PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Everyone wants better health care and that includes me as I have traversed the present system so many times in recent years.

In this country, the health care solution, whatever it could be, appears out of reach. Political leaders can’t find the middle ground.

The best approach would be for smart people on both – or all – sides of the political aisle, to gather around a table (yes, make it a round one) and devise a solution from the middle.

If you are involved, leave your biases at the door. Come prepared with your best ideas worthy of consideration, not absolute adoption. Purpose to give something and get something in the transaction, the true definition of compromise in politics.

Republicans become good as just saying no. Democrats advocate for huge government solutions.

Where do the two meet? Nowhere.

All of this came back to my mind this week as a read a piece in the Wall Street Journal by James Freeman who writes about issues from the perspective of what he sees on the Internet.

This time, he is seeing what he calls “BernieCare.”

Freeman starts this way:

“Former President Barack Obama doesn’t draw crowds the way he used to do. But Democrats are fortunate to have another political rock star hitting the trail for candidates in swing-state races. And just like the former President, he’s giving voters inaccurate information about his plans for their health care.

“Bernie Sanders may have been mistreated by the Democratic National Committee when he sought the 2016 presidential nomination against establishment favorite Hillary Clinton, but the party is now fully embracing him.”

Among other things, Sanders is advocating a so-called “Medicare For All” health care plan, which really is not Medicare at all, but a new, very broad government-run health care system.

But public opinion surveys show that support erodes when people hear the arguments that the plan could increase taxes or government control. And nearly half of adults surveyed last October falsely assumed they could keep their current insurance under a single-payer plan, which is not true.

“The notion that it’s popular is premised upon people knowing almost nothing about it,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the centrist Democratic think tank, Third Way. “That’s a problem for a very complicated thing that would transform one-fifth of our entire economy.”

Along with ending the Medicare program in favor of a new government-run plan, the Sanders bill also prevents competition against the government system, which, I suppose, is not surprising for a avowed socialist.

Will the Sanders’ plan make progress toward enactment? Well, who knows in the current world of politics where a carnival barker, Donald Trump, can get elected president and a socialist, Bernie Sanders, can make a run for the country’s top political job.

According to the columnist, Freeman, the White House Council of Economic Advisers is explaining the gargantuan costs of government-run health care in particular and socialism in general.

In a new paper, Freeman reports, the council notes that, in order to pay for BernieCare, “with the same spending cuts across all existing Federal programs, cuts would need to be 53 per cent across the board in 2022. In other words, without additional taxes, all other programs of the federal government would need to be cut by more than half.”

Beyond the enormous spending burden, the council also explored the impact on patient care. The paper notes the better survival rates after a cancer diagnosis for patients in the U.S. compared to various European countries often presented as models of more socialized medical systems.

Embedded in the text of BernieCare is the one Sanders’ promise voters can be confident he will keep: If you like your health plan, you won’t get to keep it.

Democrats running for office, by the way, have been advised not to use the phrase “single payer” in any of their advertising. Call it something else like, I guess, health care for all.

Now, lest someone say that all I do is criticize someone else’s proposal without any ideas of my own, let me replay the four ideas I have that I think should be discussed and resolved:

1. Require all citizens to have health insurance. [Think of this way. All of us who drive cars are required to have automobile insurance. If we don’t, we pay a price. The same policy should exist for health insurance – if you have insurance, you will pay a price.]
2. Provide a catastrophic health insurance plan for those who cannot afford regular insurance and who need a lower-cost option.
3. Accommodate people with pre-existing health conditions.
4. Allow broad access to health-savings accounts.