After posting the piece about Nurses traveling to Germany and reading the feedback. I would like to open up a debate on this BB about "Universal Health Care" or "Single Payor Systems"
In doing this I hope to learn more about each side of the issue. I do not want to turn this into a heated horrific debate that ends in belittling one another as some other charged topics have ended, but a genuine debate about the Pros and Cons of proposed "Universal Health Care or Single Payor systems" I believe we can all agree to debate and we can all learn things we might not otherwise have the time to research.
I am going to begin by placing an article that discusses the cons of Universal Health Care with some statistics, and if anyone is willing please come in and try to debate some of the key points this brings up. With stats not hyped up words or hot air. I am truly interested in seeing the different sides of this issue. This effects us all, and in order to make an informed decision we need to see "all" sides of the issue. Thanks in advance for participating.
Michele
I am going to have to post the article in several pieces because the bulletin board only will allow 3000 characters.So see the next posts.
according to the study, "investing in pennsylvania's families: economic opportunity for all," 25 percent of the state's "working families," or 1.4 million pennsylvanians -- including nearly 700,000 children -- are living 200 percent below the federal poverty line.
in a state like pa with the chips program providing free or nearly free health care for all children living in the commonwealth, it is a shame that these parents are not making the effort to pick up the phone and making a call so their children can be provided with health care.
Chapter 1: The relationship between economic freedom and political freedom:
"It is widely believed that politics and economics are separate and largely unconnected; that individual freedom is a political problem and material welfare an economic problem; and that any kind of political arrangements can be combined with any kind of economic arrangements. The chief contemporary manifestation of this idea is the advocacy of "democratic socialism" by many who condemn out of hand the restrictions on individual freedom imposed by "totalitarian socialism" in Russia, and who are persuaded that it is possible for a country to adopt the essential features of Russian economic arrangements and yet to ensure individual freedom through political arrangements. The thesis of this chapter is that such a view is a delusion, that there is an intimate connection between economics and politics, that only certain arrangements are possible and that, in particular, a society which is socialist cannot also be democratic, in the sense of guaranteeing individual freedom.
Economic arrangements play a dual role in the promotion of a free society. On the one hand, freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself. In the second place, economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.
The first of these roles of economic freedom needs special emphasis because intellectuals in particular have a strong bias against regarding this aspect of freedom as important. They tend to express contempt for what they regard as material aspects of life, and to regard their own pursuit of allegedly higher values as on a different plane of significance and as deserving of special attention. For most citizens of the country, however, if not for the intellectual, the direct importance of economic freedom is at least comparable in significance to the indirect importance of economic freedom as a means to political freedom. . .
Viewed as a means to the end of political freedom, economic arrangements are important because of their effect on the concentration or dispersion of power. The kind of economic organization that provides economic freedom directly, namely, competitive capitalism, also promotes political freedom because it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables the one to offset the other. . .
So long as effective freedom of exchange is maintained, the central feature of the market organization of economic activity is that it prevents one person from interfering with another in respect of most of his activities. The consumer is protected from coercion by the seller because of the presence of other sellers with whom he can deal. The seller is protected from coercion by the consumer because of other consumers to whom he can sell. The employee is protected from coercion by the employer because of other employers for whom he can work, and so on. And the market does this impersonally and without centralized authority.
Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it does this task so well. It gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. . .
A society that puts equality in the sense of outcome ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality or freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom. But a society that puts freedom first will, end up with both greater freedom and greater equality. Freedom means diversity but also mobility. It preserves the opportunity for today's less well off to become tomorrow's rich, and enables almost everyone, from top to bottom, to enjoy a richer and fuller life."
You call my goal for the Good of the Common Man a utopian idea. Yes capitalism in it's pure form is just as wonderful as all things being equal. HOwever, capitalism has been around for so long that it has become contaminated and is no longer pure. The economic powers that be have bought or lobbyed the political powers that be so there is no longer clear distinctions between the two. Please bear with me because I am a huge George fan and this almost hurts, but can you separate George from the oil industry, can you separate Cheney from Haliburton, can you separate Senator Frisk from the health care industry. The last common man president I can think of was Jimmy Carter and the price of peanuts did not double while he was in office...neither did alot of anything else though either. I would agree with you 100% , hands down if we still had a pure separation of economic and political powers. We can't mix politics with religion so why not stop mixing politics with economics.
