In the last day, or two, several announcements of "special programs" to help fund early retiree health care coverage for Muskegon Township, Macatawa Bank, Haworth, and more in west michigan have been announced.
Also, additional funding partnerships for "special populations" and "special clinics" have been inacted.
Why are we still talking about "special programs, populations, etc" ? Aren't the overarching issues much larger than this? Where is cost control and efficiency and fairness, if everything has a "special" target?
David Walker, from Peter G. Peterson Foundation (pgpf.org), recently presented on CSPAN the problems facing us from unfunded liabilities being incurred by State and Local Governments for future health care and pension benefits of their employees!
This is scary folks...the pension funds and health care trusts are still using 8% assumed growth rates and they already show deficits at that rate of return!
Walker shows that the problem with unfunded state and local government health and pension income promises is a ticking time bomb that is already unfunded, but is exponentially exacerbated, if we use a more conservative rate of return on assets, say 2-3%. We are talking trillions of dollars in liabilities folks...so, where do these state and local governments turn for funding these problems? The Feds? They supposedly don't have the cash either!
So, my friends and fellow citizens, do we agree that a realignment is in order? Where does the US go from here, to show the World that we are doing the right things to get our economy in order for the long haul, that we will indeed be able to pay our debts, and all the other promisses we have made.
Here is a link to an idea for health care reform that I call "Core Care". It is a 12 minute youtube presentation on a non-partisan solution to modernize our system for our new economic realities:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwFpaEMAGdE
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