13 Ways to Strengthen America's Economy

The finer points of economic policy don’t get a lot of attention in the U.S. these days. With a president in the White House who seems far more interested in fighting personal battles than in making policy, and the country roiled by street violence and racial animus, there might seem little reason to think about how to improve Americans’ material standard of living. But someday the smoke will clear, and leaders will once again be thinking about economics. So I thought I’d make a list of policies that I would enact if I were in office. The overall goals of these policies would be to improve productivity, to ensure gainful employment for as many people as possible, to alleviate material deprivation and to provide for those who have trouble providing for themselves. Here’s my baker’s dozen:

No. 1. Universal health care: The U.S. should implement a government health-insurance system that pays all costs for catastrophic care and for regular health checkups. For other care, the government would pay a share of the costs -- say, 70 percent, like in Japan -- and the rest would be covered by a lightly regulated private supplemental health-insurance system. The government’s dominant market position would allow it to negotiate low prices and ensure proper incentives, defraying much of the cost of the program.