I was referring to intelligence, as in it's root word, intellect. Physical promess is not an intellect in the traditional sense.

From Merriam Webster:

Main Entry: in·tel·li·gence
Pronunciation: \in-ˈte-lə-jən(t)s\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin intelligentia, from intelligent-, intelligens intelligent
Date: 14th century
1 a (1) : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations : reason; also : the skilled use of reason (2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests) b Christian Science : the basic eternal quality of divine Mind c : mental acuteness : shrewdness
2 a : an intelligent entity; especially : angel b : intelligent minds or mind <cosmic intelligence>
3 : the act of understanding : comprehension

Nothing in Merriam-Webster says *anything* about any type of intelligence save that of the mind. Oh, and I didn't mention IQ. You did. So don't try strawmanning it by going off on a tangent I didn't bring into the conversation.

Reading is a fundamental skill in developing the intellect of an individual. I'm not saying you should push your daughter, I'm just saying don't downplay the importance. Would you hire an IT person who couldn't read the white papers for the latest and greatest tech out there? How about a tax accountant who couldn't read the revisions to the tax law? Or an attorney who couldn't read the briefs files by the opposing side? Maybe you would rather your doctor not be able to read the medical journals that come his way? Or the surgeon about to perform brain surgery on you not be well-versed in the latest techniques because he couldn't read those same journals.

Some of those careers require mathematics (accountant), some manual dexterity (surgeon), some logical thinking (IT guy), some empathy/persuasion (lawyer) and others deductive reasoning from experience (family physician), but ALL require reading.

I don't care if my doctor, surgeon or lawyer can't balance his checkbook just as I don't care if my IT guy, accountant, or lawyer can handle a scaple or needle without hurting himself. But I do care that they can keep up on their profession and are capable of fulfilling their duties that require reading comprehension.

@Draugnar

The cost of covering you won't go down as a result of creating a national health insurance plan run by the government, it's just that everyone else will have to pay for your insurance as well.

Would you be willing to pay for me to have the sort of things you have (you take home a lot more money a year than I do, and I can't imagine that your take-home after-tax pay has you living at the standard of living I have) despite the fact I don't make the money you do?

If it's just for a government that collects taxes from me to pay for other people's insurance, then isn't it just for me to be provided with things that I can't afford at all, but people who make more than me can?

For the record, I don't think things should work that way. I make what I make and I determine my style of living based on that. If someone makes more than me, that's my problem.

While I have compassion for people who have trouble surviving due to medical or other costs being inordinate and using up most of their money, most of the people who can afford insurance but would be covered by national health insurance despite being able to afford it (even at a high price) probably have a much higher standard of living than I do despite those costs.

Sorry, I just don't buy that argument.

@DrOct

If you were just talking about regulation, and not the idea of federal government-provided health insurance, then we're likely in agreement (at least generally speaking). It is constitutional and, I believe, most just for us to change the way things work nation-wide with insurance.

The only thing I'm really against is the idea of the government paying for people's insurance outside of medicaid and medicare (and the military, etc., though I'm not a big fan of some of the ridiculous benefits certain government officials/politicians get for doing a lot of nothing).

Agreed, SteevoKun. That's why I changed jobs. But we do need legislation (read regulation) that establishes health insurance as a necessity and doesn't allow insurance companies to turn any one down, or provides for an alternative if the person cannot get reasonable insurance. I had to look high and low to find that one, and only one, insurer who would cover me. What if they hadn't been there?

I'm just saying regulate the inductry. It makes outrageous profits and cuts backroom deals right now. Regulate it like you would any utility so that every person can get fair and reasonable coverage, despite their medical or financial position. I don't want the government running my healthcare. Hell, I don't want government-sponsored or provided insurance. What I do want is a system in place where a person can go and say "No one will cover me or they want more than XX% of my net pay to cover me" and that agency will step in, find them coverage, and have it be within preset maximum guidelines.

@Draugnar

Then we agree. :)

I'm very happy with Obama's idea (I have only skimmed the House bill, so I don't know all the details of the actual legislation on the table yet) to eliminate the ability to turn people down for preexisting conditions and such as long as his idea to make it a legal requirement to have all Americans have health insurance coverage.

I think the best way to deal with the sort of situation you are in should be dealt with using tax breaks or something along those lines (I don't know how exactly to solve the issue - so I guess it could be said I shouldn't be too picky about how the problem is dealt with).

My two biggest issues are the one I outlined in the previous post and the government having too much economic control (which it really already has, unfortunately). I think tax breaks are possibly the best way to solve some of this because that wouldn't put the cash in the control of the government, but I know a Democrat-controlled Congress won't go for that.

@ rlumley: "Jamie: How is this different than how it is now? I'm not saying it's fair - but it is inescapable... Right now, people are trapped in public schools that suck. How is it bad to trap them into private schools that suck a little less?"

The current system is bad.
The system you are proposing is bad too.

I was not defending your present system, I was disagreeing with your proposal.

