By JOSEPH G. LARIOSA

(© Journal Group Link International)

C HICAGO (jGLi) – A former Filipino-American Republican mayor of a Michigan city and a Certified Financial Planner is reaching out to President Barack Obama to help his government save more than $30-billion over the next five years in his health care program.

J. Owen Diaz, former mayor of Milan City, Michigan, has sent a letter to the White House last January but he is still waiting for that call.

Mr. Diaz, whose wife is a medical doctor, based his estimate on the “net average Medicare savings to the United States government and the American taxpayers if (his) proposal were implemented (at) $6,740 per individual Foreign Born Retiree (FBR) in 2011 among Mexicans, Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, El Salvadorans, Vietnamese, and Koreans.”

The 64-year-old native of San Carlos City, Pangasinan in the Philippines, who helped “address a budget deficit and implemented reduction in the property tax” when he was mayor of Milan for four years (2004-2008), said, “More savings from this proposal can be realized by private insurers and other private funds that provide secondary medical insurances and Medigaps.

“If only an estimated 10-15% of the 65 – and-over FBRs take advantage of this opportunity, the estimated total Medicare savings from this proposal, according to the statistical inference for the said seven referenced countries in the year 2011 alone, is between $2,787,414,620 and $4,181,118,560 (See Table 1).  Over five years, this savings increases to between 22-billion and 30-billion dollars.”

MORE SAVINGS FOR “END-OF-LIFE” HEALTH CARE COST

M r. Diaz, who is administrator for an Urgent Care Clinic and presently managing a Mental Health Clinic, said, “The estimated overall savings can be much more, if we use the figures applying the relative medical procedure costs reflected in Table 2 (shown in a separate article published also in this section), and further considering the enormous "end-of-life" health care cost, the estimated overall savings could be even significantly greater if the proposal were to be extended to non-FBRs who elected to live abroad in the cited countries or in other countries that may qualify to have Medicare attachés in the future.”

Citing the Congressional Budget Office, Mr. Diaz said, in June 2010, the federal budget deficit is “going to get much worse and become unsustainable because of cost increases in Medicare and Medicaid. This proposal can bring about a net savings of an estimated 50% per FBR beneficiary, as compared with the Medicare costs for beneficiaries living in the United States.”

Most medical procedures in the United States, he said, can be performed in other countries, such as the Philippines, at less than half the cost. This coverage proposal calls for, in certain limited circumstances, the allowance of Medicare payments to medical providers outside of the United States, of up to 50% of the customary reimbursement fees afforded to medical providers within the United States.

The proposed adjustment in benefit coverage takes into consideration the logistical and administrative costs of providing coverage to FBRs, while providing significant savings to the United States government.

The bottom line is, that with the passing of the healthcare reform legislation, which seeks to increase access to medical care by more covered people, this proposal will serve to “relieve pressure on our limited health care providers in the United States, restrain costs and, most importantly, provide relief to the tax-payers of the United States.”

BABY BOOMERS RETIRING