By Ted Belman
I have been having a discussion with a leftist who is concerned with the poor and disadvanged. I argued that the Left wants to “feed” the poor and that the Right wants them to learn to feed themselves.
She replied,
- As for the US, the right doesn’t focus on how to get the poor on their feet, to the contrary they don’t focus on the poor at all. The poor do much better in Canada with healthcare for all and access to low-cost education than they do in the US where they haven’t a hope in hell of good schooling. According to numerous studies, is far easier for someone to get out of the cycle of poverty and move up the social order in Europe and Canada then in the US. In the US, if you are born poor, you stay poor.
She is blaming the US making no distinction between the Left and the Right or the Republicans or the Democrats.
Is she right?
Report Shows Stagnant Upward Mobility in U.S.
- Add it to the other depressing economic news: upward mobility has remained stagnant in the past two decades.
A new report by Pew’s Economic Mobility Project broke individuals up into five income brackets or quintiles and found that of those in the lowest bracket, half were still likely to be there 10 years later. It’s a trend that held true for a group studied from 1984 to 1994 and reiterated itself in a group studied from 1994 to 2004.
Healthcare Costs and U.S. Competitiveness
- Introduction
According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States spends two-and-a-half times more than the OECD average, and yet ranks with Turkey and Mexico as the only OECD countries without universal health coverage. Some analysts say an increasing number of U.S. businesses are less competitive globally because of ballooning healthcare costs. U.S. economic woes have heightened the burden of healthcare costs both on individuals and businesses. The U.S. healthcare reform law signed by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, includes measures aimed at making healthcare less expensive and more accessible, including upgrades to government-run Medicare and Medicaid. Still, reforming healthcare has proved politically divisive, especially over the option to expand social medicine, as well as new mandates on employers and individuals. Whether these reforms will reduce the healthcare-cost burden on U.S. industry remains under debate.
Competitive Disadvantage
The United States spent more than 17 percent of its GDP in 2009 on healthcare, higher than any other developed nation. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that number will rise to 25 percent by 2025 without changes to federal law (PDF). Employer-funded coverage is the structural mainstay of the U.S. health insurance system. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 71 percent of private employees in the United States had access to employer-sponsored health plans in 2006. A November 2008 Kaiser Foundation report says access to employer-sponsored health insurance has been on the decline (PDF) among low-income workers, and health premiums for workers have risen 114 percent in the last decade (PDF). A March 2010 report by Thomson Reuters, a business intelligence service, found that employers’ healthcare costs rose 7.3 percent in 2009 (PDF) compared with 4.8 percent in overall U.S. health spending that year. Small businesses are less likely than large employers to be able to provide health insurance as a benefit. At 12 percent, healthcare is the most expensive benefit paid by U.S. employers, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
I haven’t been able to find an article that critqued the US education system. But I know it attracts and lot of criticism and all kinds of ideas as to how to improve it.
Let us assume that things are as bad as she says. It would appear to me that neither the Democrats or the Republicans have been able or willing to make a difference. Is this fair.
Having a universal healthcare system seems to the standard all over the world. So why is a majority of Americans against Obamacare? Is it a bad law. Is there a better universal health care law out there. Or are the Republicans right that competition is the way to go. But the Republicans don’t talk of universal coverage, private or otherwise. What happens to people who have no insurance?
Hopefully some of my readers can povide some answers.
While we make the assumption that the Democrats are good for the poor, I read many articles about how bad they have been for the blacks. Are they all talk and no action. Or are their solutions not solutions at all. Are the Republicans any better.
Good question. Societies are judged by how they treat their weakest components. That does not mean that those being helped or maintained should live a relatively high standard of living. No person in the most affluent country in the world should go hungry or be undernourished or be homeless. Especially not their children. The actual cost to society is far greater by not maintaining them with what some call an inclusive safety net. Already America has more prison inmates than all of the industrial world put together. California is going to release early 100,000 felons from prison because of the cost of incarcerating them. They need to build billions of dollars of new prisons with billions in cost that they don’t have.
And i am not moved by others opinions
i know what poverty is, and i am not backing off on my opinions PEROID
Maybe you should figure out what poverty really is.
It’s a different ball game. At that time, another power (China) did not control the economy of the USA, nor was it reliant on foreign oil.
