Re: Debrate Thread I am in favor of a limited government-provided health care system, and here's why. (1) Naysayers often argue that those without health care should just get jobs. However, there are many people that DO have jobs, that DO work hard, but don't have health care. These include independent contractors, artists, musicians, artisans (e.g., those that make and sell their own furniture). You can't tell me that these people refuse to work--they just don't work for corporations. (2) [This is my own argument, and I've never seen it anywhere else]. I believe that a limited government-sponsored health care system will, in turn, positively affect the economy and increase innovation and the development of new technology in this country. Here's why. Let's say that you are an entrepreneur, or you are an inventor, or you have an idea for a new technology that will make everyone's lives better. In order to develop this idea or technology, you have to leave your corporate job and work for yourself. Maybe you will succeed. Maybe you will fail. But now there is an additional variable to consider along with the potential rewards: Is it worth giving up your work-provided health care to pursue the development of this novel idea or technology? Maybe, if you are single. But what if you have a family? I submit that some entrepreneurs are reluctant to go out on their own, because they are afraid of what the loss of health care will mean to their family. The long term result is that entrepreneurial spirit is not allowed to flourish. Providing health care to these people will essentially be an investment in the nation's human capital, an investment in the innovation and ideas--and ingenuity--of American citizens. Somewhere out there may be another Edison who is considering leaving his corporate job to develop the light bulb. He should have that opportunity, without putting the health of his family at risk. Therefore, some limited, basic health care coverage will allow the economy to grow by removing one of the barriers to sole proprietorship and small business.
Re: Debrate Thread I've lived in Sweden. The health care system is quite universally popular, across the classes. There are obviously some who don't care for it, but far fewer, as a percentage basis of the "rich," than in the US. Going to other countries for care doesn't say anything...all over the US, there are people who go to India now for major procedures because India has cutting-edge medicine, but much more efficient processes, so they can offer the best skill and techniques for much less than in the US. The health care is really not significantly worse quality in Sweden than in the US, but everyone has access to it. This leads to higher taxation, of course, but the culture is different...across Northern and Western Europe, people (even the well-off) believe that everyone has some responsibility to the society as a whole, rather than taking the viewpoint that they somehow earned all their money with no help from society and should therefore be left alone. If this "socialist steam-roller" that you seem certain is coming creates a similar system of health care here in the US, I'll be very happy. I'm upper-middle class...I can afford my own health care and insurance, pretty much anything I need or want. Such a system wouldn't benefit me, so this isn't a desire for government to "entitle" me to something. But I think it is absolutely vital. I don't think you're on the mark about Obama or the Democrat congress...I don't think they are even close to embracing what is called socialism in Europe. But if they do a strong universal health care system, that will be wonderful.
Re: Debrate Thread That was not my experience living in Sodermalm. I found the dismissal of their healthcare as ineffective and inefficient as the norm, and as a business owner there it was to my benefit to have universal healthcare. Sweden's culture of lagom isn't the same as the States, nor should we strive for it to be so. In fact, one of the real issues for Sweden is the flight of their brightest minds because of income redistribution. They'll have the government pay for them to attend Lund or Uppsala and then they'll clear out. It sounds like you'll receive a psychic benefit from knowing that others are cared for. I happen to believe in rugged individualism. I believe in assistance for those who are truly in need, but what our social programs are creating is a permanent underclass. These people know nothing else other than relying on the government for their existance. I happen to think this development is corrosive for both society and the individual. We were meant for work. If we, through the sweat of our brow, happen to achieve more than others, that's something to which we should endeavor. Instead, it seems more than ever we're living by the old Russian proverb, "the tallest blade of grass is the first to meet the scythe."
Re: Debrate Thread Isn't that their choice to pursue those vocations? I remember once when I was starting my own company I paid for catastrophic insurance. I believe it covered anything over $5K and it cost me $41/mo. There are all sorts of private policies avalable. There is also the profit motive. To pay for this healthcare, taxes will be have to be so high as to not make being an entrepreneur worthwhile. I'm actually not opposed to an extremely limited form of subsidized healthcare that bookends the cost spectrum. On the lower end of the cost spectrum, I'd like to see incentives for RNs to become ANPs and hang their own shingles. You could then provide a voucher for one physical per year to be done by an ANP, which would cut the cost by 1/2 or 2/3. That takes care of the preventive medical issue. On the other end of the spectrum, I'd like for the government to provide catastophic insurance for those cases say above $200K. If you eliminate those tails, private insurance gets much cheaper and everyone is able to be covered by themselves at a reasonable price.