My opinion of Milton Friedman is this, he did wonders for China's economy, now they actually have a middle class, while ours is dangerously shrinking.
And the reasons why should be OBVIOUS. They are running towards capitalism, hence, more economic freedom which can only lead and is leading to greater political freedom (think Hong Kong), while we are running away from capitalism, with the expected opposite results, in terms of both economic and political freedom.
Your analysis doesn't discount capitalism; it validates it.
Milton Friedman is a hero. Two great concepts (out of many):
The Earned Income Tax Credit was his original idea - negative income tax instead of social welfare. (Although he intended it to replace welfare and not supplement it) He advocated putting control of aid directly in the hands of recipients. They are in a better position to understand their needs then gov't. But see how this concept is different from social welfare: first, it entrusts the recipients with their freedom and 2nd, but related, it prevents others from plying their wishes on the recipients. But, you might say, if you just give them cash, they might not spend it the way WE WOULD want them to spend it. Precisely, and there's the rub: in attempting to aid economic freedom, in reality, the effort is to control economic freedom. Think real hard about the difference. Social welfare is not just, "We want to help." It's also a healthy dose of "We know better how to run your life then you do." That 'help' comes with hefty strings. The result, rampant single parent-hood (can't get aid as easily if married) and rampant 12-13 yr old pregnancies (welfare became the defacto debutante outcoming of the lower class; once a child is born, that check became 'proof' of adulthood.) (BTW, this anti-capitalist concept of social welfare explains why the gov't pays for so many births) So, in trying to help, social welfare made a variety of bad situations worse, much worse. THAT is why, trillions of dollars later, we are no closer to winning the 'war on poverty'. Can you not see the connections to any other massive gov't undertaking that involves a dose of 'we know what is better for you then you'?
Friedman almost single-handedly ended the draft. This is the famous exchange in Nixon's draft commission: "In the course of his [General Westmoreland's] testimony, he made the statement that he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. I [Milton Friedman] stopped him and said, 'General, would you rather command an army of slaves?' He drew himself up and said, 'I don't like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves.' I replied, 'I don't like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries.' ." - Milton and Rose Friedman, Two Lucky People, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 380.
Milton Friedman is not off topic. I have said several times that universal healthcare is merely a proxy debate of the merits of capitalism vs. socialism. As such, Friedman's insights are exactly on point to the thrust of the thread.
To quote one Bob Chitester, a producer on Friedman's PBS program, Free to Choose, regarding Friedman's recent death, "Have you thanked Milton Friedman today?"
And the reasons why should be OBVIOUS. They are running towards capitalism, hence, more economic freedom which can only lead and is leading to greater political freedom (think Hong Kong), while we are running away from capitalism, with the expected opposite results, in terms of both economic and political freedom.
Your analysis doesn't discount capitalism; it validates it.
Milton Friedman is a hero. Two great concepts (out of many):
The Earned Income Tax Credit was his original idea - negative income tax instead of social welfare. He advocated putting control of aid directly in the hands of recipients. They are in a better position to understand their needs then gov't. But see how this concept is different from social welfare: first, it entrusts the recipients with their freedom and 2nd, but related, it prevents others from plying their wishes on the recipients. But, you might say, if you just give them cash, they might not spend it the way WE WOULD want them to spend it. Precisely, and there's the rub: in attempting to aid economic freedom, in reality, the effort is to control economic freedom. Think real hard about the difference. Social welfare is not just, "We want to help." It's also a healthy dose of "We know better how to run your life then you do." That 'help' comes with hefty strings. The result, rampant single parent-hood (can't get aid as easily if married) and rampant 12-13 yr old preganancies (welfare became the defacto debutante outcoming of the lower class; once a child is born, that check became 'proof' of adulthood.) So, in trying to help, social welfare made a variety of bad situations worse, much worse. THAT is why, trillions of dollars later, we are no closer to winning the 'war on poverty'. Can you not see the connections to any other massive gov't undertaking that involves a dose of 'we know what is better for you then you'?
