Ray,
You are quite right, Ray. Government run American education is a mess. It
should be part of a private competitive system. Then things would improve.
Harry
____________________________________________
Ray wrote:
>Good point. I believe that Mike Hollinshead was the first to point
>this out to me. I think that it will take a correlation of all of the
>external factors with requisite comparisons before serious conclusions
>can be drawn. Of course if you define the parameters you can
>prove almost anything by virtue of what you leave out.
>
>One of the
>things that is often left out of the Com/Cap comparison between the
>U.S. and the old Soviet Empire is the weather. They didn't suffer for
>want of oil but it was a hell of a lot easier to get it out of almost any
>of our fields than it is out of Siberia.
>
>Agriculture is another point.
>lf your growing season is short you need tremendous amounts of
>land to compete with those who can plant many crops in a small
>amount of land. And on and on.
>
>My point is that in areas where
>we are roughly equivalent like education, we have gotten our behinds
>whipped.
>
>The Arts are another area even though the official dogma
>is that they were pampered, anyone who knows their refugees
>finds the opposite is true although they are magnificently trained and
>have far superior work experience since they did have work before
>the collapse of the Soviet.
>
>American graduates who paid for their
>own education have an average full time employment of 2%. They
>also lose out to the émigrés because of the superior work experience
>that they bring to America. That makes the competitive advantage
>overwhelming in their ability to be creative, improvise and invent
>new models.
>
>If you have no work experience, your creativity is
>profoundly impaired as most of America's performing artists have
>discovered. Those who have succeeded usually have European
>experience to replace America's cultural poverty.
>
>William Bradford Ward wrote:
>
> > HARRY: Every year a bunch of US cardiac specialists went to the Soviet
> Union and for two weeks, they would work solidly in a Moscow hospital
> doing, I suppose, triage as they took patients from the multitude to
> operate and save lives. I remember one comment from a US doctor. He
> couldn't believe that the Head of Cardiology at the Moscow hospital got a
> salary of $7 a week - about the same as a bus driver. A sure way to
> attract the best people into medicine.
> >
> > I couldn't let Harry's comment go unnoticed although I really am not
> interested in the communist/capitalist argument but do have problems with
> people who use irrelevant arguments to make their point.
> >
> > At a meeting of the American Heart Association one year a bunch of
> cardiovascular surgeons said that the reason that there had been a 30%
> drop in cardiovascular deaths in the previous ten years was that open
> heart surgery was up 30% in the same period. A biostatistician friend of
> mine got up after that and showed that beer consumption was up 30% in the
> same period and said that it was truly the increase in beer drinking.
> >
> > By the way, no one has ever been able to show any relationship between
> health services in the US [except for immunizations] and improvement in
> health [except for the health of health care workers].
> >
> > ---
> > Bill Ward, MA, MPH, DrPH
> > Research Director
> > Arthritis Research Institute of America
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> > On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 13:32:24 Harry Pollard wrote:
> > >Victor wrote:
> > >
> > >>I am by no means a communist or socialist, but this looks like
> > >>propaganda-sriven tunnel vision to me. Comments follow.
> > >
> > >I rarely find a genuine communist or socialist. Lots of waffling liberals,
> > >but hardly any genuinely philosophic communists, or socialists. It's a
> shame.
> > >
> > >Meantime, you did not answer a single point in my post.
> > >
> > >You said:
> > >
> > >VICTOR: "There were most certainly inequities with high party officials
> > >living in
> > >luxury and ordinary people living very humbly in crowded apartments.
> (By the
> > >way what's the difference in life-style between a US senator and your
> > >average Washington, DC resident?)"
> > >
> > >HARRY: The Ukraine after the separation was landed with a dacha of a high
> > >party official. The story appeared in the newspapers because they were
> > >trying to get rid of it. They couldn't afford the $300,000 a year it cost
> > >to maintain it.
> > >
> > >Yep! There certainly were inequities.
> > >
> > >But the USSR was a classless society - remember? The "to each" and "from
> > >each" nonsense - remember? Meantime, Senators like other politicians all
> > >over the world lead the good life as they "serve us".
> > >
> > >VICTOR: "However, medical care was universally available and pensioners
> > >could live without financial anxiety. This is not the case after a decade
> > >of US-driven free enterprise in Russia. For another communist country,
> > >Cuba, I read recently that the infant mortality rates are less than in the
> > >USA."
> > >
> > >HARRY: Every year a bunch of US cardiac specialists went to the Soviet
> > >Union and for two weeks, they would work solidly in a Moscow hospital
> > >doing, I suppose, triage as they took patients from the multitude to
> > >operate and save lives. I remember one comment from a US doctor. He
> > >couldn't believe that the Head of Cardiology at the Moscow hospital got a
> > >salary of $7 a week - about the same as a bus driver. A sure way to
> attract
> > >the best people into medicine.
