How To Fix The Health Care Crisis Without Raising Taxes

We live in a divided world, and most people are afraid to talk politics because there's an assumption that everyone has to sit on one side of the aisle and one team has to win and the other team has to lose. And no one is talking about real solutions to the challenges that we face as a country and that we face as a world. But if we were to reframe the conversation when we talk about politics and to talk about solutions to problems, we might find that we agree more than we disagree. The divide that we see, specifically in the United States of America between these two teams is by design. It's by design by both parties because it is easier to get attention talking about what's wrong than talking about what's right or what could be. It is much easier to get people emotionally invested in something when you can cast someone else as an enemy. In fact, there's a psychological trigger that when you can get people to unite behind an enemy, it's the fastest way to get people to bond. So what better way to have a following of people who are loyal to you than to cast half the world as an enemy and then inviting people who believe similar things to come together. In fact, if you look at most of the talking points of politicians, you will see that most of what they talk about has nothing to do with real policy changes or real solutions to challenges, but is more about the other side or the philosophies where they disagree with the other side. So in this video, I hope to cast a different plan for a problem that we all agree needs to be resolved. And that problem is health care. And in this video, we're going to talk about how to solve the health care crisis in the United States without raising taxes.

There's a few criteria that will follow in this proposal. First, in order to have a strong healthcare system, we don't want to mess with the free market. Specifically, we don't want to rob innovation from. From the marketplace. We don't want to stifle new ideas, new innovations, new pharmaceutical companies, new technology. We don't want to stifle any of that. We want as much competition and we want as much new ideas coming into the system as possible. And that's the one thing that the marketplace does better than any other system. Government can do a lot of things, but it can't do a good job of innovating, not nearly as well as the marketplace can. So we don't want to mess with the free market. The second thing that we want to ensure in a strong system is that we take Care of the least of these. A strong system is one that is also compassionate, that takes care of those who would otherwise be cast aside or thrown out on the streets. Now, some people will use this as their central talking point for passing universal health care or whatever system that they are proposing. And I think we all agree that we want a system that doesn't leave people on the streets and doesn't leave people broken just because they couldn't afford a bill. So that's the second criteria that it takes care of the least of these. And the third criteria for this plan is that it doesn't raise taxes and it doesn't increase the size of government. We already have enough of both. So can there be a system in which you have free markets, you have innovation, you have the least of these taken care of, and you also don't increase taxes or government? I believe there is. And the plan is this.

If we all agree that solving the health care crisis is a priority as a country, then we must take the perspective that it is worth sacrificing spending in other areas. The United States government spends over $4 trillion a year, and we rarely, if ever, trim that budget. We spend a trillion dollars on our military overseas, we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on our own debt, and we spend the other trillion dollars on bureaucracies departments, half of which you probably agree with and half of which you might support. But if we're going to come together to solve a crisis, then we can all be willing to agree to what is called a haircut, which is where all departments, all areas of expenditure get trimmed. And I think the easiest and most fair way to do that is with a simple, across the board, 10% haircut on all departments and the entire federal budget. If we agree that health care is a priority of our society to take care of those who don't have it, then we can be willing to take a 10% haircut on all government expenditures. If your budget was trimmed by 10%, you might whine, you might complain, and you would find a way to make it work. Businesses do this all the time. The one thing that has been immune to spending cuts is the United States government. And the reason for that is because anytime you want to cut something, there is some politician who talks about all the harm that it will cause and cast the other side as the enemy because they say that the other side wants to cut education spending or cut transportation. And so there is always an appeal to what is being cut and how the other side is the enemy for wanting to cut it. The only solution to this is for the entire government to take a haircut of 10%. That would be $400 billion in freed up revenue to be allocated to a new health care system.

What would that healthcare system look like? If you look at the European Union and even if you look at Canada, the healthcare systems that are built around the world and other countries are divvied up into smaller countries, provinces, or other states. So for example, in Canada, they have universal healthcare, but each province has a little bit of a different plan plan than the other provinces. The reason that exists is because the people in Manitoba have different needs than those who are in Alberta. And it's just like the United States. The makeup of Texas is a little bit different than the makeup of California. They vote differently, they act differently. And it would be difficult to try to come up with a system that matched the different needs in each of those states, much less over 50 different states across the country. So instead we set up a system that is block grants to states. And block grants are simply taking $400 billion that we freed up in step one and allocating that to the states for them to use in their own health care system. And we'll talk about what that looks like in a second. But what this does is it allows states to allocate the money rather than it going straight to the government and trying to create a plan that covers everyone. Here is the plan that would be most viable. Just like there are Pell grants for student loans, there can be and should be grants for medical expenses. So if you have a patient who can't pay $100,000 cancer bill, they can apply for the grant that has gone to their state and apply to have that forgiven. In doing so, you take care of the least of these. You have states that are getting block grants from the federal government that comes from savings, and then that can be distributed in the form of grants to individuals directly. The most helpful way to assist individuals financially is not to create a department, is not to create a big program. It's just to give them money directly. And so the way that you can do that most beneficially to people who are struggling to pay for medical care is once they have the bill to allow them to apply for a piece of the budget that is allocated for medical expense forgiveness. In doing so, you don't mess with the free market and you ensure that the least of these have the ability to have those expenses covered. Now, in order to do that, we want that pool of money to be as big as possible. So the third Part of this plan is to incentivize individuals and organizations to donate directly to that block grant program with a 2 to 1 tax write off. When individuals or businesses are taxed, that money has to go through the federal government and go through a whole bunch of bureaucracy in order to trickle down to the program and eventually trickle down to the individuals who benefit from that program. And in doing so, 50 cents of every dollar is lost to expenditures that the government has in place. So if individuals and businesses can make contributions to the medical forgiveness program in their local state, we bypass the whole federal government system and all that bureaucracy and so they can be compensated with a 2 to 1 tax write off, which makes it cost neutral for the individual or for the business to give money to that system. And so you can raise an additional several hundred billion dollars in tax advantages that are going directly to individuals who need medical assistance. So in doing this, you create a giant pool of cash without raising taxes, without giving politicians more power. The challenge with having any government program is that if it's not what you think is best, or if it gives politicians more power, the next guy or girl who is elected can change the whole thing or abuse that power and, and then the whole system is broken. And we will never all agree on what the best system is from a government perspective. So the only way that we can have a system that works is to allow states to control their own budget. And the most direct way that we can help those who are struggling with health care expenses is to allow those grants to forgive those medical expenses. And we can make that pool as big as possible. And by incentivizing businesses with a 2 to 1 tax write off. In doing so, you reduce individuals costs and the risks that they have in paying for medical care. You continue to incentivize innovation, you reduce regulations which will bring down costs, and you have a compassionate system that is still free. That is how we can solve the health care crisis without raising taxes. If we ever expect a politician or a government program to be the solution to our problems, then we will always sit on different sides of the aisle and debate one another. But if instead our conversation was about what solutions we could collectively come up with to solve our greatest challenges, then we can move forward together as a society. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran with capitalism.com thanks for watching this video. If I would love to hear your thoughts on the proposal of what you liked and what you didn't like, or what you would change about the system, drop me a note in the comments and let me know. Thanks and I'll see you next time.