Laura,
America has never been there when Israel needed her. Only when they needed to stop Russia gaining influence in Egypt did America step in. I can see your point, as you live there, but you need to see from Israel’s side. Over one million Russians in Israel grew up in the “marxist” and “socialist” system you condemn. They’re highly educated, and many have now left Israel after making aliyah because they think they are better off in other countries.
Laura I was a member of the KOMSOMOL once. Marxists were building Israel when American’s did not care. Israel’s founders were marxist. I am from Russia.
My apologies to Yamit if I missed one of his comments. It happens.
But you should all know that if your post includes a word or name that I have marked as spam, you comment will be likely marked. Once you get a bad rep then it takes a while to reeducate the spam bot to trust you.
Please everyone, don’t repeat your comments if they are blocked. I check it at least twice a day.
Ted, Israpundit is the only blog I’ve seen which has such an apparently random or unknown blocking algorithm. Can’t you dump it already or at least use something normal?
Ted my second reply to Laura was also blocked. The one I sent yesterday never appeared.
Laura I wrote a reply to you but it never appeared. Since it’s not been released since yesterday it probably won’t.
No country or government can supply all the needs or wants of everyone and whether it’s a private health plan or a public one there are always stipulations conditions and limits of coverage. Even with the best most expensive private plan available there are somethings and stipulations that favor the companies and not the patient. Private health care plans are designed to make a profit for the companies issuing the plans. That profit should be invested to my mind to the furtherance of more and better care for the insured. People insured under large group policies get better and more benefits than individuals who are self insured for a much lower premium cost. All company costs for insuring their employees transfer the costs to the end users after they write off those costs before taxes. Thus the consumer pays twice once because those companies add their cost of insurance to the public/or end user and a 2nd time by deducting those costs from government State & Federal. Thus companies like GE pay no taxes but earn billions in profits. Who pays the suckers who are not GE’s.
The way the system works today is you have essentially a socialist system that favors only a certain % of the public as long as they are working for the same companies insuring them. That’s a form of slavery which can inhibit employee mobility if it is seen they may lose health coverage.
I used to sell Life and health plans when I worked for Met Life. I’ve seen as many people screwed as helped. You will never know what you really have in Insurance until you need it. Most people don’t read or understand insurance policies. Most people don’t read and understand instruction manuals that come with every appliance and electronic gadget and motor vehicle.
Health can be a matter of life and death and the prolongation of life. It’s too serious to be left just to profit motivated companies. Some balance between the two I believe is best and that’s more or less what we have here.
Food stamps is not a form of socialism? 47 million Americans are receiving food stamps today and the numbers are climbing by the day. Student loans now owned by the government total just shy of a trillion dollars and most will be paying off those loans for most of their adult life. those loans bond the public to government and government control. Subsidizing agriculture is not socialism? State universities and community colleges are not a form of socialism? Everyone complains about the price of gas but there is not a single state who has reduced the taxes per gallon to ease the financial pain to the consumer and the businesses in their domains.
When 20% of all Americans own 85-90% of all the real wealth in the USA and 1% of Americans own 45% of that wealth. Unless you are among those 20% I don’t see what you have to crow about.
No, I’m not a socialist or even advocating socialism but neither am I a capitalist in so far as it exists in practice in America or anywhere else. I thinks a hybrid system combing the two is best because it serves the most people more equitably.
There is a wealth to power consideration and sometimes a power to wealth consideration. Money influences and controls politicians who legislate in favor of wealth. sometimes political power is the means for individuals gaining wealth. That’s what bothers me the most about the current capitalistic system. That’s the same psychology of lotteries. People see the few who win big and that draws others to buy into the get rich dream. Been to a dog race in Florida where the dogs chase the mechanical rabbit. That’s the psychology behind the American system. Casinos always allow a few winners which draw other to throw away their money.
The whole subPrime scams are part of the face of capitalism along with the Bernie Madoffs and the selling of the NYSE to the Germans.
One day the Chinese will figure it out that they don’t need to sell to America. They can begin to sell what they produce to other Chinese. There are a lot more Chinese than Americans.
Laura,
I am a capitalist, and I hide in no closets whatsoever.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Obamacare diminishes care for some and increases care for ohers. In effect it is spreading the wealth around for the benefit of the poor.
