Social Security Redefined: Adding Health Care Reform While Giving the Consumer Choice and Control

Foreword

A Better Way

There are millions of uninsured Americans. This is because of current health care funding, not lack of availability. The fact that there are millions of Americans without health insurance drives up the costs for those who are insured. Therefore, the concept of mandating health care for all and funding it appropriately makes both economic and ethical sense.

This document seeks to provide an effective, affordable, and relatively simple solution that will benefit every individual American, the public at large, employers, and the providers of health care. But it goes much further. When the funding issue is addressed through the means discussed in this book, it will become clear that more can be done to address all of the basic financial rights that Americans could, or should have. Doing so can eliminate waste, administrative costs, overlap, and redundancies.

While the funding methodology is addressed here, the healthcare delivery component—the providers of care: hospitals, doctors, clinics, etc.—are not, as the two are, and should be, separate. When the funding issue is resolved, much of the delivery component will react positively and benefit from it in several ways that will also benefit consumers and the nation as a whole.

As government seeks ways to reform health care, what will most likely occur is another Band-aid solution of the type that has been used in the past. Once the following concept is understood, it will be evident that current programs such as Social Security, Workers Compensation, Medicare, and Medicaid have all been Band-aid solutions. While they have all been valuable and necessary in many respects, overlap, over-insurance, redundancies, inequities, and bureaucracies have resulted, at great cost. All of the benefits provided by these programs and more can be simplified and incorporated into one newly defined and designed Social Security program.

Let’s step back, look at the big picture, question everything, and ask: Is there a better way? If we were to start all over again, knowing what we know now, could a better system be created? Can the inequalities that exist in their present forms, which inhibit the delivery of health care to those that need it, be rectified? Can coverage be mandated and funded on a consistent, fair, and equal basis to all, including those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder? Can choice and control be given to all? Can we foster creativity and freemarket competition at the same time? Can checks and balances, including advocates for the consumer and proper government regulation, be built in to the system? And can an entirely new single system be created that effectively provides for basic financial security for all Americans?

Yes.

Social Security Redefined

The title of this book, Redefining Social Security, is better understood after we first define the term Social Security and what it should mean. Many American have come to expect limited, but valuable, benefits from Social Security. But should Social Security be limited to the few benefits it now provides? If we were to look at Social Security as a basic platform for providing essential and basic financial security for all Americans, should it then be limited to what was created years ago to satisfy a limited definition? Or could it be expanded to cover all of the basic financial securities that should and can be provided to all Americans? If Social Security indeed provided for all of the basic financial necessities for every American, the economy would be stronger for it. If it could be changed to eliminate redundancies, overlap, and confusion; while also reducing costs, I propose that it should be considered.

Social Security is the name the government applied to a program that was established in 1935 that in reality only provided the citizens of this country with limited security. Limited, because it only dealt with specific problems the government wanted to rectify at that time. Along with its limitations, it was never funded properly, which is why there has been so much talk of Social Security going broke or not being able to survive long enough for the baby boom generation to realize its goals.

The current version of Social Security is indeed very limited in its scope. It is limited to only a few benefits— needed benefits, but limited nonetheless. This is not to say what was created wasn’t necessary or that it should be discarded. In essence, a paradigm shift is needed within the psyche of the American public to consider, and hopefully embrace, a change that will substantially increase Social Security and that could include many other benefits, including:

National health care reform

Retirement savings

College savings

Survivors benefits

Disability insurance (SSI Reform)

Long-term care insurance

Unemployment insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Individual choice

Free-market competition among providers

America and Americans have come to define Social Security benefits as their retirement plan. It was never meant to be. It was meant to be a very basic program that would keep people from poverty after