Critics of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) need an alternative vision. What follows is a short explanation of the core ideas posted at the Congressional Health Care Caucus and developed in greater detail in the book Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis.
Entitlement reforms usually focus on changes in Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare. However, the disability component of Social Security is growing faster than retirement benefits and requires substantive reforms. Over the past three years, the number of Americans receiving disability benefits increased by more than 1 million, bringing the total number to 10.8 million. What is behind this surge?
The United States can create jobs, reduce reliance on foreign imports and improve national security by encouraging the domestic exploration and production of rare earth elements currently imported from other countries. While supplies of rare earths may not improve for several years, steps should be taken now to develop domestic mining and current policies should be changed to allow this growth.
America is losing its edge in producing highly intelligent, creative young adults equal to the tasks presenting themselves worldwide. American public education needs a complete restructuring in order to support the development of critical thinkers ready to assume their positions as productive citizens of a free society.
Americans consume nearly $100 billion dollar’s worth of medical devices annually. Medical devices include simple things, such as cotton swabs, as well as complex instruments, such as pacemakers and artificial joints.
The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, but some states and cities have minimum wages that are significantly higher. Furthermore, eight states raised their minimum wage, effective January 1, 2012.
American hospitals and physicians are facing an unprecedented shortage of commonly used drugs. President Obama announced his support for legislation to address this problem by requiring drug makers to notify the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of possible shortages six months in advance.
Environmentalists have long cited the harms caused by fossil fuels as evidence of the need to move to green energy sources, such as wind and solar power. Recently, some conservatives have joined their cause. Citing national security, those concerned about the United States’ freedom to act in its geopolitical interest have begun to embrace renewable energy as a means of reducing America’s reliance on foreign oil.
Medicaid is a health program for the poor and disabled funded by federal and state appropriations. It is the largest and fastest growing publicly funded health program in the United States.
Our country is in far worse fiscal shape than its $14 trillion — and rapidly growing — official debt suggests. Indeed, that figure measures just a small portion of the government’s total liabilities. It leaves out, for example, the obligation to pay hundreds of trillions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare benefits to today’s and tomorrow’s elderly.