@SteevoKun - At the time I thought we were just talking about regulation, though I'm not convinced that a government run single payer system isn't a bad idea or that it would necessarily be unconstitutional.

I am curious as to why you think that Medicare and Medicaid are not unconstitutional but you think a wider program would be. What is the distinction in your mind?

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lol

I'm not sure i'm seeing the formatting quite right on that Thucy... What exactly is that supposed to be?

True story.

There was a man in Canada who had a brain tumor. He desperately needed an MRI, but the waiting list was 8 months and counting. Since he was not ok to travel, he went to his local vet clinic and got an MRI under the name "Fido".

This story happens thousands of times in a universal healthcare system. This is absolute madness. Can we at least wait to READ the bill before we shoot it through the Demoncrat-controlled checks and balances?

As for education, I have another story.

There is a high school in New York City. Harvey Milk High School. Sounds like a regular school, right? Wrong. It is reserved for GLBT students only. It cost a couple million to build, and serves a little over a hundred GLBT students formerly enrolled in New York City high schools. What makes this sickening is that over HALF of the schools in NYC were handed an "F" by the Department of Education. And NYC celebrates by establishing a country club for GLBT students. Sure, they're probably bullied. But, come on! That's not fair to the kids who get beat up for being fat. Or having a foreign accent. Or being smarter than everyone else. You need to learn to face your problems. Not run from them!

Have I made my point?

@ Jamie: If you have a better system, by all means propose one. But a competitive market is the best system I can think of. Merely because something is not perfect does not mean it is not a good idea.

@rlumley - In your model of a competitve market for education, what happens to those children whose parents are unable (for financial, educational, can't be arsedical etc reasons) to keep their children out of a failing school - do you condemn them to a life of less opportunity and potential because of their parents 'sins'? Really?

The aim of any educational system should be to ensure that all children receive an equally high standard of education, and all are given the opportunity to reach their real potential. Any system that *requires* failing/less good schools (as a pure market does), is inherently flawed in this respect.

What we should be doing (and this applies to both the US and UK) is seeking to improve all schools to a similar, high level. We need to let teachers teach, and actually get some respect back into the profession. We need to make sure that if we measure (which we must - show me a successful business that doesn't know what is going on in key metrics) we measure the right things in the right way, with the minimum of impact on the job of educating our kids. Choice will always have to exist - you can't ban fee-paying schools - but the aim should be to reduce the need for it to the point where only specific religious of speciality schools are 'needed'. It should not be (as it currently is) a leg up that doesn't truly reflect the academic ability of the students (on the whole), but (mostly) allows the richer sections of society boost their kids, over everyone else's. It's like the activation energy for a chemical reaction - we need to give everyone the same, big boost to see what they can acheive.

How do we do this - I don't know, but it's sure as hell not a pure market in education - to quote someone famous 'Failure Is NOT An Option'..

I'll save my thoughts on healthcare for another time - but the key question for me is 'What should public health care cover?'. There are things that I don't belive the NHS should be covering, but that's a different rant..

I'm currently a Canadian resident and have had a good deal of experience with both a government health-care and education system and have to say I personally like it. My school, a small country town school with only about two hundred students K to 12, was bar none. We had incredible teachers from elementary and on into high-school and test averages among some of the highest in the world.
I have become acquainted with the health-care system after breaking some bones and have to say it was a quick and relatively pain free experience, (the health-care, not the breaking part). I was into surgery mere weeks after the break and aside from one long wait due to a broken x-ray machine, I spent less than a few hours in waiting rooms. The best part no money came from my own pocket save for a few bucks for the x-rays.
Our health-care system is lacking in the MRI department, but that is mainly due to our huge, sparely populated landmass, not our government system. The people in this country are so few and far between expensive equipment like that is hard to fund. Also, most of the people heading south for treatment, excluding MRI's, that isn't provided up here are going for elective surgery, in other words plastic surgery, nose and boob jobs, something I don't think the government should pay for.
I personally believe Canada would be better served by moving further towards government control of health-care. In most European countries doctors are actually government employees and their health-care puts even ours to shame.

Someone tell me that my stories are sickening.

I just can't believe people keep ascribing views to me that I have never implied that I held.

For the love of God... This is not about my opinion on education policy. I haven't even fully explained what I would support in that. So please, SHUT THE HELL UP. Quit ascribing views to me that you have no evidence that I hold.

I'll reiterate: This thread is about how public options, in health care, education, and all markets, destroy the market. Please discuss that, and not what you think my education policy is.

Sorry. I'm a bit short tempered right now. :-)

Hey you're the one that brought up education by bringing it up as an example to support your healthcare ideas. I'm just trying to point out it's probably not the best example to support your idea that things run by the government are inherently bad, since as I said, other countries seem to do pretty well with it, and even many parts of THIS country do a pretty good job of it.

If you're not going to explain your views it's not unreasonable for people to try to argue against the most common arguments made for your general point of view.

