Life in Slomo

My proposal to fix the healthcare system in America is pretty cut and dry.  It contains a few things that some folk find “ideologically” unacceptable. (Why they oppose some of these things is beyond me.)  But I include some provisions to “sweeten the pot” and make this an agreeable, bipartisan plan.

The Nason Proposal

• Government funded healthcare to all children. From birth through age 18.
• Government funded healthcare to all pregnant women through a year after delivery.
• Government funded healthcare to all full time students enrolled in approved secondary eduction. (This includes college, university and full time trade schools.)
• Continuation of the current Medicaid/Medicare plans at the age of 65.
• Allow small businesses and the self employed to “buy into” the government plan at a set rate.
• Tax credits for gym/health club memberships as well as tax credits for maintaining a healthy life style (ie proper weight, excercise etc)
• Mandated weekly minimum of physical education in all schools using Federal funds.

These first items will help promote a healthy living from childhood as well as offer incentives for people to stay healthy and to stay in secondary eduction.  This will also help lower the cost of insurance to small and large businesses alike since they will not have to cover the cost of children.

There will be the need of a tax increase during the shift to cover the added children as well as to accomodate the flood of Baby Boomers into Medicare.  This will disappear over a 10 year period as funds are shifted annually from Pentagon the budget.  Also, healthcare costs will begin drop as the population becomes healthier.

This seems all well and good but how will the GOP ever buy into this?  Well, this is where the left has to bite a bullet. In exchange for the government funded insurance for kids, students and elderly, The Nason Proposal would end the practice of abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to save the mother’s life, plain and simple.  Many on the left would resist this option, but I think it’s the only way to prove that we are all serious about the true welfare of the United States.

Granted this is an extremely hypothetical proposal.  There are many other money, insurance and quality of care issues that need to be addressed.  But I feel that healthcare for the the most vulnerable, the young and old of our population, is not only possible but our responsibility if we truly love and feel pride for our country.