You know so little about America. If I wanted organic food, I can get it everywhere.
We are paying a high price for petrol - just over $3. Yet, my French niece tells me she pays over $7. In Britain it's about the same. I suppose paying those high prices means you are not living at the expense of the future. Yet, driving around the Paris Peripherie, or circling on London's M25 doesn't look to me like Europe is refusing to expense the future. The "absent health insurance" thing is in large part a myth. Lots of people don't want health insurance, mostly the young. Massachusetts has complete health insurance that anyone can join. Many, perhaps most, don't seem to want to join it. Less than 10% of Mass. residents are uninsured - that's some 460,000 people. Seems a lot, but 100,000 of them are already eligible for Medicaid. They simply are too unconcerned to sign up. Find out about Medicaid at: http://tinyurl.com/27v3tz Another 168,000 live in households with incomes above $55,000 so they could probably get more than adequate health insurance if they wanted it. So, that leaves about 200,000 poor people out of a total population of 6.4 million - not far short of the population of Switzerland. I suspect that many of these would not choose to join health insurance anyway - such as the younger ones. Anyway, the poor without insurance are about 3% of the population. Of course the Michael Moores aren't interested in 3%. They want big numbers of uninsured to support their political theories. I had occasion to see what a county hospital is like in California. These are for poor people. I found it always crowded, yet the treatment was excellent. The cancer patient was given - free - the latest and most expensive drugs, he always found a bed when it was required, the doctors were among the best in the area, the nurses were plentiful, efficient, and caring. Overwhelmingly, the patients were Hispanic Americans. I would think only the best hospitals in Europe and Canada would equal the standard of treatment. I know many County Hospitals are overwhelmed and the treatment is not so good - perhaps on par with the UK National Health hospitals that have trouble getting certified. But that can be handled by improving the County system. It would be better handled by removing the reasons for people being poor - but that's too much to hope for. The major criticism of the American health system is the enormous price we have to pay for drugs - and Bush is mainly responsible, though Congress is well fattened on contributions from the pharmaceutical companies. This will likely bring down Medicare if something isn't done. (As you know, I would end the patent system, which would deal with a lot of other problems too.) Medicare handles people over 65 with complete health care. About $80 a month is deducted from my Social Security payment to pay for it. My HMO - Kaiser Hospital - pays $15 of this. Although our 'life expectancy' and 'infant mortality' are said to be poor, if we look only at the white population things are more comparable. Black figures are much poorer, though there is continuous improvement in both whites and blacks. Figures for black mortality from stroke are 44% higher than whites, 20% higher for heart disease, 23% higher from cancer, and 774% higher from HIV. I haven't the latest figures, but 80% of violent crime victims were black and more than half the homicides are committed by blacks. Some courageous black leaders have had the courage to call for an end to blacks killing and hurting each other. The reasons for the mayhem are clear. As I have said on this list, I look at a class of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed black kids and I get heart-sick for I know that perhaps half of them will get nothing jobs, and the rest may never get any worthwhile job at all. It's no coincidence that when times are good and jobs are plentiful, crimes decrease. So, although health coverage looks spotty in the States, it isn't as bad as it is painted. As a final point, in both the US and Canada, distance is a problem with ensuring complete health coverage. We could put Switzerland in a corner of Texas and nobody would notice it. If you get ill, or suffer injury away from a town, you might well die and no National Health Service could help you. Harry ********************************** Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles. Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 818 352-4141 ********************************** > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Christoph Reuss > Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 10:02 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [Futurework] More gloooooooom > > Harry Pollard wrote: > > I don't now how much you pay for things but I guarantee > > that it's a lot more than we pay. > > > > And because things are cheap we are able to buy quality > > items and are not forced to buy poor quality by pinching > > pennies. > > > > When I'm in Europe I am horrified at the cost of > > everything. > > American prices are lower mainly because you guys are > maximizing > externalization of costs at all levels... from cheap gas to > absent health insurance... you're literally living at the expense > of the future, the past and the rest of the planet. But this > also affects the quality of things. We talked about this earlier, > e.g. how it's impossible to get genuine organic food in America > because it all has to be cheapo. And it also affects wages, > which limit people's purchasing power. So, as usual, you're living > in an illusion, twisting things around, when you assert that people > are able to buy quality items because things are cheap. > > Chris > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > ~~~~~~~~~~ > SpamWall: Mail to this addy is deleted unread unless it contains > the keyword > "igve". > > > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca > http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@fes.uwaterloo.ca http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