Re: Debrate Thread I didn't find that to be accurate at all. Sweden isn't isolated in government paying for education...that's common, to varying extents, across Europe. Europe isn't experiencing "brain drain." They're just as active in science and technology as the US and the economy of the EU surpasses that of the US. In basically all measures of standard of living, innovation, economic strength and health, Europe does as well or better than the US and shows no signs of suffering ill-effects from embracing more socialism than the US does. I guess we'll all receive "psychic benefit" from things going the way we think is right. That, of course, is not what I meant. I meant that I don't support this because I need it. The insinuation from conservatives is generally that health care or other forms of "wealth redistribution" is a form of class warfare, with the have-nots jealously demanding that their superiors share their wealth. I think that common suggestion (not necessarily from you; I have no idea what your position on that is and I'm not attributing it to you) is an enormous distortion and I wanted to make it clear that that's certainly not where I am coming from. No one is rugged individualist in today's society. Cowboy culture is over. Every man and woman depends on society in a number of ways every day. And certainly no one earns their money in a vacuum. Put whoever you consider the best businessman/woman on a desert island and see how much money they make. I agree. I am not in favour of communism, or equality of results. I think people should be able to rise above others through dint of their own efforts. However, I believe in equality of opportunity, which I don't think we remotely have. In the absence of equality of opportunity, I think wealth redistribution makes a necessary compromise...opportunity is unequal, so we recognize that and adjust for that by pooling some of that money to help those who need it.
Re: Debrate Thread I didn't say that Sweden was unique in paying for university. I just said that those that have the ability to to truly excel oftentimes head to the States. Part of the reason has to do with the strong cultural connection that nine required years of English in school provides. Part of it is that there are Swedes who don't wish to feel constrained by their society's insistence on community before the individual. And I wasn't talking about Europe, I was talking about Sweden. There are countries that offer plenty of opportunity on the Continent. But lets not pretend there aren't plenty of Euros who wish to work in Silicon Valley or on Route 128. And your point doesn't even address business or medicine. And as for standard of living, we're going to agree to disagree. There's a higher variance of standard here, but our standard is higher. Our unemployment is lower than the EU and our goods and services are less expensive. Our homes are bigger and a higher percentage of those in the US own automobiles. Their poor live in hardscrabble conditions as do ours, with narcotics and hoplessness in large supply. Their wealthy live much more modest lives. Finally, their middle class live a life with fewer material possessions. Let us not forget that most of Europe finances its socialist paradise under our security umbrella. If Europe were forced to pay their share of that function, they'd find those state benefits much harder to support. I don't dislike socialized medicine because it's about wealth redistribution. I dislike it because it provides fewer services at a higher cost. I dislike it because I prefer freedom over equality. I dislike it because the next step in socialized medicine is telling doctors how much they can make and pharmaceutical companies how much they can charge for a drug. We have different definitions of what it means to be a rugged individualist. Howard Roark was a rugged individualist (although fictional). I'm not against living in a community using money as a medium to exchange the goods and services I supply to the economy for other goods and services. I'm against having my life largely dictated to my by a faceless bureaucracy. I believe in a level playing field, but I also believe it's okay if others get a head start. In fact, it's virtually impossible to offer equality of opportunity without first creating equality of results. Otherwise, everyone would go to Choate or Deerfield rather than P.S. 38. And since that can't happen, life is ruled by the lowest common denominator, which means we all live a lesser life.
Re: Debrate Thread Which I don't think is at all true. There are Swedes who head to the States, just as there are Americans who go to Europe and other parts of the world. It has nothing to do with ability to excel as it does philosophies, desired cultures and a multitude of other factors. I think your implication that the Swedes who go to America are a picked population of the brightest isn't correct. And vice versa. Many bright American minds would love to work at CERN. I don't think international measures support that at all. International quality of life and standard of living indicators that I've seen over the years generally don't rank the US at the top. The US is certainly not bad, but Scandinavian countries are often near the top, along with assorted other European nations. My own experience was that services were cheaper, the people I knew were just as materially prosperous as the the people I know in the US and land prices were great. It's impossible to offer equality of opportunity, so the answer is to recognize that it's a fallacy to insist everyone "gets what they deserve" as though everything is in a pure competition. Pure competitions don't bequeath certain participants head starts. There's an inherent fairness, not unfairness, in offering services to everyone, largely financed by those who have succeeded the most. They didn't succeed in a perfectly fair competition, so there's no justification to saying that every cent they made is only theirs and society has no claim on any of it.
I just don't grasp the aversion to government-provided health care, particularly from certain religious groups. Providing health care to all citizens is no less a moral issue than promoting life over abortion. For those whose political views are informed by their religious views, I don't understand why the two issues aren't viewed in tandem.
