The story goes that Churchill offered a woman 5 million pounds to sleep with him. She hedged and said they would have to discuss terms. Then he offered her 5 pounds. "Sir!" she said. "What sort of woman do you think I am?" "Madam," he replied, "We've already established that. Now we're just haggling over the price."
The same might be said of President Obama's health care bill, which was sold out to corporate interests early on. The insurance lobby had its way with the bill; after that they were just haggling over the price. The "public option" was so watered down in congressional deal-making that it finally disappeared altogether.
However, the bill passed both Houses by razor-thin margins, and the stunning loss on January 19 of the late Ted Kennedy's Democratic seat to a Republican may force Obama to start over with his agenda. The good news is that this means there is still a chance of getting legislation that includes what Obama's supporters thought they were getting when they elected him - a universal health care plan on the model of Medicare.
That still leaves the question of price, but all industrialized countries except the United States have managed to foot the bill for universal health care. How is it that they can afford it when we can't? Do they have some secret funding source that we don't have?
In the case of our nearest neighbor Canada, the answer is actually that they do. At least, they did for the first two decades of their national health service -- long enough to get it up and running. Now the Canadian government, too, is struggling with a mounting debt to private banks at compound interest; and its national health service is suffering along with other public programs. But when Canada first launched its national health service, the funding came from money created by its own central bank. Canada's innovative funding model is one that could still be followed by a President committed to deliver on his promises.
Despite what you may have read in the corporate-controlled press, studies show that Canadians are generally happy with the care they receive; and they live an average of 2.5 years longer than Americans. They receive free health service for all diagnostic procedures, hospital and home care deemed medically necessary. People can choose the general practitioners they want; there are no deductibles on basic care; and co-pays are low or zero. Care continues despite changing jobs, and no one is excluded for having a pre-existing condition. Drug prices are negotiated by the government and are paid with public money for the elderly and homeless. For the rest of the population, cost-sharing schemes are arranged between private insurers and provincial governments, with most provinces requiring families to pay small monthly premiums (generally around $100 for a family of four).
According to a 2007 study, the government pays for more than two-thirds of all Canadian health care costs. The US government, by contrast, pays for less than half of these costs. In 2007, the US spent a staggering 16% of GDP on health care compared to 10% in Canada. Health costs paid for out-of-pocket by Canadians amount to less than $300 per capita annually.
But while that arrangement may look good to people in the U.S., it is only a shadow of Canada's former system. The federal government's contributions have decreased significantly, making up only slightly more than 20% of provincial medical care costs in 2002; and this money is largely borrowed by the Canadian government at interest. The portion not paid by the federal government must be borne by provincial governments through taxes. In its early years, however, Canada's public health system was funded under a provision of the Bank of Canada Act allowing the Bank to create the money to finance federal, provincial, and municipal projects on a nearly interest-free basis.
That is right. That is what they are there for. . . . That is the banking business, just in the way that a steel plant makes steel. The manufacturing process consists of making a pen-and-ink or typewriter entry on a card in a book. That is all.
The decision to fund government programs through a publicly-owned central bank was driven by a crisis much like that in the U.S. today. The country was in the throes of the Great Depression, and the money supply had radically contracted, causing businesses to close and unemployment to soar. Many Canadians blamed the private banks for making conditions worse by failing to extend loans.
Prior to the 1935 Bank of Canada Act, private banks in Canada issued their own banknotes, which were regulated less by the government than by the Canadian Banker's Association. The country's largest private bank, the Bank of Montreal, served as the government's de facto banker. By the eve of the Great Depression, interest on Canada's public debt had reached one-third of government expenditures, and many officials believed that the government needed a central bank to come up with the money to pay its foreign debts. A Royal Commission was put together in 1933 which supported creating a Bank. A major debate then ensued over whether the central bank should be public or private.
Much of the credit for the Canadian public banking model goes to a Canadian mayor named Gerald Gratton McGeer. He has been largely lost to history, and his book The Conquest of Poverty has been long out of print; but according to local historian Will Abrams, it was McGeer's lengthy presentations to the Ottawa Common Banking Committee that clarified for bankers, economists and legislators how well a publicly-owned bank could work. McGeer's model was based on the public banking system of Guernsey, an island state between Britain and France. The Guernsey government began issuing currency to pay for public works as far back as 1816. To this day, its system of publicly-issued money has allowed its inhabitants to maintain full employment and enjoy quality infrastructure, while paying modest taxes and without suffering from price inflation.
The Bank of Canada became publicly-owned in 1938 under Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, a staunch supporter of McGeer's vision for a public central bank. King maintained:
Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile. Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes that nation's laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation.
After the War, the Industrial Development Bank, a subsidiary of the Bank of Canada, was formed to boost Canadian businesses by offering loans at low interest rates. The Bank of Canada also funded many infrastructure projects and social programs directly. Under the 1950 Trans Canada Highway Act, Canada built the world's longest road and the world's longest inland waterway (a joint venture with the United States), as well as the 28-mile Welland Canal. People over 70, regardless of income or assets, received $40 a month from the government under the Old Age Security Act; and children under 15 got a tax-free allowance of $5-$8 a month.
Canadians first began talking about a government-run health system during the Great Depression, but at that time the government felt it could not afford the service. Various provincial programs were launched in the 1940s, often to care for returning veterans. But it was not until 1957 that the Canadian federal health care system was actually initiated, with funding from the Bank of Canada. A Hospital Act was passed under which the federal government agreed to pay half its citizens' bills at most hospitals; and a Diagnostic Services Act gave all Canadians free acute hospital care, as well as lab and radiology work. In 1966, the Hospital Act was expanded to cover physician services. In 1984, the Canada Health Act ensured that no medically-necessary care would include private fees or a charge to citizens.