Friedman almost single-handedly ended the draft. This is the famous exchange in Nixon's draft commission: "In the course of his [General Westmoreland's] testimony, he made the statement that he did not want to command an army of mercenaries. I [Milton Friedman] stopped him and said, 'General, would you rather command an army of slaves?' He drew himself up and said, 'I don't like to hear our patriotic draftees referred to as slaves.' I replied, 'I don't like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries.' ." - Milton and Rose Friedman, Two Lucky People, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998, p. 380.
~faith,
Timothy.
Yes capitalism is working in China probably in a pure form. It has not had time to be corrupted. We can not compare our form of capitalism that is corrupted with corporate greed and political lobbying/buying to a pure form of capitalism in it's infancy. That is like comparing a 90 year old man to an infant. The question is how do we get our system pure again and our freedoms back again for everyone or is that possible?
Yes capitalism is working in China probably in a pure form. It has not had time to be corrupted. We can not compare our form of capitalism that is corrupted with corporate greed and political lobbying/buying to a pure form of capitalism in it's infancy. That is like comparing a 90 year old man to an infant. The question is how do we get our system pure again and our freedoms back again for everyone or is that possible?
But you see, capitalism is being corrupted by SOCIALISM. The cure is not to give in to the dark side; the cure is to listen to Master Yoda. "Use the (market) force . . ."
You can't seriously think that greed and influence peddling is corrupting OUR markets but not China's? Realistically, your cited 'causes' of corruption are universal human conditions. ALL economic systems have them, and always will (because everybody harbors those intrinsic human traits). The only mediation is how much power you allow gov'ts or men to impose those conditions upon you. At least with capitalism, you have other OPTIONS. That is its power.
But you see, capitalism is being corrupted by SOCIALISM. The cure is not to give in to the dark side; the cure is to listen to Master Yoda. "Use the (market) force . . ."
You can't seriously think that greed and influence peddling is corrupting OUR markets but not China's? Realistically, your cited 'causes' of corruption are universal human conditions. ALL economic systems have them, and always will (because everybody harbors those intrinsic human traits). The only mediation is how much power you allow gov'ts or men to impose those conditions upon you. At least with capitalism, you have other OPTIONS. That is its power.
~faith,
Timothy.
Holy cats, now we hear that a true communist country, China, is the hero because they have embraced capitalism while our country is being villified as heading into socialism! China has reaped the rewards of the GREED of capitalists that have taken away the manufacting jobs of middle class Americans, I am SURE you have heard what the lastest trade deficits were. Milton Friedman's phylosophies have hung the middle class American out to dry. I assume you are still in the middle class, doesnt this bother you to see China getting so much of our manufacturing jobs?
Holy cats, now we hear that a true communist country, China, is the hero because they have embraced capitalism while our country is being villified as heading into socialism! China has reaped the rewards of the GREED of capitalists that have taken away the manufacting jobs of middle class Americans, I am SURE you have heard what the lastest trade deficits were. Milton Friedman's phylosophies have hung the middle class American out to dry. I assume you are still in the middle class, doesnt this bother you to see China getting so much of our manufacturing jobs?
Everything is relative. I didn't say China was better then the U.S. - I said, China's IMPROVEMENTS are the result of market reforms, whereas, America's deficits are the result of anti-market reform.
Regarding concern for loss of manufacturing jobs, no, I'm no more concerned about that then I would be concerned about blacksmiths losing horseshoeing jobs to the automobile.
Moving to service oriented sectors is a sign of an advanced economy. It is a good thing. There is a balance between nations: China might be benefitting from a trade imbalance, but it makes them even MORE beholden to the U.S., for two reasons. #1, we are their market and they have to hold a vested interest in their consumers, and #2, their money is directly tied to the dollar. It doesn't freefloat against other currency like most currencies do (Another Milton Friedman idea, btw). Our economic gain is theirs; our loss is theirs. They have become vested partners. Incidentally, THAT was precisely the geopolitical outcome that was desired by increasing trade with China.