Laura asks “Where will it stop?” and rightly so.
Let’s look at the entitlement mentality. Let us asume that a government run universal programe decides that all patients with less than one year to live should be denied care. While some would complain because they felt the government owed them more, others would simply accept it as part of the life cycle. Or if the government decided not to give transplants to anyone over 70 years old. To my mind no one should scream they are entitled. Now if the rich could buy the transplant I would have no objection. But those who couldn’t afford what the government isn’t paying for, would have no cause for complaint.
In other words, no one is entitled to the nth degree of care from the government. Those who want more should pay for it. The same goes for supplying a minimum of food and shelter. For those capable of getting our of the minimum trap assistence should be available for them
There is a book advertised in the Right Column of this page namely, The Left is Seldom Right. Looks interesting.
Sometime we are confused with the idea of providing for unfortunate and the needy.
I believe we have a moral obligation to help those who cannot help themselves while aiding those to provide for themselves.
Unfortunately in America help got out of hand and the liberals saw large block of votes and seized the opportunity to spoon feed those in need while not encouraging them to help themselves.
For instance public housing was to provide temporary housing to a family until they could establish gainful employment and moving on to independence.
I can remember in the 7th and 8th grade the good nuns telling us “there are no free lunches”, if the government gives you something you therefore give up something, freedom of choice.
Unfortunately the majority made public housing their permanent residence while passing this on to their offspring.
Entitlements became the lifeline for those who refused to help themselves.
i am going to sleep
and no i am not a socialist and yes the Bible does say 4 those that have to give, the problem is people dont want to give so the government steps in and does it since most christians and churches wont obey the Bible and i guess that includes u Laura
laura ur wrong, u know people do have the right to disagree with u
laura u dont even know me dont judge me by calling me a socialist and ur wrong the Bible does say 4 those that have are suppose to give, and ur problem is u dont want to obey the Bible, get ur head out of the sand
Gimmee!
America has the world’s fattest poor people.
If America’s poor are, on average, fat, someone must be providing them with food.
true but i am more interested in what the Bible says about the poor not mans opinion, in the end what is going to matter is what Gods Word says not mans
Since when was economic equality desirable?
Should Microsoft share its profits with some upstart program development firm?
Read in the Old Testament God told the Israelites when harvesting there crops to leave some of the crops 4 there poor, also God is clear what he will do to countries that abandons its poor, and Israel provides medical care 4 its people it works there
Tell us about the Great Depression.
Its hard to believe that socialist theory still has such a strong hold so many years after its proven failure.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/8551239/Why-the-health-service-needs-surgery.html
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2010-12-23/news/fl-healthcare-oped1226-20101223_1_health-sector-health-care-new-health-law
We do not need the input of an anti-American marxist like aaron y.
Ted please release my other comments.
I have said over and over again Yamit that 90% of Americans are covered in some way or another, and the overwhelming majority are satisfied with their health care. There is no need for this massive overhaul, this big federal government take over.
Obamcare Surprise! If You Like Your Health Insurance, You Might Lose Your Health Insurance
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=174&load=5565
Unbelievable that you promote socialism and in the next paragraph claim to be a capitalist. Who do you think you are fooling? You are quite obviously a marxist. The Soviet Union was a failed economy on a massive scale which couldn’t even produce enough toilet paper. I cannot believe that in the year 2011 someone could actually defend that system considering everything we know. European countries are failed welfare states with chronically high unemployment and low productivity. Greece is bankrupt.
Anyway this whole thread disgusts me. I didnt realize there were so many closet socialists on Israpundit.
Most of us here in America have some concern for the poor and downtrodden, at least to the extent of paying lip service to the problem. But what is significant about us is that most of our focus is on not being leveled into that gray mass of the poor and downtrodden. In short, most of us are just not interested in economic equality. That, in a nutshell, is part of the spirit of liberty that has set America apart throughout our history.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Clinton, the bible doesn’t say for the government to take money from some and redistribute it. And you aren’t just a liberal but a socialist and socialism has failed everywhere.
Yamit, why not the right to food and housing?
Some thoughts on healthcare:
1. Most of the benefits of heathcare came decades ago, with childhood vaccinations, clean drinking water, and some antibiotics.
2. Nowadays, doctors don’t actually do all that much (although fixing broken bones and doing cesarean sections are very good), and it is very expensive.
