the last few months, Florida has faced criticism for taking away sick kids’ coverage months before they were scheduled to undergo review, according to the state’s prioritization plan.
It’s another example of an economically ignorant government, intentionally or not, punishing its poorest, least-able-to-protest citizens.
The solution is a free, comprehensive healthcare insurance coverage for every American paid for by an infinitely wealthy, knowledgeable, compassionate federal government.
It’s not-too-good-to-be-true. It’s just good.
Is that too much to ask?
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary SovereigntyTwitter: @rodgermitchellSearch #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.
My wife of 64 years died in 2021, and I was lost. She was my emotional support, and for a while, I was bereft of her stability which gave me purpose.
After several months of pain, I began to realize three things.
She would have told me that just as she was my support, I was her support, and I had the means to do for myself what I had been doing for her, so “stop feeling sorry for yourself and get on with it.”
“Getting on with it” requires creating something.
Creating requires repeatedly asking, “What if?”
Many years earlier, I had enjoyed painting. I even took lessons, but interestingly, my teachers focused not on drawing but on designing. So, I always struggled to render, and much of what I did was more design than drawing.
I envied Salvador Dali, who may have been the greatest renderer in history, perhaps even better than Rembrandt. Dali could draw and paint not just beautifully and quickly but without showing brush strokes, as though snapping a photograph.
I decided to try turning my drawing liability into an asset by asking, “What if?” (i.e., what if I didn’t need to draw at all?)
At the time, monumental fires were raging in California and elsewhere. I had heard about terrified people being extracted by helicopter, and I wished to create a painting of such a scenario.
Somehow, I hadn’t been able to get it right. The helicopter repeatedly looked like a “not-helicopter.”
So, now I asked myself, what if I tried painting the terror, the fire (then being called a “firenado”), the rescue, and all the emotion, without drawing the helicopter or the fire.
And this is what I produced:
HELICOPTER ESCAPE FROM A FIRENADO
The title of the painting is: “Helicopter Escape from a Firenado.”
But where is the tornado caused by the ferocious heat of the fire (aka “firenado”)? It’s that evil thing in the center of the picture.
More importantly, where is the helicopter?
You’re in it, looking down at the terrified girl climbing the ladder.
I had asked myself, “What if I could illustrate a helicopter escape without drawing a helicopter.”
What if I could put a helicopter into your imagination, the viewer?
Might a focus on the emotions — the girl and the firenado — be more potent than any illustration of a helicopter I could produce?
Would the painting be more powerful or create a better message if it showed a helicopter?
Whether or not you love, hate, or are indifferent to the painting is less material than the process.
Beginning with the assumption that a painting of a helicopter should picture a helicopter, I asked, “What if that isn’t true”?
And that kind of question is the beginning of creativity.
It is the kind of question I suggest you ask when reading about economics and Monetary Sovereignty. What if the things so many of us assume aren’t true?
What if for “A” to influence “B,” there need not be some sort of connection between “A” and “B” (aka “locality)?
What if the thing called “federal debt” isn’t a federal debt
What if federal taxes don’t pay for federal spending, while state/local taxes do fund state/local government spending.
What if federal deficit spending doesn’t cause inflation, but actually can cure inflation?
What if money is not a physical thing but rather a mere concept that cannot be seen, felt, smelled, tasted, or heard?
And then again, what if Monetary Sovereignty itself isn’t true, and there is another explanation for what we believe to be reality?
“What if” is the most significant question in science. It is a question Einstein undoubtedly asked about time (What if time doesn’t pass the same for everyone and everything? What if you see the same speed of light regardless of your own speed?)
It is the question scientists continually ask (“What if reality is not as most of us think we experience it?”)
The “What if” question does not require changing your beliefs. It only asks you to imagine a scenario in which your beliefs are different.
For example, the question, “What if the moon does not exist?” could create an investigation of what the earth would be without a moon and why we might wish to believe in a mythical moon.
If that seems far-fetched, consider this: Everything you believe is not reality but rather the result of your sensing being interpreted by your brain.
You already know your brain can fool you; that is called “illusion.” So, how much of what you believe is an illusion created by your brain? Or is your brain an illusion?
What if “you” are not what you think you see in a mirror but are nothing more than a concept floating free in the ether, merely imagining, imagining, imagining?
What if “I think, therefore I am.” is not reality, but that thought itself needs no thinker?
Is all this any more fantastic than the entanglement of quantum mechanics?
If reality is not artificial, fraudulent, or illusory, then the case could be made that nothing is real, and everything is imagined, and “What if” makes perfect sense.
