HEALTH CARE

Anybody who claims he or she has an easy, immediate solution to the health care dilemma in this country is being unrealistic. You can't simply dismiss it as a problem the free market can solve all by itself, because you've got senior citizens, those under the poverty line, and others who would otherwise be considered uninsurable, and you don't want to leave those people in a position where they are victimized.

There is no question Medicare is taking us down a dangerous path. Payroll taxes contribute to funding Medicare, and because people are living longer, a crisis in the system awaits the next generation of Americans, if something isn't done about it. According to statistics provided by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, by the year 2033, the percentage increase in Medicare enrollees will be five times that of the workers who fund it.

Right now approximately 8% of federal tax revenues goes to the Medicare program. A study done at Texas A&M University estimates that by 2033, that figure will be more than 30%, when the prescription drug benefit is taken into account. Since Congress will naturally be reticent to make drastic cuts in spending for other programs, that means more and more tax dollars will continue to be taken out of everyone's paycheck.

If we eliminated Social Security, the improvement in payout that would be derived from individual retirement accounts could subsidize private health care plans, obviating the need for programs like Medicare. But that's a strategy more applicable to the long term.

The single-payer system does not provide a short-term answer, because there would be rampant abuse, excessive politicization and the resulting corruption, not to mention lack of access to quality care. And to provide national health insurance to everyone in this country, you'd be stretching the budget to an extent that it would lead to massive increases in everyone's taxes, which, I think we can agree, are way too high already.

No, there is no simple, all-encompassing solution for the short term, but there are certain incremental things that can be done. For one thing, there are more than a few people in the field who believe we could - right now - probably cut 10-15%, or more, off the Medicare budget and still maintain the same level of care.

Dramatically reducing the scope of the FDA, and the red tape that goes with it, would keep down the costs of developing and producing a drug - costs which ultimately get passed on to the consumer. What it will also do is take some of the politics out of the process, which in turn reduces the massive influence pharmaceutical companies seem to have over legislators - a factor that serves to stunt new and emerging drug companies who may have more effective, cheaper products to offer to the public.

One place where the free market could come into play involves opening things up to accommodate medications that work, but just happen to come from other countries. That results in effective, more immediate care, lower costs for consumers, much less of a role for the FDA, more competition, and therefore, more utility for the consumer.

It wouldn't hurt to provide incentives for Medicare patients to shop around for the best deal from private sources. Based on the formula government uses to contribute to the Medicare fund, it could mean considerable savings for taxpayers.

And we should do everything we can, short of corporate welfare, to encourage technology companies to develop less expensive and more efficient methods of treating patients, because technology constitutes one of the major fixed components of health care costs.

Then we can go from there.