3. For most people, you get better by yourself without doctors, or you die anyway despite the doctors.
4. It is not clear that we live much longer because of doctors.
5. Doctors die of the same diseases at the same age as their patients.
6. Most of the cost of healthcare is spent on a patient’s last (terminal) illness.
7. Patients with chronic diseases require huge amounts of money (e.g.,dialysis and alzheimer’s).
8. Patients with cancer require huge amounts of money, often with little benefit.
9. So healthy people end up paying for the chronically ill incurable patients.
10 Healthy responsible people are also made to pay for irresponsible people (obese, smokers, alcoholics, drug addicts).
10. Many doctors are greedy and/or lazy, but almost all claim “they are not doing it for the money”.
11. When society says they will pay doctors in proportion to the patients they see, then doctors see more patients and rush through them (doctors from foreign countries who emigrate here and see Medicare patients).
12. When society pays big bucks for all surgical procedures, then we have lots of surgical procedures, whether they are needed or not.
13. When society puts doctors on salary, then they see as few patients as possible. In Israel, the salaried doctors see a few patients during their regular “day jobs”, and then moonlight as much as possible providing pay for service to rich private patients.
14. Most people are ignorant hypochondriacs, and if they could afford it, each would have their own private doctor following them around constantly (like Michael Jackson).
15. When you provide people with free, unlimited healthcare, then they flood the system and overwhelm it.
Conclusion: because of human nature, it is impossible to reform health care in a rational way. If you want to limit healthcare because of expense, then you are “heartless”, and if you don’t want to limit healthcare, then sooner or later you will go broke.
Ted,
The real problem with the health care in the US is the cost. The politicians are looking at who should pay, rather than how much.
American Medical Association, is among the most powerful monopolies in the world. They set the prices, and their members, the doctors are the highest paid professional group in the world with the average income of $200,000/year. This is the average that includes all doctors, ever the young people who just got out of the school. The established doctors make much more.
A true American solution to this problem would be breaking up the monopoly. Just like breaking up the AT&T+Bell monopoly almost lowered the prices for telecommunication down to 1/20th of what they were before, so could the medical care costs be 1/20th of what they are now.
End the medical monopoly.
Let people go directly to the pharmacist and get their meds without having to go through the middleman (doctor).
Allow the competition medical schools. (Currently the number of graduates is carefully controlled by the AMA).
Allow the competition to open the schools shorter and cheaper medical education, a doctor with a two years degree would be able to handle an overwhelming majority of problems.
Get rid of state licenses that make it harder for the doctors to move from one state to another.
Allow the insured to deselect expensive procedures from their coverage:
For example, a vegan non-smoker is highly unlikely to need heart by-pass surgery and the follow-up procedures. Deselecting this class of treatment would lower the insurance by 50%.
Likewise the insured should be allowed to deselect the procedures designed to prolong the life of hopelessly ill person. The care for the last 6 month of life cost more than 50% of total care for the whole life of the person.
Allow all foreign drugs (with proper labeling and caution). This will lower the cost of the drugs 10 – 100 times. (Just compare the cost of the meds in India with America).
All this measures together, would bring down the cost of medical care in America to acceptable levels, and then we could discuss how to pay for it.
Massachusetts tried it and it did not work there.
I agree with Yamit in Isreal everyone is covered, and Israel is Gods nation, why in America do do we pay 4 amtrak but want to cut medical, i say stop giving money to amtrak and give more to medical
just how i feel, Christians and Churches in America need to obey the Bible and help the poor to, but there not obeying Gods Word
the Bible says take care of poor period, any country that doesnt will deal with Gods judgement eventually, and God will come to the defense of the poor, if all the budget cuts happen in America u will see mass riots across America then marshall law i love America but all the budget cuts on our poor is wrong, you can call me liberal if u want, but to cut our own poor that is legal citizens is sin sin sin
I’m not buying into Obamacare, don’t know much about it. I was speaking about the principle of is the right to health and healthcare as right of all citizens of the United States or not and if not why not. The constitution grants the right to own property but does health and healthcare apply under the general heading of providing for the general welfare in the preamble of the constitution? I would venture a guess that the founders if they were living today would have included specifically heal and healthcare if they were living today. America subsidizes Amtrack because they believe it to be in the national interest but health care isn’t? Why should you or anyone have to pay very high rates from private insurers and get less health and services, more restriction for the buck than we do? I don’t believe generally speaking you have better doctors than we do? Our general national health statistically is better than the states and our mean longevity is 5 years longer.