Re: Debrate Thread Look at the top Ph.D candidates. If they can, they head here. In fact, there's a US-based group of Swedish academics that help grease the skids. They take a look at who has promise and then try to get them here. Why? Because Sweden's educational system can't offer the same opportunities as does ours. Many never go back. Are there backpackers and models that leave Sweden for the States? You bet. Are they germaine to the conversation? Not really. One lab vs. an entire industrial area. Sure, I can pick the outliers too. If you look at employment ingress/egress figures, you'll see that more educated Euros head to the States than do educated people from the States head to Europe. Those figures are based on the overall population. In the Scandinavian countries, the economic distribution is tighter, which leads to higher scores. In the States, the distribution is much broader. However, it's tough to take a look at an average city, town or suburb in the States, compare it with one in Scandinavia or Western Europe and say objectively that they're wealthier or have the ability to purchase more goods and services. What goods and services? Food? Booze? Entertainment (movies, going out to dinner, going to a club, plays, the opera, etc.)? A health club membership? Petrol? Similar housing? Even a ride on the Tunnelbana which is heavily subsidized isn't cheaper than our mass transit. When you throw the VAT on top of everything, the cost of living is even more expensive. The numbers bear it out. There are all kinds of rich people in Sweden; I used to race with them on the Gotland Runt. Generally, they had inherited wealth because the business climate there makes it tough to earn massive wealth without moving your personal fortune out of the country. I'm a fan of economic mobility. Creeping socialism tends to freeze that mobility with everyone remaining where they are. As for land prices there, it's the size of California with 9MM people. It's pretty sparsely populated. Stockholm is comparable in size to Portland. Let me assure you that the cost of my flat on Soder was about four times what a comparable apartment would be in PDX. But my little cottage on the Archipelago? That was dirt cheap. Of course, I only leased the land from the government. I can't express how much I disagree with this sentiment. I don't believe it's "fairness" to have someone else dictate that someone else should part with their money. What if government dictated that those in California or Massachusetts made too much from their homes and should distribute that wealth to those who live in Kansas or Oklahoma and who didn't make money from buying a house and living in it for a decade? After all, is it fair that someone is lucky enough to live in a good real estate market while others live in a market where the only valuation is the cost of materials plus cheap land? In my opinion it's a dangerous and slippery slope for government to make concrete judgments against those who have been lucky enough or who worked hard enough to do well, not to put a roof over someone's head or food in their belly, but to subsidize their lives at a middle-class standard. I have no problem helping the truly needy. I have a real problem helping those that are perfectly capable of helping themselves. I have no problem with the lucky sperm club. I happened to roll snake eyes on that one and had to earn what little I have through working harder than most. I prefer to look at those who have done better than I have with admiration rather than figuring out how I can bring them down to my level. By that view, rather than allowing society to draft off the fastest among us, you put a restrictor plate on it, thereby limiting our advancement.
There are plenty of congregations that pass around the collection plate when one of their parishiners is in need. If I had to guess, it's the idea that government is the answer to all of our problems. Oftentimes, local charities do a better job. In fact, many hospitals are subsidized by churches.
Re: Debrate Thread I think you're simply taking the few who support your nationalistic argument and acting as if they represent the entire group of "top minds." Let me guess, the ones who don't leave Sweden "didn't have enough promise" and thus weren't helped over by these US-based Swedes? It's very easy to craft rhetorical arguments like that. Cherry-pick the ones that support you, dismiss the ones that don't. Right, one world-leading academic area versus one world-leading industrial area. It was a quick and easy example to illustrate that Europe also has tremendous opportunities for smart people. Okay, show me. Having looked at both, it's pretty easy for me to say that they look pretty identical. I've seen quite a few cities and towns in the US over my life and quite a few cities and towns in Europe (Sweden, England, France, Italy, Germany). None of it suggested to me that the US is clearly a better place to live from a material standpoint. Cities and towns varied, of course, but big cities looked quite alike as did the smaller towns. Which numbers? You just waved away the types of measures the UN compiles as not comparable due to the "tighter" variation in economic status (which I'm not sure makes sense...the poverty in the US matters). Some of those things are cheaper, some are more expensive. Things like opera and museums are cheaper, due to being subsidized. Mass transit is generally cheaper (not always) but always a far, far better service. Most mass transit in the US is in shambles. Gasoline, food and alcohol are more expensive. Housing I've found to be cheaper for comparable accommodations. In totality, for similar types of jobs, one had similar purchasing power. Europe actually has greater rates of social mobility than the US (like moving from working class to middle class and that sort of thing) according to all that I've read. I think you're wrong about what "freezes" mobility. Capitalism is the machine that creates static classes, in my opinion. If you have money, capitalism is a great engine for making more money. If you don't have money, capitalism makes it extremely hard to get started. Capitalism basically exacerbates your situation...which is great if you're in a strong economic situation, but pretty bad if not. I prefer to evaluate reality objectively rather than try emotional appeals about class warfare. Everyone who succeeds did it as a part of society and could not have accomplished a penny of it on their own, with no society at all. It's not a matter of bringing anyone down or having either admiration or disdain. It's a matter of paying into a society that one has benefited from. Hey, in capitalism, you don't get something for nothing. No reason not to put a price tag on opportunity, too, and that's what taxation is. Fair price for a valuable good.
