Yellow Dog [Part 10]

Donn,

This is NOT a discussion about the pros and cons of communism although, I could argue and very successfully that our health system is completely out of control, and I could argue that it’s very disingenuous of you to trash socialized medicine when that’s what you enjoy as a teacher. I am talking about the fact that you’ve been lied to and you seem to want hang on to it despite the fact that you’re actually speaking to someone that has traveled more extensively in China than I have here in the US. Let’s examine your quote; "when we read history or watch the news or read someone's eye-witness account, or whatever, we have to take our values with us." What do YOU think THAT does? You’re reading biased reports and you’re asking your students to add their own personal biases to it? That just gets you further and further away from the truth until you might as well just read some nice historical fiction by Anne Rice. I also don’t recall anyone saying that we should have socialized medicine. What I DO see is people saying EVERYONE should have access to bare minimum healthcare. How many billions do we spend every year because the poorest of the poor don’t have access to preventative medicine and end up in trauma and emergency care? What we have now is system that is so out of control that people that have Healthcare are being turned away to die.

Ms. Robin Whitelock, a teacher here at Filer Middle School developed cancer, she had MDCPS healthcare Insurance, she got some chemo and some radiation therapy and then the insurance company told her she had exhausted her medical insurance limits and they would only pay for hospice care until she dies. She appealed, they rejected her appeal, she went to the Red Cross, who she donated money to every year and they told her she made too much money to qualify so, she died. Meanwhile, I know you reject this, in China, EVERYONE is guaranteed bare minimum healthcare. Sure, if you’re wealthy or have Health Insurance you can get better but EVERYONE gets the least amount even the foreigners and the doctors I saw in China say more and more Americans are coming to them for care. I went there for Dental Care, my dentist here in America wanted to charge me $7,000, the Chinese dentist did ALL the work for about $300. Like I said, most of our physicians and dentists want to be millionaires and helping people has become a secondary issue. I remember my childhood pediatrician often telling my mom "pay me when you can" or saying things like "no charge, I know with 3 boys it gets expensive." I gotta laugh, there is NO way I would hear THAT today. The FIRST thing a doctor says today is "how will you pay me?" The strict "let the markets regulate themselves" just doesn’t work.

Case in point, the current Financial Crisis is directly related to this greed factor. No regulation means, collusion, collusion and rape the public until they have no more to give. As for your points about giving things to the D and F students. I guess provisions for the mentally and physically impaired isn’t important to you. When FDR became president, the elderly were working until they were used up and then in the streets begging until they died, with no healthcare or social structure to help them. There were no Pension Plans and employers didn’t give a dam. THAT sounds like what you’re espousing because THAT’S what happens when your plan plays out to its natural conclusion. Free markets, let the buyer beware, no regulations, no social structures...Social Darwinism. I dunno, to me? That sounds like hell on Earth.

Marx

Marx,

My quick response: I'll work on my response to everything you said...but please respond to the logic of my classroom analogy...what I have described is precisely what has happened and will continue to happen in this country if we continue to operate as if feelings are a means of cognition. Feelings are a result, not a cause. You reverse the Law of Causality and arrive at irrational, destructive, unworkable solutions.

Donn