mick silver
26th April 2015, 08:57 AM
How to demolish the oligarchy in 3 easy steps American democracy has been tainted by lobbying and corporate interests. How do we fix it? Blow it all upMichael Lind (http://www.salon.com/writer/michael_lind/)
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Topics: public policy (http://www.salon.com/topic/public_policy), special interests (http://www.salon.com/topic/special_interests), Corporate welfare (http://www.salon.com/topic/corporate_welfare), Health Care (http://www.salon.com/topic/health_care_2), Education (http://www.salon.com/topic/education), Retirement (http://www.salon.com/topic/retirement), Social Security (http://www.salon.com/topic/social_security), Medicaid (http://www.salon.com/topic/medicaid), Medicare (http://www.salon.com/topic/medicare), Obamacare (http://www.salon.com/topic/obamacare), College Debt (http://www.salon.com/topic/college_debt), News (http://www.salon.com/category/news/), Politics News (http://www.salon.com/category/politics/)
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This story has been corrected (http://www.salon.com/about/corrections/) since it was originally published.
“Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.” That was the motto of Jacksonian democracy. I’m generally not a fan of Jacksonian politics in general, but Jacksonian hostility to “class legislation,” or different policies for different classes and categories of citizens, is an idea that people on left, right and center can embrace. Case in point: We need to replace a bewildering miscellany of tax and economic security programs targeted at different constituencies with a few simple and universal policies that are identical for every Americans, rich, poor and middle class.
Let’s start with health care. Following the passage of the Affordable Care Act, we Americans now have a means-tested program for the poor, Medicaid, divided between the federal government and the states; another means-tested, state-based program for children, SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program); a purely federal system for the elderly, Medicare; employer-based health insurance subsidized by the tax code; a system of tax-subsidized individual health insurance for working-age people purchased through exchanges; and the Veterans’ Administration, a separate system for retired military personnel. And those are only the major public health care programs.
That’s right. We have six separate, major American health care programs, with different streams of revenue and based on different systems. Medicaid and Medicare are single-payer, multiple provider. The Veterans Administration is single-payer/single-provider. The ACA exchanges are based on an individual mandate. Medicare and the VA system and the subsidy to employer-provided health insurance provided by the federal tax code are purely federal policies. Medicaid and the exchanges and SCHIP are partly federal, partly state-based.
Are you still with me, class? Quiz tomorrow.
America’s health care policies are a dog’s breakfast. America’s retirement policies are a dog’s breakfast that a dog barfed up later.
We have a universal, federal public defined benefit (DB) system: Social Security. We have federal tax subsidies to employer-based DB pensions. And that’s not all. We have a variety of tax-favored private defined contribution (DC) systems, including IRAs and 401(k)s. Oh, and most public employees—teachers, fire fighters, police—are covered by separate, public DB pension plans—huge pools of state-controlled money frequently raided by state legislators or milked by finance-industry friends of corrupt state governors and mayors.
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Topics: public policy (http://www.salon.com/topic/public_policy), special interests (http://www.salon.com/topic/special_interests), Corporate welfare (http://www.salon.com/topic/corporate_welfare), Health Care (http://www.salon.com/topic/health_care_2), Education (http://www.salon.com/topic/education), Retirement (http://www.salon.com/topic/retirement), Social Security (http://www.salon.com/topic/social_security), Medicaid (http://www.salon.com/topic/medicaid), Medicare (http://www.salon.com/topic/medicare), Obamacare (http://www.salon.com/topic/obamacare), College Debt (http://www.salon.com/topic/college_debt), News (http://www.salon.com/category/news/), Politics News (http://www.salon.com/category/politics/)
http://media.salon.com/2014/12/protest_flag.jpgEnlarge (http://media.salon.com/2014/12/protest_flag.jpg) (Credit: CURAphotography (http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-259645p1.html) via Shutterstock (http://www.shutterstock.com/)/Salon)
This story has been corrected (http://www.salon.com/about/corrections/) since it was originally published.
“Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.” That was the motto of Jacksonian democracy. I’m generally not a fan of Jacksonian politics in general, but Jacksonian hostility to “class legislation,” or different policies for different classes and categories of citizens, is an idea that people on left, right and center can embrace. Case in point: We need to replace a bewildering miscellany of tax and economic security programs targeted at different constituencies with a few simple and universal policies that are identical for every Americans, rich, poor and middle class.
Let’s start with health care. Following the passage of the Affordable Care Act, we Americans now have a means-tested program for the poor, Medicaid, divided between the federal government and the states; another means-tested, state-based program for children, SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program); a purely federal system for the elderly, Medicare; employer-based health insurance subsidized by the tax code; a system of tax-subsidized individual health insurance for working-age people purchased through exchanges; and the Veterans’ Administration, a separate system for retired military personnel. And those are only the major public health care programs.
That’s right. We have six separate, major American health care programs, with different streams of revenue and based on different systems. Medicaid and Medicare are single-payer, multiple provider. The Veterans Administration is single-payer/single-provider. The ACA exchanges are based on an individual mandate. Medicare and the VA system and the subsidy to employer-provided health insurance provided by the federal tax code are purely federal policies. Medicaid and the exchanges and SCHIP are partly federal, partly state-based.
Are you still with me, class? Quiz tomorrow.
America’s health care policies are a dog’s breakfast. America’s retirement policies are a dog’s breakfast that a dog barfed up later.
We have a universal, federal public defined benefit (DB) system: Social Security. We have federal tax subsidies to employer-based DB pensions. And that’s not all. We have a variety of tax-favored private defined contribution (DC) systems, including IRAs and 401(k)s. Oh, and most public employees—teachers, fire fighters, police—are covered by separate, public DB pension plans—huge pools of state-controlled money frequently raided by state legislators or milked by finance-industry friends of corrupt state governors and mayors.