Give me Bernie or Give me Trump

I am beginning to think that we need to try some experiments in Basic Income here in the US.

The Federal government spends 1.8 Trillion per year on Welfare and Medicine alone, more than double the total Military spend; Healthcare alone costs the US taxpayer $8000 dollars per person per year, which is a public health spend higher per capita than any other nation on Earth.

I'm fairly sure that giving people 15k per annum and letting them pay for their own services would be dramatically better for the economy and for efficiency of service delivery than the current system; Its more than many Americans earn. With the cost differential of services across borders, it is legitimate to contemplate driving to Mexico and paying cash rather than paying 100,000 bucks for a hip replacement that actually costs more like 10 grand nearly anywhere else in the world.

If the US worker is to be subject to the competitive pressures of free trade, they ought to share in the Upside as well.

It's not OK to use the tax system to create protected private industries that everyone must pay for, while at the same time opening borders to imports and workers that compete directly in areas other than things like Government services, Health and Education. There are complicating factors; the US effectively subsidises much of the drug discovery and surgical research that benefits the whole planet, and US Universities do lots of good research work, but the bottom line is that the US system is not cost effective in the delivery of basic healthcare or education services.

I'm actually quite happy with either system: either have a National Health Service and remove cost of insurance and profit margins and most of the cost of litigation from the US system, which would enable comprehensive, lifelong, free medicine like in Europe on the existing budget, or let's get all Laissez-faire up in here and make the industries compete in a real capitalist system; give people their money and let the chose.

If that means going to China to get their teeth fixed or Germany for University, so be it. When America's medicos and college professors can then see their salaries cutting the same downward curve as Industrial workers, this may change their feelings about how well the current system works.

Give me an FDR or give me a Reagan, but enough of Privatised/corporatised profits and Nationalised/personalised debts. We're basically in a low point between two functional systems.