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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (12142)	7/25/2004 12:24:48 PM
From: Orcastraiter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Second, we have many more folks than 15% that are uninsured, so these data may be dated. As Selectric pointed out, either you or the US Census Bureau is lying. Who would toy suggest we pick? And when was the last census taken? Does everything stay frozen in time according to the last census? What has happened since the last census...doesn't that matter? Which is it, have more people become uninsured since the census or not? (Answer: More uninsured people today.) What the census does not talk about is the fact that many people are underinsured, have very high deductables, can't get care for certain ailments, have care and procedures dictated by HMO managers...not their doctor. Many people have health insurance for one thing only...a hedge against a catastrophic illness...only then can they pony up the deductable...right after they take a second mortgage on their home. In this country health care is a privilege of the wealthy. 60% of Hispanics do not have health insurance, 48% of Blacks do not have health insurance, and poor people of all races are uninsured or under insured...you can't afford good health insurance on minimum wage. This patch work quilt of health insurance that we operate on does not serve us...it enslaves us. I agree with you that a common military is better than a patchwork quilt of state militias. And I believe that we can do a better job of delivering health care if we do that in common. Clearly the current system does not work. The life expectancy of Cuba is higher than the US. (No I don't want to move to Cuba...so don't post that crap to me). All of the European countries have us beat in life expectancy by about 5 years. The difference here? Health care. I've got news for you: We in the private sector aren't exactly slacking either. And we don't have Civil Service regs and gov't worker unions to allow us to be lazy and incompetent and still keep our jobs. It's produce or die. And die you most certainly will...on average more than 5 years earlier than those from our European friends. Government workers do have protections from unions and Civil Service regulations, same as many private sector industries. Many in government, management for instance are not protected. Therefore if you don't like what is going on in your city or state, you can vote out the Mayor or Governor, who are directly responsible for the management personnel, who are directly responsible for the union workers. Government workers can be fired for not doing their job, just as any private sector job. On teacher salaries...tripling the salary won't make teachers more effective over night. Don't be silly. But low salaries over time tend to push the best potential teachers to other professions. When you have a position that is historically a low paid job, you're not going to get the most qualified folks for those jobs. In fact the job of teaching in this country has traditionally been left to women, who have been traditionally paid less, and still are. I do think that raising the bar on teacher salaries might entice more people to enter that profession, and that would be good for the country. Will it happen overnight? No it won't. But if we do not make teacher salaries competitive with other professions what do you think will be the result over the long term? I think we are seeing the results of the policies over the last two decades right now. Women who were the traditional source of teachers are now more diverse with respect to their career goals. More women are choosing careers other than teaching. This has reduced the pool of available low paid good teachers. In a changing economy, we need to change with it. In the teaching profession we have not made the changes. Now we see the results of not acting yesterday. Orca