In Israel for example every citizen is covered as a right and we pay according to a sliding income scale. Those with no incomes pay a symbolic fee. There are 4-5 different health groups administering the care itself and we have a free choice of which to choose. These are all private companies competing for clients. Some of the bigger ones have their own hospitals and those that don’t arrange with either government hospitals or the semi private ones for their members.
Each health service provider offer for an additional fee additional services at a discount including discounts on drugs not covered in the governments basket of drugs and services that are subsidized. The additional add-on’s are not very expensive and are always being added to when new procedures or drugs become available. Each Health provider in addition have outpatient care.
So what’s important to you, the dirty word socialism or semi socialism as we have here or the increased benefits of health care to more people at less cost? Ted being a relative newcomer here might be able to add his personal input comparing ours with Canada. I’ve been away from the states too long to provide a personal subjective comparison. My sisters are not complaining but like you they have nothing to compare what they have with anything other. The American brainwashing that they have the best healthcare in the world is debatable. It is the most expensive and the most wasteful in the world.
In the end I maintain it comes down to values and what each society values most and least.
The government makes up the shortfall. The government and the plans subsidize drugs which is probably the major part of the governments outlay.
Oh Laura, you are qualifying the success of the economy with whether Europe or the US is pro or anti Israel. There is no comparison here, as that is not what motivates most Americans. No American is going to put Israel over it’s own economy. This is evident in the numbers who are now questioning why billions in aid is given to Israel when it’s own economy is suffering.
The truth of the matter is that Europe is more successful and upwardly mobile because it is socialist. Socialism has it’s flaws, but used properly it can get rid of poverty, and illiteracy. It worked in Russia, it worked in Europe. I also disagree with your assessment of the “left” being the reason for America’s failing education. It isn’t the left. It’s the right that is to blame here.
I am not a socialist, i’m a capitalist. I think Obamacare is a mistake because it is too little too late. Might as well not do it now if it couldn’t be done before.
Ted
Search Wikipedia, US education is sub standard compared to socialist Europe or even the new economies. Except at Ivy League. A capitalist society when it goes wrong, has a hugh problem with health, social and education.
It may or may not be too late for the USA. Healthcare and education reform should have come at a time when the economy was booming. Say about 30 or 20 years ago.
No capitalist system that was on it’s way down has ever recovered. That is where the USA is now. The socialist states of Europe, Canada prepared for it, but the USA didn’t thus when the fall comes it will be bad.
I heard that 20% unemployment is rife in some cities, and money is given to China not just to make American goods, but to come in and set up shop in the USA. China is already taking over Africa. The same is true.
Did you know that America’s richest minority are the Indians from India. They came, and are now leaving because there are more opportunities in India than there are in the USA. The Chinese are moving the other way. Moving into the USA.
It is too late for the USA. So many in the US are in denial about it and think it cannot happen to the USA.
It has happened. This century is the rise of China and India. The Asian century.
I’m not buying into Obamacare, don’t know much about it. I was speaking about the principle of is the right to health and healthcare as right of all citizens of the United States or not and if not why not. The constitution grants the right to own property but does health and healthcare apply under the general heading of providing for the general welfare in the preamble of the constitution? I would venture a guess that the founders if they were living today would have included specifically heal and healthcare if they were living today. America subsidizes Amtrack because they believe it to be in the national interest but health care isn’t? Why should you or anyone have to pay very high rates from private insurers and get less health and services, more restriction for the buck than we do? I don’t believe generally speaking you have better doctors than we do? Our general national health statistically is better than the states and our mean longevity is 5 years longer.
So what’s important to you, the dirty word socialism or semi socialism as we have here or the increased benefits of health care to more people at less cost? Ted being a relative newcomer here might be able to add his personal input comparing ours with Canada. I’ve been away from the states too long to provide a personal subjective comparison. My sisters are not complaining but like you they have nothing to compare what they have with anything other. The American brainwashing that they have the best healthcare in the world is debatable. It is the most expensive and the most wasteful in the world.
