Your View: Idea for how to pay for new nationalized health care

Editor, The Auburn Plainsman

So, how would we pay for a single-payer national health care plan?

Easy.

For starters, roll back the enormous tax cuts given to the wealthiest of Americans during the Reagan and Bush Administrations and increase the tax on unearned income from the present 15 percent to 25 percent.

How about rescinding the provision in the Medicare Modernization & Improvement Act that prohibits Medicare from negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies?

That provision alone incurs countless billions of dollars in additional costs to Medicare.

And why not plug up tax loopholes that allow American corporations to avoid paying U.S. taxes through outsourcing?

The resulting increase in revenue would leave enough money left over to investigate and prosecute all of the criminals responsible for the banking and mortgage meltdown.

Paul G. Jaehnert

Vadnais Heights, Minn.