A Perfect Lead In!

So, as my usual Sunday reading bounces me around the web, I come across this blog post and excerpt from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The piece describes an interesting dilemma for GOP Georgia state senators. They are invoking the 10th Amendment to The Constitution as their defense against federal government imposed health care reform. The problem seems to be that their argument would also be a case against Medicare. The proverbial "third rail". To me, this is a grand opportunity that the GOP should sieze, and one which I am sure that no one currently in office has the guts to champion.

Medicare (as well as Social Security) should be phased out. Setting aside all of the emotions that my previous statement has surely brought to the surface, let's look at this from a logical point of view. First, a few pieces of background:
1) Medicare in its current form is fiscally unsustainable. Click here to read the SSA trustees report summary.
2) Article 1 section 8, the general welfare clause of The Constitution applies to the (United) States, not the people. It was also meant to serve as an introduction to the enumerated powers of Congress, not as a separate power entirely. To quote James Madison: "If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare,and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare,they may take the care of religion into their own hands;they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children,establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads;in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislationdown to the most minute object of police,would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America."
3) The 10th Amendment was ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. This amendment is one of the most important ones, as it reiterates the rights of free and independent states. Meaning, the federal government has no power over the states except those enumerated in Article 1 section 6 of The Constitution.

Now, with these precedents in place, let me approach my radical idea of no longer relying on the government for health care. Obviously, this concept would have to implemented in phases. I propose some sort of sliding scale (based on age) that would allow today's seniors to keep their precious Medicare to which they have contributed their whole working life. It would also allow people who are close to retirement to receive some reduced form of Medicare (again based on their working life). As time marches on, the program would continue to be reduced until finally, those of us who are younger (I am 38, soon to be 39) would have no reliance on Medicare and would no longer have to fund it.

Obviously, those of us in the middle age brackets would continue to pay the majority of the bills. I do not see a way out of that. There is going to be pain. Let's just get it over with so that (unlike us) our children can live in a free country without the crushing debt of entitlements.

And by the way, this would be similar to my proposal for ending Social Security. Should we not strive for self-reliance and individual liberty? Isn't that what America is all about?

AA

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." --Samuel Adams