Upgrades to Our Tax and Health Insurance Systems that would benefit all Americans

Americans need to face the horrendous reality that our health-insurance and tax systems are terribly broken.

The United States has the most expensive healthcare in the world, yet millions of Americans lack access to basic medical services. Our tax system punishes the poor; rewards the rich, and fails to raise enough money to pay for government – in the richest nation in human history.

Fortunately there are some fairly fixes to these dilemmas available. A fraction of the potential solutions are listed below.

Potential Fixes for America’s Health-Insurance System

Some excellent upgrades to our abominable health insurance system include:

• Allow all citizens and legal residents of the United States to buy into Medicare and/or Medicaid regardless of income or age.

 

• Offer Medicare and/or Medicaid coverage through all the Obamacare exchanges.

 

• Allow employers to purchase Medicare and/or Medicaid coverage for their employees.

• Allow insurance agents, insurance companies, nonprofit organizations; and retailers such as Walmart and Amazon, to sell Medicare and/or Medicaid policies in exchange for a commission say $25 to $100 a policy.

 

• Allow car insurance companies to sign people up for Medicare and/or Medicaid; and to charge persons without health insurance a higher premium. Since medical costs are one of the major factors driving up auto insurance costs this might lower premiums.

 

• Allow Americans to sign up for Medicare and/or Medicaid through when they submit their tax returns.

 

• Set up a website where any American can sign up for Medicare and/or Medicaid anytime.

• Offer no-premium Medicare and/or Medicaid to the following people:

 

1. All honorably discharged veterans of the United States military and their dependent children.

 

2. All active duty military personnel and their families.[1]

 

3. All members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families.

 

4. All members of the Peace Corps and Public Health Service and their families.

 

5. All public school teachers and administrators and their families.

6. All federal employees and their families.

 

7. All retired federal employees and their families.

 

8. All law enforcement officers and their families.

 

9. All firefighters and emergency responders and their families, including volunteers.

 

10. All persons and couples with an income that is less than 150% of the federal poverty level.

 

11. All fulltime college students and their dependent children.[2]

 

12. All senior citizens with no income other than Social Security and their dependent children.

13. All persons on Social Security Disability and their dependent children.

 

14. All widows or widowers and dependent children of military personnel killed on active duty.

 

15. All widows and widowers and dependent children of law enforcement officers, firefighters and emergency responders killed on the job.

16. All individuals that qualify for unemployment insurance and their dependent children.

 

17. All children that qualify for the free school lunch program.

 

18. All persons receiving Social Security survivors’ benefits and their dependent children.

 

• Give the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid the power to settle the unpaid medical debts of anybody who signs up for Medicare/Medicaid.

 

• Abolish all private health insurance benefits and subsidies for government employees and elected officials.

 

• Give healthcare providers the ability to sign uninsured people up for Medicare and/or Medicaid at any time.

 

• Abolish open enrollment. Let any American switch health insurance policies any time he or she wants to.

• Abolish the Obamacare mandates. Stop punishing Americans for not having health insurance.

 

• Abolish the Obamacare employer mandate. If the government wants to mandate health insurance, then the government should pay for it.

 

• Give the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid the ability the ability to set one nationwide price for all drugs, medical procedures, medical devices, therapies and treatments.

 

• Require Medicare and/or Medicaid to pay any legal claim within five business days via electronic funds transfer.

 

How to Simplify Our Federal Tax System

Here are a few potential solutions that would simplify and rationalize our tax system and make it fairer for all Americans:

• Go to a return-fee income tax system. Have the IRS send every American a bill stating how much he or she owes. People would have the choice of contesting the bill or simply paying the tax.

 

• Go to a simple four-tier income tax system. The tiers would be as follows.

• Persons that report less than $100,000 in annual income would pay no income tax. Therefore most Americans would pay no income tax. The average household income is around $72,000 a year.

 

• Individuals that made between $100,000 and $250,000 a year would pay a 10% flat income tax.

 

• Persons that made between $250,000 and $1 million a year would pay a 25% flat income tax.

 

• Individuals that earned more than $1 million a year would pay the top tax of 50%.

 

• Abolish most or all deductions including mortgage interest, charity, etc. Since most people would pay no income tax or less than 25% deductions would no longer be necessary.

• Reduce the corporate income tax to 10%. The new corporate income tax would consist of a 4% Medicare tax, a 4% Social Security tax and a 2% surcharge to pay for federal government operations.

 

• Eliminate the income limits on Social Security taxes. Collect the 6.2% Social Security Tax and the Medicare tax on all individual income. Currently these taxes are only collected on the first $127,200 of individual earnings. That means Bill Gates; who is reportedly worth $86 billion, will pay $7,886.40 in Social Security taxes and $3,688.80 in Medicare taxes next year.

 

• Raise the Medicare tax on all individual incomes to the 2.9% rate now charged on “self-employed” people.

 

• Charge a 2% Medicare tax on all sales of tobacco, legalized marijuana, alcohol, candy, soda pop, pastries, deserts, donuts, energy drinks, potato chips, salty snacks, fast food, ice cream, donuts, coffee, tea and take-out food.

• Charge a 2% carbon tax on all fossil fuels.

 

• Charge a 5% carbon tax on coal.

 

• Charge a 2% Medicare tax on private health insurance policies, plastic surgery and tanning.

 

• Make the first $250,000 each American keeps in savings, money market or CD accounts tax-deferred to encourage savings.

 

These solutions would not create utopia but they might make life easier for average Americans.

[1] Families shall consist of spouse or partner dependent children.

[2] This means a dependent child as defined by the Internal Revenue Service for tax purposes.