There is a very simple, yet elegant solution to the health-care problems we face today -- elegant because it embraces the tenets of free market economics while honoring our traditions of rugged individualism and personal responsibility. Here it is:

Simply end Medicare today.

People over the age of 50 are responsible for the actions of the leaders they elected. Starting with Ronald Reagan and continuing through a Clinton and two Bushes, we built an economy on a foundation of debt and accepted the rationale that everything would be fine as long as we paid yesterday's debt with tomorrow's devalued dollars.

As most reasonable people would now agree, that system failed, leaving the economy in ruins (with a debt of $11 trillion) and Medicare with an unfunded liability of over $34 trillion.

Since we are already leaving our children with this impossible national debt, it is unreasonable to ask them also to replenish the Medicare fund that our leaders pillaged.

So my proposal is that we accept responsibility for a generation of overspending and end the Medicare system today. If we simultaneously ban the requirement that hospitals treat patients who cannot afford health care (which is nothing more than backdoor socialism), this single act relieves our children of an enormous debt and provides sufficient savings to provide affordable insurance to everyone under 50.

Or, I suppose, we could insist that our venerable leaders work together to get us out of this mess, instead of fighting to retain power and maintain the status quo.

Glenn Gilchrist

Southern Pines