Grand Bargains--Fixing Health Care and the Economy (Paperback)

Grand Bargains' Solution to Health Care and Economic Crises Health and health care are powerfully affected by public policies regarding social services, agriculture, law, finance, real estate, education, transportation, Social Security, immigration, governance (i.e., taxation and regulation), and national security. Health care reform and better public health cannot be accomplished in isolation from reforming the rest of the economy. This book proposes a detailed plan to tackle our highly complex and interconnected issues related to health care and economic policies. Among other things, the plan provides for universal health care, integration of social services with health care, adding 40 million new jobs, boosting the minimum wage to $15 per hour, enhancing our infrastructure, increasing education funding, launching an initiative to foster Third World development, assuring financial security for seniors and the disabled, enacting a balanced budget, paying down the national debt, eliminating the corporate income tax and limiting the personal income tax to only the top 10% of earners, and instituting consumption taxes on products and services that harm the public health, the economy, or the environment. Combining strengths of free-market capitalism and communitarian cooperatives, Americans can live better lives and have valid hope for the future. Politically, the policy options recommended span the gamut of liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian, and mainstream. Summarizing health care and economic system problems comprises about 30% of the book. About 70% of the book deals with the grand bargains that will lead us forward.