I Think I found somebody who has some leadership abilities. His name is John Mackey and he is the co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc. If you haven’t been to one of these stores you should go and experience something new in food shopping.

Mr. Mackey wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal on August 12, 2009 titled “The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare” It is a very well written piece in which he lays out eight steps we can take to improve Health Care (HC) with out adding to the deficit.

My premise from the start of this discussion is that ObamaCare is an unattainable HC approach because what we need prior to implementing a complete overhaul of HC is the creation of private sector JOBS. I am not in favor of a complete overhaul or for that matter any government run HC system, the government has a tendency to bankrupt everything they touch.

 Mr. Mackey’s approach would satisfy my need of fixing what is wrong with HC at the same time providing the fiscal environment for creating JOBS. If you add to the deficit the business climate suffers and no new JOBS are created and in fact JOBS are lost.  

Health Care in this country is the best there is, but there some things wrong with it. Most of what’s wrong has to do with government mandates and local restrictions that drive the cost up. Mr. Mackey’s eight steps have to do with fixing these impediments, not inventing a whole new Government run system and malpractice over reaching. Italics are my comments:

His first step would be to remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). There are many instantiations of how this could happen. Mr. Mackey’s provides such a system for his employees by paying the premiums on the high deducible policy with employee’s paying into a HSA which could be used to pay the deducible amount if needed. Any unused portion of the HSA can accumulate over the years. The premiums on a High deductible plans are much lower, and are paid for by an individual or family instead of the employer which would make it portable. Whole Foods wishes to pay the premiums but if the employee leaves the company he would take their insurance plan with him or her. Of course they would pay the premiums themselves.

Government participation would be limited to passing laws banning preconditions and the designation of non-taxable HSAs similar to Roth IRA designation. It will not add to the federal deficit.  Just watch out for the “EARMARKS”.

Second, equalize the tax laws which ties in with the number one. Today the employer provided benefits are not taxed when used or considered has income. Individual benefits are. Neither should be taxed in any way. Again A few million would be lost in tax revenue but NO COST TO THE TAXPAYERS.

Third, repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across State lines. We should have the legal right to purchase insurance from any insurance company in any State. We should be able to use the insurance where ever we live making it portable throughout the Country and will not add to the federal deficit.    

Forth, repeal all government, local and federal mandates what insurance must cover. Most of these mandates will never be used by most of the people and therefore could be eliminated from individual plans. Not one plan fits all. The mandates could be treated, if needed, has optional add-ons. Again this will not add to the federal deficit.

 Fifth, enact tort reform to end ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay for insurance that cost hundreds of thousand of dollars per year which of course is passed on to us through higher cost of care.

There is a big discussion now in Washington because this was not one of the items in any of the plans. Just today FOX NEWS did and investigation of just how much was paid out as a result of these tort claims, $60Billion. This does not include the doctor’s cost of insurance, costing each doctor hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on type of practice. THIS WOULD NOT ONLY BE NO COST TO THE TAXPAYER BUT ALSO SHOULD COST US MUCH LESS IN OUR COST OF CARE AT THE DOCTORS AND HOSPITALS. This will not add to the federal deficit. How- ever this is a good example of how special interests groups get involved and what happens when they are extorting the Congress. 

Six, make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health care treatments cost. This should be made readable to the patient not just procedure numbers.

Seven, enact Medicare reforms. Create greater patient empowerment, choice, and responsibility.

In my opinion HSAs should start with all new people entering the work force today. This is all tied into Social Security which would have to be changed at the same. I believe allowing for lump sum non-taxable payouts, equal to the amount they have put into each plan, to people for their own HSA’s and Health Care plan and a  similar to a 401k retirement plans, what ever their age, and  who are under 65 years old. There would be no more Social Security or Medicare payouts. For all the people over 65 the Government would pay their premium on a Health Care plan mentioned above as well pay their Social Security until death. Supplemental plans should be made available as they are now and would be paid for by the people themselves.

 If you think about we were forced to hand over a percentage of our gross each pay period to our government, who kept it in a virtual fund for 40 years, paid us no interest and taxed us at the going rate when we were old. What a great PONZ scheme?  

Eight, make tax forms easier to make voluntary HSA tax-deductible donations for people who are not covered by any insurance. This should be the only tax deductible contribution.

