Fiscal Responsibility:

We have a runaway budget, which is adding one and-a-half trillion dollars to the federal deficit every year. Money, that we do not have and will choke any chance of economic growth for our children. Money, which we are forced to borrow from China and our enemies to finance our lack of fiscal discipline. We can not be a superpower, if our legs are held up by the likes of China and Co. China’s atrocious human rights record and communist government are an antithesis to our democratic way of life. We have to bite the bullet and make the hard choices. We need to balance the budget, not add to it. To further travel on our present path will make the 2008 financial meltdown a minor blip. 10% unemployment will be remembered as the good old days. We can not let this happen. We need to balance the budget and get America back to work.

Revocation of the 2010 Health Care Bill:

The Healthcare bill passed by the Democratic Congress will bankrupt our nation and in particular New York State. The Health Care bill will require New York State to pay an additional five billion dollars in 2011 and ten billion dollars in 2012 to finance this giant behemoth. Where will this money come from? How many teachers will be fired? How many police officers will be laid off? How many fire houses will we close? Will we have any money for libraries? Will their be any public parks left? This plan is a disaster for the people of the State of New York and will severely diminish our quality of life. It must be repealed.

My Health Care Plan:

Obamacare in its present form would destroy the best healthcare system in the world and would bankrupt this nation. England, which was the progenitor of universal healthcare is now rapidly moving away from its system of government controlled healthcare and is attempting to adopt the US system. Obamacare must be repealed. The burning question is how do we fix healthcare?

At present, a doctor can be sued for medical malpractice if he is deemed to have acted negligently. Even if a doctor prevails in a lawsuit, he or his insurance company still has to contend with the legal bills which can easily run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. As a result of these lawsuits, doctors have to pay astronomical amounts of money for medial malpractice coverage. This has created a sense of fear among those in the medical profession. Medical students are taught to practice medicine as if a lawyer was looking over their shoulder every step of the way. Instead of practicing medicine, doctors are practicing defense. Every patient is viewed as a potential plaintiff. Doctors are so scared of being sued, that they prescribe needless and expensive medical tests which contribute to the escalation of the cost of healthcare. The joy of helping people has been stripped from the medical profession. We need to change our legal system and allow doctors to treat patients not potential adversaries.

To accomplish said, we must change the standard of medical malpractice from negligence to gross negligence. Furthermore, we must adopt the English system in which the looser foots the bill for the winners legal costs. This change would eliminate 90% of all medical malpractice lawsuits, resulting in a corresponding drop in medical malpractice premiums by 90%. As doctors would be spending significantly less on malpractice insurance, doctors reimbursement rates could be reduced.

Additionally, we must establish a bar on the necessity for medical tests. Presently, a patient who presents himself to a doctor complaining of back pain, will be examined and evaluated as to the cause of his pain. If the doctor believes that the patients condition is caused by spasms, bulging or herniated discs, a doctor will prescribe a course of physical therapy. If after a course of physical therapy the patient continues to complain of back pain, a doctor will prescribe an MRI. An MRI or CT scan at this point of time is not medically warranted. Indeed, fifty percent of all CT Scans and MRI’s presently performed in the United States are medically unnecessary. Indeed, the city of Boston has more MRI machines than the entire country of Canada. The reason doctors prescribe them is a defensive measure to protect them from lawsuits. We must allow doctors to practice medicine based on their judgment and not subject them to lawsuits because in their medical opinion the tests were not medically warranted. If this is applied across the board to all medical tests, we would see a significant drop in unnecessary and expensive testing.

Finally, we must change the ease in which lawsuits can be brought against pharmaceutical companies. If a company conducts thorough and honest trials of a drug and reports every finding, whether it is negative, positive and even the most inconsequential finding to the FDA and the drug is approved by the FDA, then there should be a bar to suing the pharmaceutical company. This would drop the cost of prescription drugs significantly.

The adoption of these recommendations would result in a reduction of healthcare premiums by approximately thirty percent. This would make medical coverage more affordable to both individuals and companies. Millions who are now uninsured will be able to buy coverage or have their employer who until now could not afford coverage provide them with coverage.

This scenario is dependent on malpractice and health insurance carriers and big pharma passing on their savings to doctors and consumers, something which they will not do willingly. This is where the government must step in and insure that cost savings realized by the insurance companies and big pharma are passed on to doctors and consumers.

In our present system, medicare is expected to go broke within a few years. If this plan were instituted, the government would realize a savings of thirty percent annually, which would insure the viability of medicare for the foreseeable future.

Medicaid and medicare are the albatross hanging on the necks of the Federal and State budgets. In New York State alone, the medicaid bill is 50 billion dollars. A thirty percent reduction in payouts would balance most state budgets saving them from declaring bankruptcy. Additionally, we would be able to add millions to the medicaid rolls without breaking the budget.

Though there are a plethora of issues that must be dealt with, such as how to deal with the minority of doctors who will practice negligent medicine and what to do with the uninsured who would not benefit from the savings realized under this plan, but this is a good place to start.

Nuclear Security:

Our present foreign policy is one of appeasement to dictators and the throwing of our allies under the bus, this must stop. Iran and North Korea are the greatest threats to the security of this nation and the world. Nuclear weapons in the hands of people who have no compunction of handing them over to terrorists bent on destroying our way of life is intolerable. Regime change must be implemented in Iran and North Korea.

Iran is dependent on imported gasoline. The streets of Iran are rocking with protesters. We have to cut the supply of gasoline to Iran, forcing the people to rise up and take back their country. Our only other option is to use our military might to insure that Iran never acquires nuclear weapons. Our present fixation on ineffectual diplomacy and proposed sanctions is a show of weakness on our part. When it comes to the security of this nation, we need to use every tool available to us to insure that we will not be the victims of a nuclear holocaust.

North Korea is dependent on food, material and support from China. This must stop. We must force China to stop all trade with the North Koreans until they give up all their nuclear weapons. We can not worry about China’s reaction. We either act now or face the threat of a nuclear armed North Korea attacking South Korea and lobbing those nuclear weapons at our troops and supplying them to terrorists to blow up our cities.

Our treatment of our allies, especially Israel, is shameful. The United states has no right to tell an ally where they can build homes. The United States has no right to dictate terms to a sovereign ally to leave itself defenseless and open to murder and mayhem by those who seek its destruction.

Energy Independence:

The United States with technology which is presently available can set up a 100 square mile solar panel city in the California or Arizona desert which would have the ability to supply a large portion of the electricity needs for the entire United States. Additionally, wind power,which presently provides 20% of the electricity needs in the Netherlands, is a resource which has been ignored by this administration. If the government were to subsidize both solar and wind power, we would be able to meet most of our electrical needs without the need to import oil from other countries.

Our present oil production levels coupled with shale oil and gas technology and continued improvements in fuel economy of our motor vehicles will allow the United States to become energy independent. The savings of hundreds of billions of dollars which now goes to our enemies would be a boon to the United States and have a devastating effect on our enemies.

Immigration:

The United States must build a wall that prevents people from entering this Country illegally. To the naysayers that say it is impossible, one must look to our close friend Israel and see that a proper wall can be built and guarded by national guard troops. To allow the current situation of criminal elements entering our borders, bringing drugs, kidnaping and murder to our border states is a violation of our duty to our citizens.