> > >
> > >I also wonder whether the millions of "officials" in the communist
> > >hierarchy used that hospital - or perhaps they had an inequity somewhere,
> > >fully over-staffed and without the problems the common folk suffered.
> > >
> > >Vivid in my mind is a Ted Koppel television program in which a place
> > >looking like an abattoir had a line of people awaiting abortions - there
> > >was no anesthetic. One woman was having her 35th abortion. A high school
> > >kid was having her fifth. Ugh!
> > >
> > >Yes, medical care was universally available, all right.
> > >
> > >And of course "pensioners could live without financial anxiety". I
> fear you
> > >have "propaganda-driven tunnel vision" when you look a a country where
> > >practically anyone not official was not long way from the edge of
> > >starvation. Thank God for the free market, beg pardon - black market. That
> > >kept the people fed - at a cost.
> > >
> > >Our child mortality is certainly not the best in the world, though I
> expect
> > >that if we measured only those outside the inner cities, it would be best.
> > >The inner cities is where the greatest concentration of welfare state
> > >services are. Yet, all we need to do to improve things is to
> decriminalized
> > >drugs. That would remove half the inmates of our prisons, too.
> > >
> > >However, in dictatorial countries such as Cuba, statistics such as child
> > >mortality are more likely to come out of their public relations office
> than
> > >the medical department.
> > >
> > >You said:
> > >
> > >VICTOR: "Good God! I'd far rather have a doctor who discussed football
> > >results than
> > >investments. I'd fear the latter's main preoccupation would be
> operating on
> > >my wallet rather than healing me. In fact the US health care system is
> a mess.
> > >
> > >HARRY: In a market system, if a doctor doesn't do something properly, his
> > >wallet empties. We probably have the best doctors in the world. We
> should -
> > >because they come here from all over the globe to enjoy our higher
> standard
> > >of living. And they are not hired, or they are fired if they don't measure
> > >up. (The AMA, which is not a market organization, may try to sweep things
> > >under the rug, but that's another discussion.)
> > >
> > >VICTOR: "Nine years ago in a study in the New England Journal of
> Medicine it
> > >was pointed out that one private insurer (Massachusetts Blue Cross/Blue
> > >Shield) with subscribers equal to about 10% of the population of
> Canada (2.6
> > >million) needed more employees than all ten provincial health plans
> > >combined! Presumably this army of free enterprise gnomes is needed to
> prove
> > >that subscribers are not entitled to the treatments they thought they
> were."
> > >
> > >HARRY: Perhaps, the Canadian system doesn't have the money to hire
> adequate
> > >staff. However, not to worry. Canadians can purchase insurance policies to
> > >let them hop across the border to get the care the Canadian system
> fails to
> > >give. And they do just that.
> > >
> > >But, apparently, you are critical of Massachusetts. Their patients need
> > >more service than Canadian patients. Well, guess you'll just have to live
> > >with it. These pampered Americans. You know how it is. Last two times I
> > >went in for day surgery, as I left I was presented with a rose wrapped in
> > >plastic. Such fol-de-rolls!
> > >
> > >Studies of the satisfaction of US patients indicates that something like
> > >90% of them are satisfied with what they get. Patients of doctors are more
> > >satisfied than those of Health Maintenance Organizations - though the
> > >difference is not significant.
> > >
> > >I've been with my present HMO for about 36 years. It's a big one with some
> > >5 million members. It's family cost has never been excessive, and now
> under
> > >medicare it costs about $90 a month for the two of us.
> > >
> > >Service? One Wednesday afternoon, I phoned my doctor there and got his
> > >nurse. Told her I had a mysterious lump. She told me to come in tomorrow
> > >morning. Thursday, my doctor looked at it, called Urology and was told
> > >everyone was doing surgery. He got the department head to see me. When I
> > >walked across there, he was waiting along with a surgeon just out the
> > >operating room. They checked it out, then sent me to pre-op. This is where
> > >you do tests, get X-Rays and other things, chat with the anesthesiologist
> > >about what will happen, view films about my kind of operation. Finished
> > >pre-op Friday morning.
> > >
> > >Monday morning they were working on me so that afterwards I could get my
> > >presentation rose.
> > >
> > >I thought it was pretty competent - even if you think its a mess.
> > >
> > >One of the best medical plans we've used was PSI (Physicians,
> Surgeons, Inc.).
> > >
> > >This was a privately run group actually set up by the doctors. We actually
> > >got house calls! That along with Blue Cross handled our medical needs
> well.
> > >
> > >I was a member of it for 7 years in the Province of Ontario.
> > >
> > >Harry
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail
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