For three decades, Canada paid for these projects through its own government-owned central bank, without sparking price inflation. Then in the late 1960s, a period of "stagflation" set in --rising prices accompanied by high unemployment. According to former Canadian Defense Minister Paul Hellyer, these elevated prices were the result of "cost-push" inflation, which could be traced to a combination of causes. Big labor unions, big government, and big corporations all negotiated top dollar for their contracts. In 1971, President Richard Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard, putting a strain on currencies in international markets. In 1974, the price of oil quadrupled, following a secret deal between Henry Kissinger and the OPEC countries in which the latter agreed to sell their oil only in U.S. dollars and to deposit the dollars in U.S. banks. Countries without sufficient dollar reserves had to borrow from these banks to buy the oil they needed, setting a debt trap that sprang shut when U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker raised interest rates to 20% in 1980.
These increased costs drove up prices worldwide; but in Canada, price inflation was blamed on the government drawing money from its own central bank. Under the sway of the classical monetarist theory promoted by U.S. economist Milton Friedman, the Canadian government abandoned its successful experiment in self-funding and began borrowing from private international lenders. These private banks created "credit" on their books just as the Bank of Canada had done; but they lent it to the government at compound interest, creating a soaring national debt. Today, interest on the debt is the Canadian government's single largest budget expenditure -- larger than health care, senior entitlements or national defense.
The provision of government-paid services is gradually being undermined by a combination of cuts to funding and provision of private services. Canada's health care system is suffering along with the rest of the economy, necessitating the cutbacks and long waits for elective procedures described by critics. But the achievements of an earlier debt-free era attest to the sustainability of a system of public health care funded with money issued through the government's own central bank.
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Thanks for the education.
Kent Welton,
PublicCentralBank.com
I have seen first hand how Canadians treat their Cancer patients(Brother, ,Mother,Father,first husband)and no YOU do not wait to be treated!
My Second husband is from MN(where Mom was from) and still insists on getting his rheumatoid arthrtis treatments in MN,(they are 4500 a "pop),when as a Canadian Resident ,he could be getting them for free.But that is the "American in him ,I guess,thinking he is better off flying home every six weeks.(we still have a home in MN,where we both vote)
I on the other hand am insured in the States.(thank God) but I feel very sorry that the USA is the only "Modern Country"not to offer universal health care to all.Come on,we are talking about HEALTH CARE.It should be a human right to all.It should of been done a long time ago!
The Canadian banking system is also rated the best in the World right now.(who knew!) Why?Not because they are Government owned.Because they are REGULATED!
The state banking idea is getting some real traction. Nice going!
Compound interest allows rich people their free lunch as they sit back and "live on the interest". Of course, provided assets (houses) are appreciating so people can take on more debt. Now this is no longer occurring, debt destruction and deflation (depression) are the only way out, made slower and immediately less painful only by govt spending, the debtor of last resort.
It's mathematically impossible for this to continue without depressions being compound interest grows exponentially, economies do not. We seemed to have reached the point where debt can no longer continue to grow so like Madoff, the jig may well be up.
Since 1960 and accelerated in 1980, private debt has increased virtually every year from 40% of GDP in 1960 to 300% now at $47 trillion. Without ever increasing debt, there would have been virtually no growth in GDP or employment. The only way to keep the system going is by inflating asset prices like housing and stocks and fancy ways to increase debt (hello derivatives).
To expand on your ideas, since we own Freddie and Fannie, why not write the American Dream into law and cut everyone's mortgage in half?
Give Americans what banks now get - direct access to the discount window for mortgage (re)finance. Use interest free money for all public debts as well.
The American Dream written into law.
Cut the bankers out of the middle.
What I would really like to see happen is for every spending bill loaded down with pork for Congressmen and their good rich friends go through the same funding questions as this so called health care reform bill
Why do they fight for months and months over how to pay for health care reform and yet quickly pass a bill that will cost of 2 trillion dollars for spending in Afghanistan and not to fight any war, this is two trillion to rebuild the wasteland that is Afghanistan - new roads, schools, money for everythign and anything
What about us? What about the American on Main Street - old Uncle Sam is pretty stingy when it comes to working class Americans - The house and Senate and President says "LET THEM EAT CAKE"
and we should say "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS" - defeating Coakly was a good start - thank you dear, smart people of Mass.
All the R's would go ape chit ...HA
I'm including a link to a HP page where I have comments at the bottom on how Healthcare IT can be used to solve the problems, save 1.3 trillion a year and can be scored by the CBO.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-ballmer/improving-government-serv_b_423088.html
These technologies are already being used at Cisco, McKessen, IBM and the DOD. Why pay premiums to a CEO and stockholders with no employees?
Are you going to do an updated article? Has anything changed?
Second, is the MERS problem the real reason why the Obama administration raised the government's guarantee on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to infinity or unlimited?
I really enjoy your articles and became a fan.
It would be interesting to know how the Federal Reserve would need to be re-structured and placed, possibly, under great Congressional oversight and auditing.
But, again, a very interesting idea.
Quote: "1775. The American revolutionary war began as the American colonies sought to the detach from England and its oppressive monarchy. Though many reasons are sided for the revolution, one in particular sticks out as the prime cause that King George III of England outlawed the interest-free independent currency the colonies were producing and using for themselves. In turn forcing them to borrow money from the Central Bank of England, at interest, he immediately put the colonies in the debt. And as Benjamin Franklin later wrote:
Quote: “The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution” -Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
Thank you.