In the end I maintain it comes down to values and what each society values most and least.
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In Israel for example every citizen is covered as a right and we pay according to a sliding income scale. Those with no incomes pay a symbolic fee. There are 4-5 different health groups administering the care itself and we have a free choice of which to choose. These are all private companies competing for clients. Some of the bigger ones have their own hospitals and those that don’t arrange with either government hospitals or the semi private ones for their members.
Each health service provider offer for an additional fee additional services at a discount including discounts on drugs not covered in the governments basket of drugs and services that are subsidized. The additional add-on’s are not very expensive and are always being added to when new procedures or drugs become available. Each Health provider in addition have outpatient care CFIX;;;;;;;;;7
The government makes up the shortfall. The government and the plans subsidize drugs which is probably the major part of the governments outlay.
Another GREAT Steyn
Weiner helping junk the country
By Mark Steyn
Yamit you are buying into socialist propaganda. The reason for Israel’s success is because it became more of a free market economy. Obamacare is a horror. A huge govrnment takeover of American health care wii be a catastrophe and completely unneccesary. As Ive said 90% ofAmericans are covered. What is this fixation with socialized medicine and why are people onIsrapundit promoting it? Why have those groups who pushed for obamacare getting exemptions if it’s so wonderful?
Thanks Shy Guy. Steyn, excellent, as always.
Thanks also to Lt Col Howard commenting from the inside.
Thanks Yamit for your important contribution to the discussion.
Kelie spare me the morally bankrupt anti-Israel British intellectal elite which writes for the guardian and works for the BBC and the British government. If that’s the kind of “education” their universities produce you can keep it.
Top 1 Percent Control 42 Percent of Financial Wealth in the U.S. – How Average Americans are Lured into Debt Servitude by Promises of Mega Wealth.
There seems to be a growing divide in the current U.S. economy. On the one hand, you have the financial sector swimming in their bailout-induced profits like a modern day Scrooge Mcduck. In their circles, it appears as if the recession is over. On the other hand, you have average Americans seeing access to credit cards shut down, equity in their homes vanishing, and their stock portfolios looking a little too much like 1999. Then you have 44 million Americans, roughly 12 percent of our population, on food stamps. To this group the recession is still very much alive. Those that save and are cautious with their money, are now being forced to make difficult decisions. Even holding on to U.S. dollars is not a good move with the way the Fed is systematically devaluing the dollar. The Fed is artificially keeping rates at record lows so putting your money in a savings account amounts to stuffing it into your mattress.
America is looking like a Banana Republic more and more.
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In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%.
*** Note: this study was in 2007 before the meltdown and recession. Stats are even more weighted to the wealthy and the middle class is today suffering the most.
What is a governments general obligations to it’s citizenry?
Governments provide and insure clean potable water,clean air, zoning laws to separate commercial enterprises from residential and industrial etc.
They provide for firefighters, police, defense (Armies and Navies) Governments agencies like CDC,Consumer protections, FDA, standards enforcement for laws governing quality and handling of foods and produce. Almost all aspects of civil life is regulated in some manner.
So my question is why water, air and all of the above and not healthcare for everyone. Why is health care an individual responsibility and not a collective one? Why is the protection of property a collective right and the general collective right to heath care not? Why in America is property deemed more valuable than the general health and welfare of all American citizens regardless of status and wealth at least at the fundamental level.
I’m not critiquing Obama care, it my be good or bad but I am speaking to the principle. Once the principle is accepted then it’s application is doable.
People of means will always have the ways and means to get the best care.
While Israels system can be much improved in many of it’s aspects it is fundamentally, better more inclusive and certainly more egalitarian than the American system.
The problem as I see it is with the basic value structure of America or better yet the lack of sound values. A country willing to spend and waste trillions on wars but will fight to the death over having to pay a small share for the health of a neighbor is a dysfunctional society.
Mark Steyn: It’s all bumps, no road in Obamaville
Concerning upward mobility: the real measure is: are one’s children better off economically and socially than were the parents. I have been particularly intrigued by liberals and Democrats who pushed “Justice for janitors”. Their idea is a wage increase to get these workers “a living wage”. This means that They Will Always Be At the Bottom of the Economic Ladder. I Urge my liberal friends To Concentrate on Obtaining Education and Training for Those Skills and Positions That Would Give Them An Upward Ladder. For Example, Housekeeping Personnel Can Be Trained in Supervision, Purchasing, Maintenance, Etc. Dishwashers And Busboys Can Become Waiters, Chefs And Banquet Managers. Etc. Etc. Given My Own Situation & the Situation of Many of My Friends ,We Certainly Had Upward Family Mobility.
