Editor’s Note: Emmy Award-winning journalist E.D. Hill is a nationally known TV and radio host and author. She spent the past ten years hosting several daily programs on Fox News Channel and was Bill O’Reilly’s sidekick on The Radio Factor, heard on 400 stations. She currently hosts "Good Day" with E.D. Hill on americaswebradio.com Tuesdays and Thursdays 8 - 9 AM EST. E.D. and her husband have eight children and pets too numerous to mention. She splits time between their ranch in Texas and the East Coast. You can contact E.D. at hillfriends.com.

Have you ever had a friend who you thought was tried and true until, one day, with a sweet smile and earnest eyes, she asks you to become the chairperson of some gala? She will, she solemnly promises you, help in every way. Please, be a doll and help her out. It’ll be easy! I had a friend like that. She’d just been through the wringer with a scum-sucking, philandering, dweeb of a now-ex-husband and I wanted to help. "OK," I said, as the word "sucker" began to appear on my forehead like Harry Potter’s scar.

I’ve been naïve about a lot of things in my life. I had no preparation for what was I was about to undertake. I’ve always had an aversion to what I consider wasteful spending at events that purportedly have the purpose of raising as much money as possible to fund a worthy project. I decided the entire event from top to bottom needed to be done differently than the way they’d done it the past 25 years. I devised what I thought was a brilliant, inexpensive plan. The outcry was deafening. People liked things the way they’d always been. Sure, they thought it was a good idea to try to cut costs — to an extent — but they didn’t want the whole thing upturned in one swoosh. Which leads me to our federal government. Odd jump, I know, but stay with me.

Everyone is wringing their hands about how to change the entire health-care system. Eleven million to 15 million people (according to most high and low estimates) are chronically uninsured. They need help. So why can’t the government focus on those who are the most in need? In the 1991 comedy "What About Bob?" Bill Murray portrays Bob Wiley, a multiphobic man who stalks his psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Marvin, after Marvin gives him a copy of his new book, Baby Steps, and leaves on vacation. Murray uses the "baby step method" — baby steps to get on the bus, baby steps down the aisle, baby steps … —  to get to Marvin’s vacation home in New Hampshire. I like baby steps. They’re safe and small. They give children practice at a very important task. After mastering baby steps they are ready to walk, even run. So why can’t the government take baby steps?

The government likes things BIG. Medicare is a government-funded and -run social insurance program. (Former President Harry Truman was the first beneficiary. Why is it politicians always jump to the front of the line?) Its own 2008 report assumes funds will be gone by 2019. Medicaid, the state-run program for low-income residents, faces funding problems and relies on money from the federal government. Both programs are part of U.S. Social Security, which, by dollar amount, is the largest government program in the world and the costliest item in the federal budget. State governments need help funding burgeoning unemployment programs. I will not argue that these programs are unnecessary; however, they rarely help correct existing problems and are inefficient.