David LaFerney

photo credit: David Boyle in DC

I know that no one cares what I think about universal health care.  Nonetheless, this is a relatively simple plan which would work, is compatible with our current system, and is not “Socialized Medicine” - but is not one that has been proposed as far as I know.  The health care issues that I think most Americans want to see addressed are:

• Universal coverage for all Americans
• A fair and affordable method of funding
• Cost controls for both insurance and the cost of health care itself

The Plan

1. Mandate that every American be covered by a standard universal minimum policy.
2. Allow the individual insurance companies to charge whatever they want, but they have to charge each of their customers the same price for coverage.

That’s it in a nutshell, and here’s why it would work:

• A huge market for health insurance would result, and every insurance company in the world would want a piece of the pie.
• Market competition between the insurance companies would keep the cost of coverage fair.
• Everyone would be covered - Just as they are now, but within the system.
• Improved prevention and wellness care (regular checkups, and early detection) could lower overall expenses while actually improving our health if they were a mandated part of the plan.
• There would no longer be the issue of individuals who do without insurance (not contributing to the pool) for years while they are healthy and who then want coverage when they develop health issues.
• The insurance companies could still sell luxury private insurance packages to individuals, companies, or employers who wanted them as long as everyone was covered by the basic plan first - admittedly this market would probably be greatly reduced.
• We already have universal health care to a certain extent, but as it is the uninsured don’t contribute to the cost, and many people don’t have adequate wellness and preventative care coverage.
• American businesses could be more competitive in the world market place because they would no longer be on the hook for most of working Americans health care insurance.
• Portable coverage would mean that workers would no longer become indentured to their jobs just because their employer covers their families insurance - resulting in increased entrepreneurship and career mobility.
• The loss of a job because of market downturns would be less catastrophic for families if they don’t automatically lose access to affordable health care insurance.

The details of the mandated insurance - coverage, deductable, etc - are almost immaterial to the larger plan, but I hope that it would include a heavy emphasis upon wellness and prevention. Personally I wouldn’t have a problem with charging extra to people who voluntarily endanger their health by smoking or by being motorcycle daredevils for example, but that would open up a whole can of worms of complexity and probably isn’t a good idea.

Who Would Pay for it?

All of us - preferably as individuals, but for those who actually can not afford it, then the cost would have to be subsidized by the rest of us just like it is now.  If employers wanted to pay for coverage for their employees then there would be no reason not to - as long as they paid the same cost per insured as everyone else.

Who Would Lose?

Probably no one would really lose in the long run, but several groups would scream bloody murder:

The healthy uninsured - This group consisting largly of the working poor, and younger people in the job market who currently don’t pay anything for health insurance, but who can still get treatment when they need it  - because the rest of us pay the tab for their emergencies.

The Insurance Companies - They probably wouldn’t like it because they could no longer cherry pick the market for the most profitable groups to sell “discounted” insurance packages to while charging deterrent prices to individuals, and denying coverage to the people who have pre existing conditions. I’m sure that “Industry Experts” would assure us that this idea would be so expensive that America would dry up and blow away - But they would be liers when they did.

Small government conservatives, libertarians, anarchists and the politicians who pander to these groups. These people won’t be happy with any plan other than  - “If you can’t afford to go to the doctor then you probably deserve to be sick” - The companion plan to the “If you can’t afford to retire, then work until you die” retirement package.

Otherwise most everyone else would be better off.

How Would this Plan Control Costs?

As we all know, if one walks into an emergency room you will get health care even if you have no way to pay for it - Thus we already have a poor and inefficient system of universal health care.  My plan would spread the cost to everyone who has income, and would improve efficiency by improving wellness and preventative care and getting non emergencies out of the emergency room - the most expensive health care venue that there is.

Insurance plan cost control - Competition between insurance companies for market share would control insurance prices in good old Capitalist supply and demand fashion.

Health care cost - By itself this plan would not control the cost of health care, but improved wellness care and early detection would probably improve over all efficiency by making us healthier and reducing the need for heroic measures to treat preventable diseases.

