Our health care system is really messed up. It will be really expensive to fix. The solution will be a compromise that no one really likes. Any problems will be The Other Sides' fault.

I think that pretty much recaps much of the two-hour event.

While the debate did not break any new ground or reveal a silver bullet cure to our ailing health care system, I did find both speakers articulate and engaging and Newt Gingrich was a lot funnier than I anticipated.

Honestly, I wasn't really sure what to expect before the event.

Secretly, I kind of hoped that Howard Dean would let loose with one of those infamous "Dean Screams" like the yowl he uttered during his concession speech at the 2004 Iowa Democratic caucuses. Some people credit that screech for derailing his Presidential campaign.

But Wednesday night there was no scream. However, Dean did have an endearing way of pronouncing the word "idea." Idea-ER is how he said the word several times during the event. It must be a New England kind of thing. I like it. I think I'm going to start pronouncing that word that way. Or is that a bad idea-ER?

It was reported in the Southeast Missourian yesterday that the two speakers were paid a total of $85,450 for appearing at the University. However, what wasn't noted was the fact that Gingrich was paid $58,450 while Dean got a measly $27,000.

At first, I thought Gingrich just had a savvier agent, who cut a better deal with the University. However, I think the real reason for the discrepancy in pay is because Howard Dean is an actual medical doctor.

Since he and Gingrich were coming here to debate healthcare reform and Dean is a physician, I bet that $27,000 is the "Maximum Allowable Amount" he could legally be paid for speaking. That makes sense. He'll probably write off the remaining $31,450 on his taxes as pro bono debating.

While many of the comments made by both speakers were quite compelling, Gingrich touched on one of my personal hot-buttons. He believes that the country needs tort-reform.

I am strongly opposed to this.

I like torts -- cherry is my favorite -- and feel that government has no business messing with my choice of pastries. If we let the government start touching our torts, in no time at all they'll want to dabble with our danishes and finger our bearclaws. When will the madness end? God help them, if the bureaucrats even think about diddling with my doughnuts...

I'm still not sure what this had to do with health-care reform or why Gingrich was so concerned about this issue.

It looks to me like he's enjoyed a tort or two over the years.

While Dean and Gingrich offered no specific solutions to this looming health care predicament, I put my Old Thinking Cap on -- it's an orange beanie with flames painted on the sides AND has a honest-to-goodness propeller -- and gave the whole matter some Deep Thought.

I believe that I have come up with a two-pronged solution for a key aspect of the health care problems our country will be facing in the years ahead.

One big issue that both speakers touched upon Wednesday night was the fact that American's are living a lot longer, thanks in large part to advancements in medicine. That means that millions of boomers reaching retirement age within in the next decade will likely stress the already stretched Medicare system beyond capacity.

The trillion-dollar question is this: Who is going to pay for the medical needs of all of these retirees? While this may appear to require a very complex solution, I believe it is quite simple.

The first part of my solution is to make 100 the new retirement age.

Our country just can't afford it to be any lower. We need every able body citizen working to pay for the people who need medical attention right now until they HAVE to have medical attention themselves.

Now, don't get me wrong. While I am proposing we increase the current retirement age by 34 years, I'm not suggesting that seniors keep doing the same strenuous jobs that got them to the OLD retirement age of 66. While I believe seniors should continue working, there are plenty of less stressful jobs they could be put in charge of.

For instance, I think Wal-Mart could significantly expand the number of greeter positions it has at every store. Rather than having one senior citizen welcoming shoppers at each entrance, I believe they could have one per aisle.

"Hi, I'm Imogene. Welcome to the Wal-Mart cat-food aisle."

I figure that every Wal-Mart must have at least 100 aisles and if each one of them had a greeter assigned to it 24/7, a single store could put about 500 senior citizens to work.

Howard Dean noted that before Medicare was created in the 1960s that the elderly were the poorest age group in the country. After Medicare was created, he said that was no longer the case and children are now the poorest group.

This actually made sense. Children should be poor, since a lot of those little freeloaders don't work. Personally, I think this is wrong and this is the second part of my health care solution.

Our health care system needs every nickel that can be wrung out of the citizenry and our country has no room for slackers even if they haven't learned their multiplication tables or how to spell.

My feeling is that if our country's senior citizens are going to forgo their golden years -- Unless of course they've snagged a job as the fry-guy at McDonald's, you know The Golden Arches and all -- then all of our children are going to have to share the burden as well.

I believe the country needs to finally admit that child-labor laws have been a failed experiment and that the youth of America should start earning their way in the world rather than wasting 12 years getting a "diploma."

Let's be honest. Education is way over-rated. Learning a trade is far more important and I for one will put the shoe-making skills of our kindergarteners up against those of a Southeast Asian 5-year-old any day.

While some people might not appreciate this two-pronged solution on how to pay for health care reform, the fact remains that our current health care system is a mess and is only going to get worse. Something has to be done and done soon.

But I have faith. This is the U.S. of A, the country that has given birth to countless innovations over the centuries. We've overcome a lot worse issues and I'm confident we can do the same with health care reform.

All we need are a few big idea-ERS.