Economic Immortality for America

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My mom died in early April of 2008... She had health problems actually for many years prior to her death so while it was no surprise it was still ugly... If you know what I mean. Anyone who has ever had to watch a loved one suffer knows what I mean...

It gave me a good opportunity to focus on health care, along with it's delivery systems, for a number of years. Just basically through osmosis... I was there...

It 'seems' to me that a portion of our health care system is designed to 'extend' suffering as a way to extract ever more money from a patient... Whether that money comes from the government via medicare/medicaid or from a private insurance company or from an individual's life savings. I guess the point is as long as there IS money there, somewhere, we all have access to, likely, the greatest most advanced health care system in the world...

As long as SOMEONE is willing to pay for it...

And, as I demonstrated above, there seems to ALWAYS be someone who is willing to pay...

Even individuals who may be in our country 'illegally' have unlimited access to our health care system even if only through emergency room care... I believe it's 'illegal' for a hospital to even try to determine one's ability to pay for services, God forbid they should try to determine someone's citizenship status...

In this country if an uninsured person suffers a stroke, a heart attack, cancer, or any other major health issue they can, and do, receive all the health care required to... save their life, improve their situation, reduce their suffering, treat their illness... Regardless of their ability to pay. $30,000.00 worth of care, $50,000.00, $100,000.00, $1,000,000.00, it doesn't matter. At least not to the person being treated...

Because if they can't pay someone else will... Of course in the end the people who 'pay' for this care are tax payers, consumers... Through higher taxes, through ever increasing insurance premiums, through ever increasing medical costs/medical inflation...

The government 'pays' for anyone/everyone who cannot pay for their own health care now, prior to the HCR bill that passed... There is no one in this country legal or otherwise who cannot receive all the health care that need for whatever it is that ails them...

Of course we can all see that this is quite an unsustainable situation...

To me it's obviously a 'bubble', and a very large bubble at that...

You know like housing was... Like the stock market was/is... Like banking was/is... Like the auto industry was/is... Like insurance was/is... Like utilities were/are...

That's the real macro economic issue in the United States... Our economy is absolutely FILLED with bubbles fueled by debt/credit and now government spending...

That's why my own contention has been all along, and continues to be, that the ONLY thing that can save us from ourselves is IF true market capitalism principles are allowed to take over and correct the situation for us... We don't have to do a thing except allow our economic system to work in the way in which it was designed to work...

What does that mean? Unfortunately, to me it means simply deflation and depression... However... things are SO bad in the United States that it would be incredibly painful to endure... Perhaps even far more painful than the great depression itself... Because government and the federal reserve, the banking system have been scared to death by the very notion of deflation and depression since at least 2001... So 'they' have done everything they possibly could do to prevent the pain... From keeping interest rates artificially low, to the constant devaluing of our currency masked by stock market gains that never seem to be inflation adjusted anywhere, to government taking a forever larger role in paying for the things that Americans are entitled to as well as many things that Americans are not entitled to, even to the extent of paying for things for people who are not even Americans at all...

Our entire economic system is totally screwed and thus far the ONLY way out that our government seems to see is Japanese style deflation for a decade or so at least... I suppose as long as you have the ability to move money around from one place to another electronically that you can never go broke... The federal reserve has this ability... Just add a few zeros to a banks account and all the sudden, magically, they are re-capitalized... Nice trick...

But here's the problem with this... Maybe our government can't go broke, maybe our banks can't go broke, maybe even our major corporations can't go broke...

But it seems to me that the ONLY entity that is still allowed to go broke is the American citizen...

However... we are seeing some dramatic change there as well... Pretty soon the American citizen may not be allowed to go broke either... Then we would have the near perfect economic system right? The last piece of the puzzle for economic immortality...

As long as we don't allow the [bankrupt themselves] banks to foreclose on homeowners, as long as we extend unemployment benefits as an entitlement, as long as we (government / tax payers) pay for everyone's health care as need, as long as we (government / tax payers) provide food and shelter for those in society who cannot afford it themselves.

I think we are almost there... economic immortality for America... As soon as we (government / tax payers) can improve the lifestyle of the afflicted just a bit more... As soon as maybe we (government / tax payers) can buy TVs and cable and internet access for unfortunate people too.. on top of the food and shelter...

If only it weren't for that stupid MONEY everything might be just fine...

To fix that part, the unsustainable spending part, in my opinion, will take deflation and a good old fashioned depression...

Greg