Tie Congress’s Paychecks to Our Good Health

Members of Congress are paid $174,000 for 12 months, while individuals with Poland’s decreased residence in Parliament are paid $32,300 a year.

Hmm. It seems like we’re getting ripped off. Members of Congress seem to underperform compared to Parliament contributors in Poland and throughout the democratic international.

Conservatives are proper to fear that feeding on the authorities’ trough breeds dependency and laziness. So, I endorse our introduction of performance pay and metrics like health.

I cite Poland because many Poles (along with the Krzysztofowicz circle of relatives, later renamed Kristof) came to America for a higher lifestyle. Yet, nowadays, American toddlers are one-0.33 more likely to die in their first 12 months of lifestyle than Polish children are (and two times as probably as Italian, Portuguese, and Czech babies!). Meanwhile, American ladies are four instances as likely to die being pregnant and in childbirth as Polish ladies, according to the World Health Organization.

If we had Italy’s child mortality fee, we might keep 12,000 American babies’ lives each year — that’s 33 kids’ lives saved each day.

Meanwhile, the U.S. spends way more on health care—an average of nearly $10,000 in line with character—than other countries do, and Poland spends just $1,680, according to the individual.

This is a stain on America. Choose almost any modern-day use, and its humans pay less for fitness care, and its children are much more likely to survive; the C.I.A.’s World Factbook ranks the U.S. 42nd in longevity, and we’ve had a smaller growth in existence expectancy over 25 years than different industrialized international locations have.

In short, we, as taxpayers, have become cheating. Should we sincerely pay senators a base fee of $174,000 — Mitch McConnell, as Senate majority chief, receives more — to preside over such bad consequences?

It’s time to use the discipline of markets. We must pay for work for the sake of our senators’ characters.

If we now pay almost six times as much per capita on health care as Poles do and get outcomes that are a long way worse, hmm, what do you suspect? Maybe we should pay our representatives one-tenth what the Poles get. That could be $3,200 a year for a member of Congress.

But I offer this absurd concept for two reasons. First, many Americans, including politicians, don’t understand how poorly our fitness care machine, in reality, meets international requirements.

It’s proper that American hospitals have the finest diagnostic equipment and first-class experts. However, we falter at basics and public health. We’re awful at getting youngsters vaccinated, at providing at-risk young human beings with contraception, at defending residents from lead and endocrine-disrupting chemicals — and honestly, at retaining human beings alive.

That leads to my 2nd factor: We want conventional fitness care.

There may be a national health system in Poland, Canada, Britain, and almost every other superior democracy with single-payer coverage like Medicare for all.

Analysts find that Canada’s rollout of single-payer coverage reduces child mortality by five percentage points. Likewise, researchers have discovered that cystic fibrosis sufferers stay ten years longer in Canada than in the U.S. because of insurance gaps in America.

Granted, there are deep underlying issues in the U.S. That complicates health care. Inequality is enormous; weight problems are vast, and American teens have infants at numerous times the price of European young adults.

But one reason to think that ordinary health coverage would make a difference is that after Americans make it to age sixty-five—when they get Medicare—life expectancy of 18 extra years for guys and 20 greater for women is kind of the same as in Europe. When Americans subsequently get single-payer care, we do well.

Likewise, a new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds that in the U.S., being insured significantly reduces death charges for young and middle-aged people.

All health care reform efforts—whether Obamacare or Trumpcare —struggle with the unwieldiness and inefficiency of the present architecture, constructed on business enterprise-provided coverage. The basic problem is that we’re spending nearly $10,000 per individual consistently every year on health care, and somebody has to pay for it. Otherwise, we ration care, and those die.

Early studies have revealed that Obamacare is helping: One study found that it saves the life of one millennial every afternoon.

But in the end, the U.S.A. has to observe every other superior use and ensure fitness coverage for all. “We’re going to have insurance for everyone,” President Trump promised a week before office. Now, he backs plans that could lead to 22 million fewer people having coverage. But if Taiwan, Slovenia, Spain, Japan, and just about every other contemporary use may have insurance for each person, so can we.

And, contributors of Congress, here’s the deal: If you ever adopt Medicare, I’ll recommend a pay-for-overall performance pay raise for all of you and guaranteed, backed health insurance.