Hard to believe it’s the latter half of September already! Mexico celebrates it’s independence day today, not to be confused with Cinco de Mayo… Although I’m sure some clever beer executive is trying to work out a catchy phrase like “Drinko of Cinco” and turn another ethnic holiday into nothing more than a booze fest.
- The rates people pay for health insurance continue to rise. In the last 10 years, insurance rates have risen by an amazing 131%. BUT EVERYTHING IS JUST FINE with Health Insurance in America. The market will provide lower costs and higher levels of service!!! Any day now!
- Reading the letters to the editor section of the paper is something I enjoy doing on a regular basis as it can give you a good sense of where the community is at on an issue. Sometimes though, it’s just silly what the JS lets through. Take this from Mark Koenke in Jackson: “I checked my copy (of the Constitution) and seem to have misplaced the section calling for the federal government to be involved in health care.”. I checked my copy as well, and also didn’t find anything about health care. Strange enough, I also didn’t find anything about government being involved in regulating airlines, providing food stamps to the needy, building highways, providing educational institutions….
- Emerson started a new school last Friday. We had been on the waiting list at Woodlands for nearly a year and jumped at the chance to get her into the school located on Bluemound and Hawley. It all happened very fast, but she’s adapting well and is loving her new school. She’s now officially a student of the Milwaukee Public School system. Exhibit #18,761 that I am getting older in a hurry.
I live in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee, WI with my wife Jen, our daughter Emerson, and son Carter.
So the answer to higher health care costs driven mostly by higher demand is more government?
In ten years, MPS has lost 20% enrollment and it’s budget has increased 63%. Per pupil spending had nearly doubled in that time, yet there is no increase in performance. The tax levy has also nearly doubled in 10 years, and remember, they have 20% LESS students to teach. That’s what government offers us.
There is no agency in the Federal Government that has shown restraint in spending while being able to provide quality service to the customer. Many are deeply in debt and at risk of failure. The reason people are against the health care take-over is that they realize waiting in line at the DMV is annoying, and getting the wrong information from the IRS is troublesome, but waiting in line for a doctor and getting the wrong information from the hospital will have much more serious repercussions. The government has a terrible track record, yet you want me to give up a system that works for most people to try out one that has never performed well for 225 years?
You might have a point on the Constitution thing. I imagine that interstate highways fall under commerce, as well as airlines.
You are right though, Federal food stamps and Federal education controls and mandates are not in there. Perhaps we should return control of those items to the people through state and local government and cut the size of the Federal bureaucracy? I like your line of thinking there, Dan.
“BUT EVERYTHING IS JUST FINE”?!?!? Nobody believes that, and to insinuate that a particular group of people (Republicans) don’t want to fix healthcare and continue with the status quo is at best inaccurate.
“Oh, Dan, you just need a little more patience, and that great invisible hand of capitalism will make everything fine. After all, it is invisible, so no one knows what it’s doing! What change that?”
So says the shrill voice in my head that enjoys voicing a stance perfectly opposite to how I feel…