Concerning income: I worked (as a volunteer) on an Indian reservation in Arizona. The federal government sponsored a ski resort development and a sawmill to bring employment to the tribe, which had a large percentage of their adults unemployed. What happened was a surprise to us. As we increased jobs, Indians who left the reservation and were doing reasonably well in the cities returned to the reservation and took the jobs. They preferred the reservation life even at a lower wages than they were earning in the city. To them, the reservation way of life was worth a great deal. The ski resort development cost exceeded the amount budgeted for it. Therefore, the revised plans reduced the number of rooms substantially so that the Inn could never break even. The sawmill prospered for a while. Then when the adjacent trees had been processed, the cost of incoming lumber exceeded the income from the lumber. In this case, two very well-meaning projects were economic disasters.
Concerning health: I advised the technical panel of the president’s commission on health resources. We discovered that the best way of increasing efficiency was to migrate already existing best practices more rapidly. Interestingly again, having health workers repeatedly wash their hands was one of the best cost saving measures ever.
Concerning the environment: I advised Gov. Reagan (I was left of center Democrat and no one cared about my affiliation as long as I performed my job. At that time, California led the nation in air pollution control, water resources control, hazardous waste identification and control, etc. I also served Gov. Brown. I was involved at the federal level in Pollution control programs. Under Nixon I participated in the task force that established the Environmental Protection Agency. In all cases I found that basic systems engineering: identifying goals and objectives, specifying alternatives, evaluation of outcomes, drawing detailed implementation plans, and recruiting and selecting skilled and dedicated personnel to run the programs was key to success. Industry was very helpful in these endeavors.
My experience was that some Democrats and some Republicans deal with slogans. Others of both parties dealt with the reality. The sad truth is that our resources are limited and we must establish priorities. We must also have honest evaluations.
Democrats are fond of saying that conservatives don’t want to buy anything and don’t want to pay taxes for anything and that the Democrats are those with a heart and who want to help the downtrodden. This, like most political clichés is nonsense.
I have to tell your leftist correspondent that the education system in the UK is (or was during my time) a meritocracy. Only those who had the intellectual qualifications got into university or advanced college, and not everyone who got in was able to complete the course. The result was that only 2% of the UK population had university degrees – degrees that actually meant something – and tuition for this 2% was paid for fully by the government. Compare this with the percentage of university “educated” folks in North America (it used to be 20% of the population).
The North American approach is something of a joke, because there are many people in universities who don’t have the capability required of a real university student, and who should not therefore be there. They should be in other fields; nothing wrong with skilled manual labour, for example, such as tool and die making. With these skills come the ability to actually make decent products. Of course – and I don’t want to get into this on this thread – this last example assumes that the jobbing out of manufacturing to the Far East is curtailed by the people (not by government) as soon as possible, but that won’t happen if the general poverty level rises substantially.
Look at the quality of thinking that comes out of the average North American university; the folks on Israpundit know exactly what I mean…
It is controlled by the leftist teacher’s union. So of course public education has become bad. If anything this proves that government control of anything is bad. I would bet that kids who go to private or parochial schools do better.
Obamacare is an atrocious law. I don’t have time to go into all of it. It is quite interesting that those who have pushed for obamacare the most are receiving excemptions, such as the unions and Nancy Pelosi’s district for example. That ought to tell you alot.
Between private insurance, employer-sponsored insurance, medicaid and medicare, about 90% of Americans are covered.
The GOP is right that competition is the way to go.
I don’t understand this fixation with universal (socialized) health care. If people should have the “right” to “free” health care, then why not the right to free housing or food? Of course there is nothing actually free about this kind of health care system. People pay very high taxes.
This is because we have adopted the European model of a huge welfare state. We would not be stagnant if we got back to a true free market economy.
So the answer is that she is wrong and engaging in lies and disinformation. I have read articles that England and Canada are looking to reform their own health care systems. So much for socialized medicine.