That kind of thinking is difficult. If I exist, I evolved to be sure of my existence in my imagination and belief.
But if you want to expand your imagination (whatever you may be), try imagining something you are absolutely sure about, then asking yourself the outcome of “What if?” that something you’re sure of were false.
It’s quite fun.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary SovereigntyTwitter: @rodgermitchellSearch #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.
Recently, I read an article about one of my less favorite subjects, sewage, and it had me thinking about one of my most favorite subjects, federal spending.
Brief background:
The U.S. federal government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has the infinite ability to spend U.S. dollars. It is not limited by tax collections, so-called “debt,” or anything but government whim. It could pay a $100 trillion invoice tomorrow simply by pressing a computer key.
Federal spending never causes inflation. Scarcities lead to all price increases. The cure for inflation is to cure scarcities, which the government can accomplish by funding and distributing the scarcities causing inflation.
Here are excerpts from the article that stoked my thinking:
The solution, it turns out, includes thinking about the water system as a whole: tackling sewage pollution is also about fixing flooding and drought problems. Tougher governance is essential, too.
The UK isn’t alone. Australia and the US have similar issues.
In the UK, much of the blame has been leveled at privatized water companies. They have run up enormous debts while giving away billions to shareholders. They have also failed on many metrics, including poorly-maintained pipes.
However, the real culprit is the government, which has failed to give water companies stringent enough targets or enforce those that have been set.
It is a pattern we have seen over and over, from banking crashes to nuclear power accidents.
Hmmm.
Question: What do banking crashes, nuclear power accidents, and sewage pollution have in common? Answer: The same thing global warming, health care, retirement care, food and housing scarcities, water shortages, and a myriad of other problems that bedevil us: Money.
We intellectually know how to address, if not solve, many of our most important problems, but in many cases, ignorance limits funding.
Read the “The truth about British rivers and how to clean them up” article, and you’ll see solutions: Stop using combined (water and sewage) systems, send rainwater to storage and treatment plants, construct artificial wetlands, etc.
The problem: Money. The article says, “Hundreds of billions of pounds.”
But, like the U.S. government, the British government doesn’t seem to realize it is Monetarily Sovereign.It already has those “hundreds of billions of pounds” at its fingertips — the fingertips that can tap a computer key and instantly pay any bill without resorting to taxation.
Let’s visualize some of the other problems we can address or even solve:
Problem: Sickness. Address the problem via federal funding of:
Comprehensive, no-deductible Medicare for every man, woman, and child in America, regardless of age, income, or health
All forms of medical research, mainly research unlikely to be addressed by the private sector because of limited profitability potential.
Healthcare facilities like hospitals and long-term care facilities.
Doctors, nurses, and other health workers.
R&D into the causes and cures for all human, animal, and plant illnesses.
Problem: Global warming. Address the problem via federal funding of:
Non-carbon energy creation — solar, geothermal, wind, water, nuclear (fission and fusion), hydrogen, and fuel cells.
Electric cars, trains, trucks, and planes
Roadways specifically designed to accommodate electric vehicles
Home and business heating and cooling structural improvements, including insulation and reflective materials
R&D methods of climate control.
Problem: Poverty and crime. Address the problems via federal funding of:
Social Securityand retirement benefits for every man, woman, and child in America, regardless of age and income/wealth.
Free education, through postgraduate, for everyone who wants it.
Reduce employeres’ costs associated with paying employees. Eliminate the FICA tax and business-funded health care and retirement programs.
Greatly reduce or eliminate the federal taxes paid by all but the wealthiest Americans. Alternative methods: Tax deductions for rent paid and for home-owning costs.
R&D methods of control.
Problems: Inflation, hunger, degradation of the environment. Address the problems via federal funding of:
(Short term) Oil drilling and refining, plus biofuels.
All aspects of farming, including education and efficient land use, R&D of more efficient farming tools and methods
Current construction materials and methods plus R&D of new materials.
Current storage and distribution systems plus R&D of new systems.
Current and new computers, including quantum computers, chips, and algorithms.
R&D of maintenance of the environment plus support for all the sciences.
The potential for federal spending is limitless, but fortunately, the federal government’s ability to spend is unlimited. Our collective imagination is the only thing that limits our ability to address and cure all our ills.
Think of any problem facing humanity, and you soon will imagine how federal spending could address or even cure that problem.
Monetary Sovereignty shows that we humans were given the tools to create a paradise on Earth. Our brains open the universe to us, and our invention of money provides us with motivation.
Most Americans, even in “red” states, even die-hard MAGAs recognize the above-mentioned problems and want solutions.
