Hey there Hermie,
Nice to read your threads. There is a fatal flaw however in the otherwise "nice thinking" logic you're using to come to your conclusions. First a metaphore- thinking that we "should" have universal health care, and thinking that we "should" have "improved" education because it would be "nice" is like a mother who makes a statement like "It would be so nice if my son Billy could meet a sweet girl and live happily ever after" when little Billy is a 35 yr. old who still lives with his mom in her unfinished basement, is a fat slob who won't work, and showers once every two weeks whether he needs it or not. This world thinks if something "tickles" the ear, or sounds fancy or "right", that it must have some moral or justifiable imperative behind it. Wrong. Like the chance that any right minded woman would see anything in "little Billy" to where she would want to invest herself and her treasure into him is obviously far fetched and a probable impossibility, UNLESS he can find someone as disfunctional as himself.
The reason that universal healthcare will not work is the same reason that so many other things in and out of society will not work; without incentive, man will not do something because it is "right", they will only do something if it provides benefit to one's self, family, or person place or thing which holds some kind of value to him/her. I have two college degrees- one in social work like my father before me, and the other in psychology. While I finished up my first one, and went on to begin my second, two of my best friends were just BEGINNING their entrances into medical schools. I had long since finished my second degree, and they were not even half-way through their first HALF of medical school, much less their specializations. When Dave, for instance, finished his specialty in ear nose and throat surgery, he owed over $400,000 to Vanderbuilt University in Hershey PA! No, he didn't go through the misery, and much of it was misery and grind, JUST to make money, but taking care of his parents who had gutted out a landscape business for 35 yrs. to provide him and three brothers and sisters was always at the back of his mind. He will be paying on that loan for 30 YEARS, and considers it a "second" mortgage that he has to pay along with his house payment. I believe that he deserves every dime that he can make in the business he has chosen, and without people just like Dave and my other friend Brad, there is no one for us all to go to when we have a medical problem. This will not ever occur if the incentive is not there. Even a hundred thousand dollar "incentive" (salary) will not begin to pay his med school bills and allow him to make the further investments into his office, equipment, all of the medical supplies and machinery etc., and staffing. It is a sad but simple fact that "socialized medicine" will result in what every other governmentalized, compartmentalized, and socialized program ends up in, and that is a top-heavy, ineffectual, and bloated pig of an operation. Our public school system here in America is tha absolute epitome of an example. Here in Colorado, we have an above average ranked public school system compared to the rest of the United States in terms of the criteria that the government uses to "grade" public pre-college schools. My dad was in this system for 30 years as a school social worker. Our state is now at an average "per-student" cost of nearly $14000 PER YEAR to attend k-12the grade!. WE HAVE A 40% DROP OUT RATE FOR WHITES, 68% DROP OUT RATE FOR BLACKS, AND OVER 80% DROP OUT RATE FOR HISPANICS! My three school age kids go to a private (never liked that word for some reason) Christian school that has a GREAT education, lots and lots of homework (too much), and teachers that make LESS THAN $14 PER HOUR! We pay LESS THAN HALF of what the state tax dollars go to pay for a public school student to attend school, and the outcome is so far and away better that a comparison can't even be made. My father and mother spent the better part of both of their paychecks to send me and my three sisters to a Christian school, and again, the outcome was five college degrees in total (not because we are anything special, but because the inequality of the two systems- private v.s. public is so staggering). In summation, your heart, like so many, is in the right place, but I must be bluntly honest and say that man's heart and it's aims to do "good" only lead to folly. This is scriptural, and sadly, NO amount of money will change the statistics in the public schools, and sadly, this is also why no amount of money in the "stimulus" package is goiing to change America's situation. It will not bring back the automotive industry, it will not bring back industry to a country who has voted for China and Wal-Mart with our pocket books, and most of all- sadly for me and my family- it will not bring back a housing and construction industry which has for 15 or more years been riding on the backs of an illegal population which- at a rate of over 4000 per day-have been pouring over our borders. Neither party in our country wants to do anything about it, and I can tell you as a past federal agent, as well as a 12 year contractor and master carpenter, this country is now in a jam that only the Lord could get us out of it- and last I checked, there aren't too many folks asking Him these days. Days are short Hermie, don't concern yourself with socialized medicine and pouring more money that we don't have into a broken system of public schools, because the results will be the same or worse. As few as 5 yrs. ago, we were spending just over $9000 per student in the Denver Public Schools, and our drop-out rate was LOWER than it is now. Chris Romer, state representative and son of our esteemed (ugggg) past governor Roy Romer, is now trying to pass legislation for public schooling k-college to not only be funded, but legal for all children of immigrants, and it may well pass the house and senate here in our now completely Democrat -run government here. Our state, like our government in the US willl not do anything about the 35 million illegal Mexicans, and now we will do nothing about their children. I love all men, women, and children as they are all created by God, but we as a nation are in big, big trouble. A man far wiser than I once said "no army or nation is strong enough to beat sheer population", and that is exactly what we are up against. Sorry about the diatribe on the topic of illegal immigration, but it all boils down to the same fact that scripture has told us for thoudsands of years- "the wisdom of men is folly". That's enough for now, Ross
