If you follow my rantings, you know that I am concerned about how we are going to cover health care costs as our aging population grows. People are living longer and something has to be done to pay for health care.

That is why I was pleased when I learned that the Department of Health and Human Services was going to grant $8 billion to New York State hospitals alone. However, when I read the fine print, it turns out that this money has to be used in one of a number of programs that are designed to shrink the number of beds in hospitals and promote programs that keep people out of the hospital.

I was hoping that there would be some money dedicated to making hospitals more efficient, perhaps helping hospitals to benefit from the economy of scale by teaming up to help them improve their infrastructure so that their costs could be reduced. Instead, at least in New York, we are probably only going to see fewer hospital beds.

The older I get, the more worried I am about my health care.

I have asked all of you for ideas about how to reduce equipment service costs and while a number of you have given me feedback, I am sure that if you think about it, you will come up with some more good ideas.

I am still offering to pay $500 to the person who can provide the best idea between now and March 17, 2014.

To submit your idea, please click here.