There is also a balance between job losses and job transitions at home. There are a few studies on this, and I'll look them up if need be, but far more people who have been laid off from any industry report better economic circumstances 5 yrs out then they would have expected before. Simply put, being laid off creates the incentive AND opportunity to seek better employment. It's good for the economy. It's ultimately good for those that are laid off (albeit with a sufficiently long transition period). But, since I'm sure that flies in the face of your conventional wisdom, I'll look up some articles on it.
"The bottom-line is that some workers are clearly going through tough times as productivity growth causes a reduced demand for labor in many old-line industries that were once considered untouchable engines of growth. Nonetheless, the vast majority of workers are much better off today than they were five, 10 or 15-years ago."
"It may seem as though my proposal would be great for greedy corporations but lousy for ordinary workers. In fact, surprising though it may be, workers would gain immeasurably. That's because the greatest threat to job security in western Europe is job security. The best guarantee of employment, by contrast, is no guarantee. . .
Critics of unfettered capitalism claim our system has eroded living standards for workers at the bottom of the ladder. There is some truth in that, but France and its neighbors have been doing the same thing -- only for everyone. Since 1992, the French economy has grown at an average rate of less than 2 percent per year, and Germany has managed only 1.4 percent annually. For the European Union as a whole, the rate was just 1.9 percent. In the U.S., we've averaged nearly 3.3 percent growth."
"We've run a trade deficit every year since 1976. During that time, we've imported roughly $6.5 trillion more in goods and services than we exported. And guess what? We've created 43 million jobs during that time-more than any other industrial nation by far.
Trade deficits don't matter, but free trade does. Since 1945, when the U.S. began its campaign to free up trade, our GDP has expanded by nearly $1 trillion, or about $9,000 per household.
But, you say, aren't we exporting jobs as well? With U.S. unemployment averaging 4.6%, and employers complaining they can't find enough qualified workers, it's tough to make that case.
As for those who argue free trade has decimated the middle class and created, in the jargon of trade doomsters, "a race to the bottom," they are just plain wrong. The middle class is thriving.
As a study by the liberal "Third Way Middle Class Project" recently noted: "The middle class has not stagnated, as neopopulists say. It has grown wealthier over time."
Those properly defined as middle class-wage earners in the prime earning years 25 to 59-earned a median $61,629 in 2005, up 22% since 1979, after adjusting for inflation. That's stagnation?"
"But everyone is getting richer. In real dollars, every quintile has posted significant annual increases over the past 35 years, ranging from $3,000 for the lowest quintile to $13,000 for the middle quintile to over $25,000 for next-to-highest one. And the individuals in those quintiles change all the time, something even The New York Times, which wrings its hands on class matters like an obsessive-compulsive, admits. Urban Institute economists Daniel P. McMurrer and Isabel V. Sawhill estimate that between 25 percent to 40 percent of individuals switch quintiles in a given year and that "rates of mobility have not changed over time." Research tracking individuals in the lowest income quintile in 1968 found that 23 years later, 53 percent were in a higher quintile and that half had spent at least a year in the top income quintile.
More important, basic indicators of wealth and opportunity drive home the reality that the middle class' place at the table is pretty secure--maybe not the best seat in the house, but arguably better than ever. A historically high 70 percent of Americans own their homes (see table 956). And two-thirds of high school graduates go on to college (up from half in 1970) [see table 265]. That wouldn't be happening if the U.S. was fast turning into the Brazil of the North."
And what they find, given the current climate of opinion about American economic change, is surprising:
"The analysis of literally millions of worker histories and hundreds of career paths for workers and job ladders for firms leads to the reassuring finding that although turbulence imposes short run costs, in the long-run job change leads to improved jobs for most workers."
"Factually, the idea of a vanishing middle class is rubbish - populist folklore and little more. By any reasonable standard, most Americans are easily better off than they were 30 years ago - and the economy continues to hum. Yes, there is a fantastically wealthy elite - not just in corporate board rooms but in entertainment, sports, the media, and several other nooks of the economy - but they are not cashing their checks at the expense of the rest of us."
