It looks more and more like the presidential race will be Clinton vs. Trump. So no news there. Both candidates have flaws.
But any Republican president would be honor-bound to sign a bill abolishing Obamacare, and expected to loosen the controls, weak as they are, on Wall Street. So Donald Trump's declaration that the nation is in deep trouble may well be a self-fulfilling prophecy if he is elected.
I am of the opinion that the presidency is no place for on-the-job training.
Some knowledge of the history of nations is also necessary.
Trump's pet project, a proposed wall on the Mexican border, ignores the facts of history. Walls don't work unless the are protected by troops.
The Great Wall of China, Hadrian's Wall, The Berlin Wall — all required troops on top to protect the wall from breach.
Our southern border has already been bypassed by tunnels. A wall can be overflown by drones carrying cocaine.
Trump is a brilliant amateur, but in government and military matters is still an amateur. He gets away with the most astounding bad behavior, like his recent statement that he wasn't sure that Sen. Marco Rubio was eligible to run for presidential office. It takes just a few seconds to determine that Rubio was born in Miami, Florida, and is 44 years of age.
The only candidate that has a real question about his birth is Sen. Ted Cruz.
Hillary Clinton's main argument against her rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, is that he proposes a universal health care system called Medicare for all and paid for by — gasp — a tax. The fact that it will cost less per person than people are paying now in health care premiums somehow gets lost in the message. And scrapping our present multiple government health care programs presents both financial and political risks. The awkward roll-out of Obamacare presents a frightening example.
Clinton points out all these problems.
There is, however, an alternative that bypasses all these problems. It is called the public option. Call it Medicare Part G. Provide the same benefits as are offered by Medicare Part A, Part B and Part D combined in one package and one premium. Use the same organization, staff and rules as are currently used in Medicare. Support the costs by a premium charged to the recipients and/or their employers, just like other options in Obamacare.
Calculate the premium initially by using data found in the current Medicare packages plus the administrative costs expected. Add 6 percent to be fed back into the current Medicare trust fund. This helps level the playing field for the other Obamacare insurers.
Government agencies don't pay taxes. Those who want to stick with their present private insurance policies as offered under Obamacare are free to do so.
Freedom of choice of hospitals, primary and specialty care providers would be maintained. The price of medications would be subject to negotiation, following the Canadian model. Gradually, many people will chose this option instead of the other options offered under Obamacare.
We still have the problem of higher base costs in the U.S. versus the rest of the world. We can get a start in reducing these costs by a change in the compensation allowed to the leadership of so-called nonprofit organizations.
U.S. government salaries and benefit packages cannot exceed the compensation of the president of these United States. This rule should be applied to nonprofits. I heard one head of a health care nonprofit combine in a large American city casually mention his compensation on television, $19 million per annum. He can keep his salary, but only if his organization starts paying taxes as a for-profit firm. That is a nonprofit in name only.
John Culleton writes from Eldersburg. His column appears every second Tuesday. Email him at cct@wexfordpress.com.