Health care cost could be further controled by giving consumers a vested interest in avoiding unneeded doctor visits and elective procedures - One way of doing this would be health care savings accounts which could be used for co pays and deductibles, and which would roll over from year to year, and would actually belong to the consumer.  The idea would be that deposits to individual accounts would be made contiuously by everyone with income but if the ballance is depleted then those costs would have to be paid for out of pocket by the consumer.  The problem with health care savings accounts as they are is that they have to be used up annually or the money is forfeited - what genius came up with that?  If we had healthcare savings accounts that could accumulate over time some people would become virtually self insured.  But that is another issue.

photo credit: indigoprime

Four years worth - maximum.

According to the U.S. geological survey’s most optimistic estimate there could be as much as 11.8 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil in ANWR - that is oil which is recoverable if you aren’t concerned with the cost - of course they also say that there could be a lot less. For the sake of argument I’m going to assume the most. The data for this is derived from the 1998 US Geological Survey petroleum assesment for ANWR area 1002.

According to the US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration in 2007 the United States consumed 20.6 Million barrels of crude oil per day.

So, if the most optimistic estimate of the USGS is true - and our consumption doesn’t increase - at best there is only enough oil in ANWR to satisfy our oil addiction for slightly less than 4 years. Most new car loans last longer. Of course since oil is a fungible commodity and worldwide demand is at 87.5 million barrels per day (for now) it would actually only last a bit over eleven months.  Considered as an international commodity all of the oil in the entire arctic (including that currently under the ice) would only last about 7 years.

So why the big fuss over just enough oil to prolong the agony for a mere four years - and only that if we could hog it all for exclusive use in the United States? Because the street value of the oil under ANWR at today’s prices is almost 1.4 Trillion Dollars. A lot of money for the petroleum industry even if it isn’t all that much energy security for the United States.

As it turns out it would take almost a million 2 megawatt wind generators to turn out enough energy to completely replace all of the petroleum based energy that we currently use in the United States. If they each cost two million dollars then it would be a 2 trillion dollar total investment (about the total US federal budget excluding social security for 2008) to no longer be dependant on petroleum - forever. We would pay the same amount for the wind energy that we are paying now for crude, but after six years the wind farms would be paid for - that formula works if we build one or a million and one. After that the electricity costs about one cent per kilowatt hour - less than a tenth of what we now pay.

Considering that we’ve already spent about 650 billion dollars on the Iraq war - which most Americans agree is about oil - it doesn’t seem like such a crazy amount to me.

By the way, I’m not proposing that tax dollars be used to pay for those wind farms (and solar installations) the idea is that we point incentives at development of renewable resources just like we have at petroleum development except hopefully without the graft, corruption and war mongering.

All we have to do is want to do it, and stop drinking the Kool aid that says we can’t.

Yet another upside to wind, solar, and other renewable energy recources is that tons of good paying jobs would be generated for development and maintenance - none of which could be out sourced to another country.

Ok, using wind to replace our use of petroleum all at once isn’t feasible, and yes, I know that you can’t power semi trucks with electricity yet, but you can power trains with it (we do it all the time), and there are also other technologies available - wind is just the example I’m using here as a renewable resource. For the foreseeable future we will need other means for times when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.

But, Don’t Forget the OCS

The Outer Continental Shelf - the other untapped oil reserve languishing because of environmental moratorium. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Agency 2007 Annual Energy Outlook and the 2007 report from the National Petroleum Council there may be about 60 billion barrels of undiscovered but “technically recoverable” oil resources in all of the lower 48 OCS. Of which about 19 billion barrels (about 6.4 years worth for the U.S. or 18.5 months on the international market) are in moratorium areas unavailable by law or public policy from leasing and development. The other approximately 41 billion barrels of undiscovered oil - nearly 70% of the undiscovered Outer Continental Shelf oil resources - are already available to leasing and development.

In summary, if we lift the moratorium on all of the oil in ANWR and the OCS together the extra oil might last as long as 10.5 years if we could keep it for just the U.S. and only 2.4 years on the international market.

The point is this - we can afford to use renewable energy / we can’t afford not to. The sooner we start the better off we and our children will be, and drilling in our environmentally sensitive areas just won’t buy us much time.

1) According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s website a barrel of crude oil represents 5.8 million BTUs of energy equivalent to 1,700 kilowatt hours. According to the American Wind Energy Association website an average utility scale wind generator can produce about 2 megawatts. This equates to approximately 5.5 million kilowatt hours per year of actual energy production. The math is simple from there. The cool thing is that we know where the wind (and sunshine) is, and how often it blows - we don’t really know where or how much oil there is until after we drill.

