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Health & Fitness

Agreeing with the Iowa Farm Bureau

Analysis of a Farm Bureau article on the United States economic outlook.

Being a member of the Johnson County Farm Bureau has its benefits, no matter what your political outlook. As one of the more liberal members of the association, I am often skeptical of Farm Bureau policies. However, I found myself agreeing more than disagreeing with Farm Bureau’s recent article about the economic outlook.

The author wrote, “To successfully reduce the debt burden of the federal government, we must as a society accept real cuts to larger non-discretionary spending programs such as Medicare and Social Security, allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for all workers at the end of 2012, not just the so-called wealthy (there are just too few affluent), and experience vastly higher economic growth.”

My strongest agreement with the author was on letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Republicans say this is no time for raising taxes and the Democrats want to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and preserve those for the middle class. This dialectic seems unlikely to find resolution, so just rip the band-aid off and let them expire. There will be consequences, but this argument should be resolved and put behind us.

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I also agree that something needs to be done about Social Security and Medicare. However; a “cut” of Social Security is much different from a “cut” of Medicare. The Social Security trust fund is solvent until 2036. In an era without pensions and lifelong benefits from an employer based retirement plan, Social Security serves as a form of insurance for people who are unsuccessful in building adequate retirement savings. At the same time, with increasing life expectancy and a shrinking work force, without changing Social Security, an undue burden will be placed on younger generations to support middle class baby boomers under the present system. It is clear that the legislators in both major parties in the 112th Congress should put away the chain saw and hyperbole and work together to figure out how the eligibility requirements should be changed to accommodate changing demographics. That is a reality most people could embrace.

Medicare is another story. This is a system rife with fraud, abuse and high costs. In my view, the key problems with Medicare have to do with the fee for service reimbursement system and rising medical costs. Medical practitioners and hospitals focus on fees as a method for maximizing revenues as much as they focus on the wellness of patients. With Medicare, fees for services are very well defined. Too, with the development of new drug treatments and sophisticated medical equipment, the cost of medical care has risen sharply over the past decade. It seems unlikely the architects of Medicare adequately foresaw the potential for rising medical costs.

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As in the case of Social Security, the chainsaw approach of “cutting” Medicare is not a sustainable answer to its problems. Reducing the cost of Medicare through better management would be a step in the right direction. Legislators should take a fact based approach to reducing the costs of Medicare. By fact based, I mean one in which legislators resist the propaganda, politics and self interests of people on all sides of the issue, if that is possible.

It is hard to disagree with the final point in the Farm Bureau article, that economic growth would help pay down U.S. debt. This happened during the internet bubble during the Clinton administration, and increased economic activity would cure a lot of what ails the United States now. 

Okay Farm Bureau, you got me thinking. What I am thinking is we should all ratchet down the hyperbole a notch and start working on these important problems in a way that considers facts not assertions. Importantly, turn down the volume on the vitriol: something easier said than done in 21st Century America.

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