It’s Time to Choose

I write editorials fairly frequently. I enjoy writing and it’s nice to see them published. I usually try to write something witty and insightful. But not today.

Today, I’m writing because I’m scared. America, the country that I love, is headed for disaster and no one seems to care.

Medicare is going to bankrupt my country. Yeah, I know. “Medicare? That’s sooo boring! I want to read about something exiting and emotional like Iraq or illegal immigration.” Today, quite frankly, I don’t care what you want to hear. Today, I’m writing to tell you what you need to hear.

We have written into law promises that we can not pay. Medicare is facing a deficit of 60 Trillion dollars. In case that number is too big to have any meaning for you, that’s five times the value of everything America produces in a year, all goods, all services, everything.

We have hard choices to make and we need to start with the basics. Why was Medicare created? It was created because some elderly American’s couldn’t afford decent health care. Instead of focusing on that limited problem, we have created a system that promises to pay all the medical bills of everyone over 65 and in doing so, we have insulated American health care from the normal market forces that enforce financial discipline in every other sector of our economy.

This has happened not because it’s good for the country, but because it’s good for politicians. Every politician knows that they can get votes by promising more benefits to voters. The fact that they are destroying the country in the process is irrelevant. They know that when the bill comes due, they will be long gone. If you try to take a benefit away, voters will take your job away. If you try to save future generations from disaster, well, the young usually don’t vote and generations unborn aren’t in your district.

I know this sounds cynical. It’s very hard to believe that our leaders would care more about their jobs than about their country. Is it really possible that they want a partisan political weapon more than to see future generations prosper?

I’m very sorry to tell you this, but the answer is yes.

Don’t believe me? There is an easy test to find out for yourself. If you ever have the opportunity to ask your congressman a question, ask this: “Do you think someone making $20,000/year should pay Bill Gates medical bills when he turns 65?” They will dance around the question and make a variety of convoluted excuses, but the basic answer will be Yes.

For the future of our country, this is insane. For politics, it makes perfect sense.

You have a choice. You can rise up and threaten candidates with your vote. You can demand they put the good of the nation ahead of their partisan political self interest. Or you can ignore a problem that seems so abstract, so far off, and let the disaster come.

Choose now.