Reforming Health Care

My mind works a bit differently from most. I tend to think "outside the box." For two decades I have recognized a trend toward societal salvation, It appears that I am the only one in the world to have thought of this. In 1990, listeners thought I was insane. The technology that can save us was only just beginning to develop. I could see its potential, but I could not convince anyone else of it. Nonetheless, my predictions are coming true. My arguments are becoming easier and protests of skepticism are now rare. So, what is this solution?

The cover article in The Economist from February 17, 2007, explained what I knew to be true 17 years earlier: society is on the verge of abandoning paper money and coins in favor of plastic commerce. This idea stuns many people, many of whom mumble in confusion, "What? You mean we won't be using money?" Of course not! You will be using exactly what all of us are already using: ATM and credit cards. There is no segment of society that does not already use plastic. Most States, if not all, already pay welfare benefits with an ATM system. It saves millions of dollars in the costs of printing and mailing checks. The recipients like the system because their checks cannot be stolen (i.e., they aren't getting checks any longer) and the funds are available on time. Considerable fraud has also been eliminated by this system.

It is no longer a matter of choice in this transformation. Society will become cashless whether you like it or not! Paper money and coins are already too cumbersome, expensive to use, and obsolete. The details are articulated in the article to which I referred above. So what is needed is for people to objectively consider what happens when there no longer is any anonymous cash in circulation. Some will immediately panic and whine that privacy will be eliminated. Well, I want someone to tell me how cash gives anyone any measure of privacy. Cash does not protect any citizen from a rogue government. Unless you are already using plastic and electronic commerce, you are residing in a cave with Bin Laden. The credit agencies know more about us that we know about ourselves. Your tax and health records are in the hands of the government and other agencies whom we might not trust. And just what is it you will be buying in a cashless society that you fear your government might discover? If you are buying it, it will have to be legal! The most vicious and vociferous objections invariably come from persons terrified about how they will be able to obtain marijuana without anonymous cash. That tends to illustrate the point of my cashless strategy. It is not possible to buy contraband if there is no anonymous cash.

In a cashless society, illicit drug trafficking cannot exist. Skeptics continue to insist that criminals will "always find a way." But there is nothing else that an addict can use to purchase his drugs. A dealer cannot accept stolen contraband, for the value is uncertain and there is an enormous an insurmountable problem of laundering it. There is no credible scheme that criminals can use to defeat cashlessness in order to run a drug enterprise. You cannot launder cash when there is no cash to be laundered. The trail of funds remains indelible forever!

Additionally, there can be no bank robberies, kidnappings for ransom, terrorist financing, gang activity, or almost any property crime. Identity theft would become useless if there were no anonymous cash with which to abscond. Illegal immigration for employment becomes impossible. The most vicious criminals in the world will starve unless they work for a living.

My theory is that taxpayers could easily save several trillions of dollars over a decade. This is more than enough to finance health care reform. This is the first step that needs to be acknowledged. I am convinced that I am right. As patient as I try to be, there are still people who claim this idea is preposterous. A closed mind cannot be debated. But anonymous cash will become extinct and mainstream pundits already acknowledge this. We already have the technology and infrastructure to accomplish this very quickly. It is actually a very small change in the lives of the majority of us.

Determined skeptics will have to explain how drug trafficking and all of the other crimes I described can flourish is a society that abandons anonymous cash. In twenty years, not one credible scenario has been presented to me that would enable criminals to defeat cashlessness.