Better Social Security Benefits at No Expense to Government

Give upfront options to married couples on the lower SS check for collecting SS in the future when a spouse dies. Currently, the spousal survivor loses the second check. That represents a 33-50% loss of SS income. Too many people can't survive financially with such a loss because their bills (rent, mortgage, car payments, property taxes, home insurance, etc.) do not go down 33-50% when a spouse dies (they don't go down at all!).

At the time that the second spouse applies for SS, based on life expectancy tables so that there is no extra cost to SS, offer 4 options on the lower check. Collect at 100% and forfeit that check on the death of the first spouse (that is the same as today), or collect the second check at 50% or 75% or 100% when the second spouse dies by taking correspondingly less money on the second check from the time both people are on SS. How much less depends on their ages and life expectancy tables.

That's the option I had with my corporate pension. The company did not care what option was chosen because, based on life expectancy tables and factored over thousands of retirees, the overall total cost to the company is the same. If the government adopts these extra options, there would be no increase in costs to the government, but a substantial increase in security for married couples on Social Security. That's a win-win solution.

Fixing Medicare Fraud

Depending on what article you read, Medicare fraud varies from 10% to 25%. Compare that result with private insurance companies. Private Insurance companies experience less than 1% fraud.

Therefore, the best approach would be to maintain the government program as is, but hire insurance companies, not federal government workers, to manage the program as "third party providers". The US military forces already do this for many job activities. Just as with military combat operations, this is not "privatizing" Medicare. It will still be government insurance run by government overseers. Just the administrative workers will be different.

Secondly, roughly half of all Medicare expenses go to people in their last year of life. Many of these recipients are too sick to make medical decisions. So other family members, or government, or medical providers make these decisions for them. The result is often extending the dying process, not the living process, for the benefit of the medical providers.

For example, "have cancer and only have 6 months to live, we need to do quadruple bypass surgery now so you can make it to six months." That benefits the medical providers financially in a very substantial way, but what does it do for the patient except extend his/her suffering?

The solution is for the Medicare recipients at the time they sign up for Medicare, to fill out a medical will that all medical providers have access to and must follow unless the patient changes his/her mind when the time comes. That takes it out of government's hand, out of medical provider's hands, and out of family members hands who may not know the patient's wishes in such a situation and the patient is unable to respond to questions clearly and/or intelligently.

For people already on Medicare, each year they must make new choices for part D prescription programs. At that time, for any who have not submitted a medical will, have them do so. Either fill out a government form or if they have a medical will already, give government a copy.

False Claims that Blacks are Trapped in Poverty

With the 50th anniversary of the 1963 MLK March and "I have a dream" speech, numerous articles are appearing that the job isn't finished, blacks are trapped in poverty, and more help is needed to raise the standard of living for black people. What utter nonsense! Blacks are NOT trapped into poverty! Blacks have every opportunity to succeed today and for the last 20-30 years but too many blacks throw those opportunities away. It starts with the disintegration of black families (3 out of 4 black children are born to single parent households). That's a choice, not a trap! Too many blacks fail to get a good free public education by either dropping out or not trying to learn much if they stay in school despite the fact that we pay up to $20,000 per year per student in black urban areas on education or double the national average. Again that's a choice, and also a failure of family parenting, not a trap. Black crime rates are up to 8 times higher than the national average. Again that is a choice, plus a result of the first two points I made, not a trap. Blacks live in a free nation where they are free to make bad decisions. Way too many blacks make bad decisions. The ones that don't, that is the ones that actually try, who study hard, get an education, and work hard, generally succeed. The blacks (and whites) who don't try to earn their way out of poverty generally live in poverty. Again, that was their choice. Don't falsely blame anyone else, nor unfounded 'universal' racial discrimination claims, nor history for that outcome. Take personal responsibility, study and work hard, and change your life for the better! Otherwise, stop complaining because no one will nor should listen!

Conducting Fair Presidential Primaries

Iowa, a small farm state, and New Hampshire, a tiny, liberal state have deliberately positioned their Presidential primaries to be the first in the nation for the sole purpose of having an enormous influence on who is nominated. Conservatives and anti-subsidy candidates are at a distinct disadvantage. Major Presidential candidates have been knocked out of contention by these first primary states as their failure to conform to liberal policies resulted in a poor showing and unfair drop in polls which seems to have a huge impact on voters. This forces all serious candidates to cater to the political wishes of two tiny states, not representative of the rest of America, and handicaps candidates who are for the real changes needed to fix our government spending problems. Other states and their political interests are consequently at a distinct disadvantage as Presidential candidates spend enormous amounts of time and money campaigning in these two tiny states, and have much less time to spend in other States. The winners in these tiny states have enormous advantages in ultimately winning their party's nomination for President.
This is totally, unfair, un-American, not in our best interests as a nation, and contributes to the out of control spending policies of the United States. I am sure that if our Founding Fathers, noted for their wisdom in setting up our Democracy, were alive and asked to design Presidential primaries today, it would be much different than what we have now. I believe there should be 5 primary election dates, one a month, from February through June, in which 10 states vote in each. These 10 states should be taken geographically from North, South, East, West, and middle. There should be a balance of red-blue states, conservative-liberal states. Then every four years, the order of voting of these same 10 states should be moved with the first group of 10 states becoming the second group of 10, the second becoming the third, etc. with the last group of 10 from the last primary becoming the first group of 10 states in the current primary. No individual state should have a significant advantage in shaping the candidates or US policy.

Ending the Welfare Mess

The current welfare and food stamp programs are set up in a manner that incents people to have as many babies as you can, without supporting fathers, in order to gain more government benefits and "retire" without ever having worked. It is an axiom that whatever you incent people to do, that's what they likely will do. So in the future, let's incent them to work. End or at least substantially reduce welfare and food stamps and replace that program with a child care services program so that the mother is free to work and must work to earn the money necessary to support her family housing and food needs. At the same time require that fathers of all children be identified (with severe criminal penalties for lying, plus free DNA tests) so that they can be forced to support their children. If the fathers don't work, subtract child support payments from any government benefits that they receive to incent them to work. By incenting people to work, more people will work. Less babies will be created for the sole purpose of increasing government benefits of the parents. The disintegration of families (3 out of every 4 black children are born to single parent homes) will begin to reverse which will lead to less crime, less government costs, more children staying in school and actually learning, and most importantly better lives for more Americans.