I propose that the Canadians open up their health care system to any American who lives within 10 miles of the border.

The Americans would be charged whatever it is that Canadians spend per capita on health care (as a total percentage of their taxes, not the premiums which are tiny) plus some sort of monthly service charge for the privilege. Then, they'd have the same access to the system (including access to prescription medications) that Americans do, except for ambulance rides, because ambulances might have trouble at the border.

It would be interesting to see what would happen. My guess is that Americans might purchase this coverage for basic medical care, but maintain an extremely high-deductible policy in the event that they come down with some totally rare disease and need access to the world's smartest doctor.

Another guess: Americans would find that if they lived near a big Canadian city, their wait times for procedures or appointments wouldn't be as long as they thought. If they lived near a little town, basic care would be pretty easy to get but wait times for fancy stuff would be longer. (I've long maintained that part of the "wait time" story has more to do with living in the boonies than with the system itself.)

I know that Canada's current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, would be unlikely to support this idea because a "run for the border" would embarrass his conservative political buddies down south. But maybe it could be tried in the more liberal provinces?

Very curious to know what the health care economists in the crowd would think of this idea as a single-payer trial balloon.

Here's one more angle on the mortgage foreclosure/short sale crisis.

This time it's about short sales, where an owner avoids foreclosure by selling a property for less than is owed on the mortgage. Investor digging in/refusal to accept reasonable short sale offers has the system totally stalled.  

This isn't good for taxpayers, because getting properties through the short sale process is one way of making sure that "the open market" (whatever that is anymore) takes responsibility for properties rather than various branches of govt. being stuck with managing vacant, vandalized properties in troubled neighborhoods.  

If you can make one more call to your congresscritters: they may not want to get involved because in theory these are private contracts, but since the taxpayers are the ultimate bagholders, they may be open to the idea.  

1. Consolidation in the mortgage industry has rolled most bad loans back to FNMA as the investor.  

2. FNMA has guidelines for accepting/rejecting short sale offers. They have an obligation to their investors (and to their ultimate investor, the fed gov) to get the best value for the mortgages. In troubled neighborhoods, where properties that go vacant have a high likelihood of being vandalized and rendered almost worthless ($0-$20k, almost a 100% loss from their original mortgage "values" ), it seems to me that FNMA ought to be encouraged to accept any remotely reasonable offer which will keep a property occupied and not vandalized. This will capture more value for shareholders in the long run as well as saving money for state, county and local governments who get stuck dealing with vacant properties.  

In other words, no more lockouts in vandalism-prone areas if there's any possibility of preventing them. Perhaps FNMA negotiators could be provided with maps of these areas to help them make their decisions. You may even be able to encourage FNMA to provide the loan servicers with these maps so that loan servicers will understand that if preserving values in these areas, vacancies are to be avoided at all costs.....  

Seems to me it's worth a try--if taxpayers are ultimately going to be holding the bag for the foreclosure crisis, which looks likely, getting private investors (the short buyers) to take up as much slack as possible would at least save taxpayers the cost of managing vacant properties!  

At at GOP town hall meeting in Redding, CA, attendee Bert Stead declared himself a "proud right wing terrorist" to a round of applause and the assurance of Congressman Herger that he's a "Great American." Earlier in his remarks, Stead mentioned that he could trace his ancestry back to the Mayflower, and that those people sure "didn't arrive with their hand out."

In this meeting, Stead and his Congressman demonstrated that 1. They don't know what a right-wing terrorist is, and 2. They are surprisingly unfamiliar with the story of the first American Thanksgiving, in which Native Americans saved a group of pilgrims by offering them enough food and supplies to get them through the winter. Funny. I thought it was a better-known story than that, what with all the talk about it in, like, kindergarten and stuff.

Newspaper article link is below. If anyone can secure the video, it would no doubt be very useful in the War on Brainlessness.

http://www.mtshastanews.com/news/x769902147/Congressman-Herger-calls-Obama-plan-threat-to-democracy