When John Kennedy was president, health care represented 6% of GDP, not today's 18%. When Kennedy was president, individuals paid directly for 40% of their health care; today, that figure is 12%.
Will asked the audience how many of them asked their doctor what the cost of a particular lab test would be and maybe 20 out of 600 hands went up. "Liars," he told them.
Since 1943 the IRS has allowed employers to deduct health insurance as an expense, permitting costs to rise invisibly and insidiously. Ironically, it was John McCain, a politician who Will said never cared about domestic policy issues or "anything that didn't explode" or blow up, who recommended terminating business deductibility of health insurance and giving individuals large subsidies to buy their own insurance and actually see what they were paying for.
"We can dodge our responsibilities but we can't dodge the consequences," Will said. "We are about to have a ten-year debate about taxes."
With about 50 percent of the nation paying no federal income tax, there is little incentive to restrain taxes. Quoting Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, Will observed, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a tax code that looked like someone designed it on purpose? Our tax code looks more like envy." Envy is the only one of the seven deadly sins that doesn't even give the sinner momentary pleasure.
Will estimated employing McCain's health care proposal and eliminating the mortgage deduction could shave $280 billion off the federal deficit and then admitted if he proposed it he couldn't get elected dogcatcher and would be crucified by both the real estate lobby and advocates of equality.
But we are facing serious problems regarding economics, entitlements and equality, and the nation is embarking on a long national debate on these issues. The average American worker is earning less in real terms than he or she was in 1972.
"The question we are arguing about is where is the source of creative energy," and President Obama's 'You didn't build that' remark reveals an attitude that is strikingly dangerous. If implemented into actual policy, it could choke off creative energy and exacerbate the entitlement death spiral."
There is nothing wrong with partisan politics and extended bickering about issues where the disagreements are so deep. That is what the founding fathers intended.