But whether via ignorance or intent, the false claims that federal spending is “unaffordable,” “unsustainable,” “socialism,” “inflationary,” or requires tax increases, have held us back.
Federal spending is none of those. Federal spending by our Monetarily Sovereign government is infinitely affordable and sustainable. We never can run short of dollars.
Federal spending is not socialism, which is government ownership and control, not financial support.
And, of course, the federal government neither needs nor uses tax dollars. It created new dollars to pay all bills.
We need only to understand that we have the necessary tools, money and brains, then to use those tools and stop fighting each other.
Sadly, we also have been given hatred, greed, and ignorance, so our Janus personalities have held us down, and I fear, eventually will destroy us.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary SovereigntyTwitter: @rodgermitchellSearch #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.
The Federal Reserve fights inflation by raising interest rates. Here is an amalgam of what several sources say”
The Fed’s primary tool it can use to battle inflation is interest rates. It does so by setting the short-term borrowing rate for commercial banks, and then those banks pass it along to consumers and businesses.
That rate influences everything from interest on credit cards to mortgages and car loans, making borrowing more expensive.
Inflation is a general increase in prices. So, how does making borrowing more expensive affect inflation? Shouldn’t an increase in borrowing costs make products and services more expensive rather than less?
The answer is “Yes.” Interest is a cost that manufacturers, farmers, and services must add to prices, so they can make a profit.
The Fed aims to make borrowing more expensive so that consumers and businesses hold off on investing, thereby cooling off demand and bringing prices back in check.
How does reducing investments “cool off demand”?
Higher interest rates might reduce the demand for large consumer items, like houses and cars. But does reducing investments reduce your demand for food? Does it reduce your need for oil? For clothing?
Think of everything you buy? Which of those things will you buy less because interest rates went up? Probably, none.
The Fed believes that inflation is caused by (in their words) “an overheated economy.” But what is an overheated economy? Here is what the Bing Artificial Intelligence (AI) says:
An overheated economy is when the economy grows too fast. An overheated economy reaches the limits of how much output it can produce to meet the demand from consumers and businesses, as there are minimal unused resources.
In short, inflation is a supply problem. The Fed’s “overheated economy” is one where supply can’t meet demand.
The Fed’s inflation cure is to increase interest rates which reduces business investment and supply.
The Fed hopes that increasing interest rates will reduce demand more than supply, but what do we call reduced demand? Recession.
If the Fed’s approach is correct, we should see two things that we do not see:
We should see that rising interest rates do not cause recessions
We should see that falling interest rates do not cure recessions
We should see that rising interest rates precede (i.e., cause precedes effect) falling inflation.
Look at the graph below, and you will see the opposite. In fact:
Rising interest rates lead to recessions (vertical gray bars).
As for #3, rising inflation precedes interest rate increases because the Fed reacts to inflation increases by raising rates.
Then afterinflation begins to come down, the Fed lowers rates.
While the Fed claims that rising interest rates cause inflation to fall, rising inflation leads to higher interest rates.
Imagine the car going faster causes the driver to press the gas pedal down further. Inflation causes the Fed to increase interest.
What isthe cause and cure for inflation if interest rate increases are recessionary and don’t cure inflation?
The cause and cure for inflation lie in the supply of oil.
The supply of oil is reflected in its price (black line). The shortages of oil parallel inflation (red line).
As opposed to common knowledge, the Fed’s interest rate increases do nothing to reduce inflation, which parallels oil prices and is determined by oil supply.
To the degree interest rate increases may reduce the oil demand, they cause recessions.
Until renewables become a more significant part of our energy supply, a reduced need for oil will signal recession.
Congress and the President have assigned the Fed the task of controlling inflation. But though the Fed doesn’t have the tools to manage inflation, Congress and the President do.
Short term, there should be federal incentives for drilling and refining oil. Longer term, the efforts to reduce oil usage via renewables should be accelerated with federal subsidies and tax credits.
More significant incentives for electric car purchases and usage, incentives for solar, wind, geothermal, and nuclear power production would do far more to reduce inflation, without a recession, than interest rate increases.
Congress and the President don’t want the inflation responsibility. The Fed does want the responsibility because it gives them greater power.
Currently, the Fed is like the child sitting in the back seat, furiously spinning his toy steering wheel. He thinks he steers the car, just as the Fed believes it steers the economy, when Congress, the President, and the world’s oil producers steer it.
The Fed’s money tinkering is but a blip on the screen.
Curing shortages, particularly oil shortages, but also renewable energy, food, computer chips, transportation, vital chemicals, and other shortages are needed to control inflation.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 