Now we can talk about JOB CREATION:

First let me quote part of a piece written by Kenneth "The Hawk" Rogoff: From the Economist’s View Web Site:

America Should also Look to its Fiscal Health

“Unfortunately, the idea that healthcare reform will alleviate debt problems rather than exacerbate them is far-fetched..., many proposed healthcare reforms are more likely to worsen the government’s budgetary health than to improve it. This should hardly be surprising, given that a main purpose of reform is to help provide better care for Americans who cannot afford insurance.

Higher taxes to pay for healthcare are also likely to reduce US growth, making it far more difficult to escape the debt trap. This comes at a time when other policy initiatives, such as tackling environmental degradation and income inequality, are also likely to imply higher tax burdens... In addition, the continuing weakness of the financial sector weighs on growth, and it is by no means clear yet when and how some semblance of normality will be restored.”

This, in my opinion, this makes sense so, I think my premise of “JOBS” First is right on and if Obama does not change direction soon there will be National Debt of $20 to $25Trillion dollars, with Unemployment of 15 to 20% not counting the unfunded liabilities we currently have, about $54Trillion.

I believe the recession was caused by the mass abuse of political power in order to maintain control of the politically empowered Congress for the next 4 or so decades. What is needed is that our, Representatives in Congress, have the mental and moral prowess to do what is right for our Country, not satisfying the special interest lobby groups. However I think the resolution of this matter (mess) is more COMMOMSENSE than anything else. One thing I do know is that hiring people for Government jobs will only add to government spending and overhead. With the current proposals, especially health care we would add at least 6Milliom Government jobs.  

I have no idea in what shape our economy would be in, if or when these solutions are implemented, but the sooner the better. These solutions are nothing new and were used successfully before. Let’s just call them THE COMONSENSE PLAN. I would make a promise that any plan that was short lived would not clean up this “mess we are in.”

The two factors that kill the growth of job creation are Government spending and intervention in businesses (excessive taxes and regulations). The other is taxing of individual income.

First we should make the Bush tax cuts permanent, but make them lower first, This move would provide businesses with some stability in knowing that their taxes would not go any higher then they are now. They would start them to reinvest in their product and service lines of businesses and start hiring.  

Then if the Cap and Trade got passed, repeal it. We should open all land and off shore areas for oil and natural gas exploration. Allow permits to be allotted for petroleum refineries and nuclear power plants (one area that would still require government regulation and oversight). All this fluff, we are hearing about energy independence, should not mean we should still pay $750 million a year, until something better comes along, to the people who would attack us at a moments notice. We still should continue to look for alternative fuel sources, not the kind that uses up our food supply, as well as technology that would provide clean coal and oil, all in the private sector. This would almost certainly lower the price of oil and gas, right away. Just this would create thousands of jobs. Environmental Waco’s beware. “COMMONSENSE” so far?

Next we must zero in on ways to stop the bleeding of cash out of the government coffers. We should find ways to unload all private enterprises that we got our- selves into, Fanny and Freddie, auto makers, financial sector, and anything else that the Government should not be in. Stop the funding of all non-critical endowments and non-Governmental agencies. I am sure that is a long list. Stop the funding of all ethnic and special interest Congressional Caucuses, they can pay for their own get to getters.      

Look for ways to cut the overhead costs, first by asking Congress, President and cabinet members to cut their staffs by 50% and their own salaries by 25%. Let’s put some of the Congress’s skin in the game to show they are serious. Cut all Congressional junkets and ground the government planes they use.  They can use commercial travel, which will create private sector jobs.

We have been bitching about tax reform for the longest time and it’s about time we did something about it. We implement a flat tax for individuals (8%) and cooperation’s 12.5%. This would be filed with every pay period electronically. I personally like the Fair Tax better but we would have to repeal the 16 Amendment of our Constitution, and that could take years. Then we should incrementally cut the IRS down by 75% leaving in place investigative jobs to deal with violators of the new code. Capital gains and the death taxes should be eliminated. We must take a serious look at the function and usefulness of the central bank, which in my opinion has played a major role in the mess.

The last three paragraphs, while increasing the deficit in the beginning, would now allow companies to bring home their offshore funds (about 11 Trillion), with out taxing them at today’s high rates. This would also stimulate the flow of Government revenue to be more than the Government spending thereby starting the filling of the Government coffers. This would allow the bills to be paid with CASH instead of more borrowing

Off course this plan is contingent on the make up of congress, in today’s environment we could not get this plan implemented, because the Democrat majority is bent of driving us deeper into debt and more about Congressional control than doing what the people want or what is “COMMONSENSE.”