"The bottom-line is that some workers are clearly going through tough times as productivity growth causes a reduced demand for labor in many old-line industries that were once considered untouchable engines of growth. Nonetheless, the vast majority of workers are much better off today than they were five, 10 or 15-years ago."
~faith,
Timothy.
Source of the income statistics is an investment service:
what they do not say is that he was also the most destructive public intellectual of our time.
...
friedman actually failed as a scientific economist but succeeded as a moral philosopher. his greatest scholarly accomplishment--his monetarist theory of how to regulate money and credit--was intellectually flawed at its core and collapsed when the federal reserve tried to follow it. the central bank wisely discarded friedman's money-supply approach before it did more damage. it is now a forgotten relic at the fed.
...
friedman's broader argument--that a society should be governed by self-regulating markets instead of big government--did better but also did not lead to the utopia he promoted. his "free market" faith has produced instead the very thing friedman regularly denounced: a bastardized system of interest-group politics that serves favored sectors of citizens at the expense of many others. enterprise and markets were indeed set "free" of government regulation, but big government did not go away (it grew bigger). only now government acts mainly as patron and protector for the largest, most powerful interests--the same ones that demanded their liberation. instead of serving the broad general welfare, government enables capital and corporations to feed off the taxpayers' money and convert public assets into private profit centers, shielded from the wrath of any citizens trying to object.
...
friedman explained: "so the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? and my answer to that is, no, they do not."
pay no attention to the collateral consequences. your only obligation is to the bottom line.
...
people everywhere now understand what friedman's kind of "freedom" means. america has been brutally coorificened by his success at popularizing this dictum--millions of innocents injured, mutual trust gravely weakened, society demoralized by the hardening terms of life. most people know in their gut this is wrong but see no easy way to resist it. friedman's utopia is also drenched in personal corruption. the proliferating scandals in business, finance and government flow directly from his teaching people to go for it and disregard moral qualms.
...
the cruel quality of friedman's obliviousness. art hilgart, a retired industrial economist, recalls hearing friedman lecture in 1991 and recommend the destruction of medicare, welfare, the postal system, social security and public education. the audience was dumbfounded.
finally, a brave young woman asked what this would mean for poverty. "there is no poverty in america," friedman instructed. a clear voice arose from the back of hall: "bullshit!" the audience cheered wildly.
i don't believe that anyone really wants to live in milton friedman's america except for the crony capitalists and robber barons. we can build and live in a humane society. the scandinavian countries are a good example of how to build a society with high quality health care, environmental protections, and a rising standard of living.
in reaction not just to november but to reams of economic data showing that the u.s. median income has flat-lined, such longtime champions of free-trade orthodoxy as former clinton treasury secretary robert rubin have changed their tune. maintaining and extending our trade agreements is still their holy writ, but to compensate for whatever leveling effect trade may have on americans' incomes, they now call for wage insurance to help workers who've been compelled to take lower-paying jobs than the ones they lost. as call centers relocate to india, the rubinauts call for extending trade adjustment assistance to service as well as manufacturing workers. they call for a universal health-care system delinking insurance from employment, so that u.s. companies can compete globally without having to be the only corporations in an advanced economy that cover their workers' medical costs. they call for improving our education system so that american workers can be more competitive. these domestic policy proposals all have merit; the question is whether they're remotely sufficient to the challenge of a globalized economy. in fact, there are nations with advanced economies that trade even more than we do and have still managed, chiefly through domestic policies, to retain high levels of economic equality and vitality: the nations of northern europe. trade constitutes a higher percentage of scandinavian nations' gross domestic product than it does ours, with little of the downward-leveling and, accordingly, anti-trade backlash that we experience. their secret is a series of job-training and placement policies, a bigger and better-paying public sector than ours, and the fact that their leading trade partners are other high-wage european nations.
gr8rnpjt, RN
738 Posts
in a state like pa with the chips program providing free or nearly free health care for all children living in the commonwealth, it is a shame that these parents are not making the effort to pick up the phone and making a call so their children can be provided with health care.