“Annual Energy Outlook 2007 With Projections to 2030,” Energy Information Administration, Office of Integrated Analysis and Forecasting, U.S. Department of Energy, February 2007

“Facing the Hard Truths About Energy: A comprehensive view to 2030 of global oil and natural gas,” National Petroleum Council, July 2007.

1998 US Geological Survey petroleum assesment for ANWR area 1002.

US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration

photo credit: Walter Rodriguez

Stop right there?

Drilling is inevitable. In your heart you know that sooner or later it’s going to happen, so why not just go ahead and give it up? You’ve resisted temptation, you’ve saved it and kept it pristine, but you know that sooner or later someone has to do it. Why not now?

Drill, drill, drill – that‘s all I want? You cut me to the quick. Once you let me drill, and I have what I’m after I’m just going to leave you spoiled and used and go on to the next conquest? I wouldn’t do that – I’m not like that. It’s not about me - it’s about us - we both want it. We both need it. It’s going to be the end for us if you won’t let me do it.

You know I would never lie to you. I swear I’ll love you ’till the end of time.

Come on, let’s drill right now, you know you want to.

If you’re paying attention at all you’ve probably heard about T. Boone Pickins plan for replacing natural gas fueled electric generation with wind generation and using the surplus natural gas to fuel transportation. OK there wouldn’t really be wind powered cars, but you get the idea. One of the great thing about Pickens plan is that it should make sense to both the left and the right. Really the only group that loses out with his plan is foreign oil interest. Many excellent and long term American jobs would be created, trillions of American dollars would stay at home and even the environment would benefit - all feasible with mature off the shelf technology - no break through required.

Only the lunatic fringes and those with an ulterior motive should oppose this idea. I wonder why President Bush wasn’t interested?

Oil may be the most useful material ever discovered by mankind – in addition to its use as fuel, oil is in fertilizer, medicine, pesticides, plastics, cosmetics, lubricants, solvents, even food – it’s difficult to think of a consumer product that doesn’t contain a petroleum product, or rely on one for its production.

It’s currently being proposed that we lift the federal moratorium on off shore oil drilling. In my opinion sooner or later, we will drill off shore. Eventually, the oil under the ocean and Alaska’s ANWAR is going to be so valuable that the environmentalists will no longer be able to keep the wolves away from the door. It will only take one positive congressional vote to make it happen, and sooner or later it will. However, we shouldn’t do it yet.

There are a lot of reasons why we should reign in our depletion of petroleum resources and put off drilling in ANWAR and the continental shelf, but I think that the best one is this – Our generations have already used more than our share of the oil that exists in the world. Shouldn’t we leave some for our children and their children to use for fertilizer, medicine, pesticides, plastics, cosmetics, lubricants, solvents, etc that we’ve come to rely upon? Oil is eventually going to be too valuable to burn. Let us not be remembered as the ones who burned the last good source just because it was economically convenient.

Exploiting oil in these environmentally sensitive places is comparable to raiding your children’s college fund because you’re temporarily laid off from your job. It’s irresponsible because we still have other recourses and once it’s gone we can never get it back.

America has never really put much effort into developing renewable energy for the simple reason that the bean counters have always said that it would be more expensive than just using the oil and coal that is already available. Unfortunately a few beans didn’t get counted along the way. The constant outflow of American wealth to purchase foreign petroleum has diminished us financially while enriching people who hold their noses as they take our money, and of course there is the environmental damage that these fuels cause, and the cost of our oil motivated foreign policys.

Now it’s likely that we will finally start to seriously invest in other ways to fuel our energy intensive economy – and fortunately there is no way (that I can see) to outsource the development of solar, wind or other renewable energy resources, so this is going to mean lots of good paying jobs right here in America. Will our energy bills go up? They almost certainly shall. Will our homes and cars get smaller and more efficient? Of course they will. However, a lot more of that money will be staying in American pockets. These are not horrible sacrifices, but I hope we’re willing to make them before it’s too late.

America is addicted to oil. Drilling in ANWAR is like a junkie deciding that he will be better off if he cooks his own meth. We need to kick the habit, not make more of our own junk.

In retrospect, I don’t know what I was thinking.