And seriously, are you new here? (I know you aren't) THESE THREADS NEVER STAY ON TOPIC.

Sorry probably should have put a ;) at the end there.

I realize they never stay on topic. But that doesn't mean I don't want them to. :-)

In response to your point, the problem here is in our definition of "doing well". That's a comparative state - so SOMEONE has to be "doing well", since it is a relative description. So even if everyone is performing below their theoretical potential, someone is still "doing well".

I'll try to drag things back on topic, as there something I'm clearly not getting.

A purely market led provision of public services is a non-starter for me, because a pure market requires the failure of businesses (in this case hospitals / PCTs / schoolds or whatever) in order to work. I don't think that is an acceptable outcome.

Those proposing a pure market system - how do you deal with the impact of failure on the users (in this case health disadvantages up to and including premature death or guarateed sub-standard education)?

Please note I'm a) not claiming to have the answers or b) don't believe that public services couldn't be a hell of a lot better run.

And damn it, I should proof read better. Although I put my inability to type properly down to my education... ;)

@ The_Master_Warrior: "There was a man in Canada who had a brain tumor. He desperately needed an MRI, but the waiting list was 8 months and counting. Since he was not ok to travel, he went to his local vet clinic and got an MRI under the name "Fido"."

This is an example of a universal system existing but being either under-resourced or poorly planned. This is an argument in favour of either more resources being diverted to health, or better planning. It does not demonstrate that a universal system is bad.


"As for education, I have another story. There is a high school in New York City. Harvey Milk High School. Sounds like a regular school, right?"

I don't see how we could be expected to tell much about it just from the name.

"...Wrong. It is reserved for GLBT students only..."

According to both the Wikipedia article about this school, and the school's own admissions criteria (on the NYC Department of Education website) you are wrong about this. The school is open to students of any sexual orientation. Many of the students _are_ GLBT, but that is natural - if you get a school which is more open to GLBT students than most, then obviously a lot of GLBT students would want to go there. If the school refused to admit straight/heterosexual students, I would be opposed to that, but that doesn't appear to be the case.


@ rlumley: "If you have a better system, by all means propose one. But a competitive market is the best system I can think
of. Merely because something is not perfect does not mean it is not a good idea."

I propose:

1. Abolish all private schools. They are elitist and foster class divisions in our society. In many cases they also prevent politicians from engaging with the problems facing the education system as a whole, because their families are not affected by these problems.
2. Invest more in public schools. According to what I read, many US public schools are in crumbling buildings, and are so starved of funds that they cannot even afford up-to-date books or computer equipment. No wonder they are not able to give a good standard of education.

This is not enough but would make a good start.

I would propose similar steps in healthcare - abolish private hospitals! Abolish private health insurance! Go NHS!

@ Pete U: "A purely market led provision of public services is a non-starter for me, because a pure market requires the failure of businesses (in this case hospitals / PCTs / schoolds or whatever) in order to work. I don't think that is an acceptable outcome."

Pete +1. This is an excellent point. You are absoutely right, Pete. I cheered when I read this. How do you respond to this, rlumley and Master_Warrior?

Obviously my ultimate view on how we should radically change the system is known to many of you already, but I will not hijack rlumley's thread by steering the discussion towards that.

I will in a second. I'm about to take a test. :-)

"COMMUNIST!" he cries out upon hearing JamieT's proposal to ban private schools... :-) But then I knew you were a communist anyhow as you admitted as much.

Just having a little fun there before I get into my work day, Jamie.

But realistically, in a society based around the free enterprise system, you cannot ban something from being private to make everything equal. We aren't talking about banning drugs or alcohol or tobacco here, which would be a nationwide ban of the entire industry, but banning schools from being private so everyone has to attend the same low-grade teach to the test substandard schools. Many of these private schools are funded by religious organizations and you are treading on suppressing the freedom of religion, not to mention pissing off the various Catholic Diocese. I'm not Catholic, so the Rome and the Pope mean little to me spiritually, but ban Catholic schools and the political ramifications would be staggering. And if you banned all but the Catholic ones, then you'll have the ACLU rightfully screaming for "Separation of Church and State" as that would be tantamount to supporting a single religion. It's a slippery slope you go down when you start banning any previously legitimate business enterprise in the US. Look at how well prohibition worked...

@ Pete: I'm not proposing a pure market system. I propose abolition of public schools, and subsidization of private schools, to a certain level, say $10,000 per pupil per year. (Yes, that number is COMPLETELY pulled out of my butt) Under this type of system, the poor still have purchasing power to influence the market, and a low cost business model (Like Wal Mart) becomes feasible for education.

@ Jamie:
And where are we going to get the money to spend on increased funding for education?

Also, I object to the mentality that just because some can't have it means everyone shouldn't have it. But if that wasn't obvious, you should probably be shot.

Also: I'll note that this is STILL off topic. :-P My original point about it being immoral to subsidize things like this stands.

Master_Warrior
"As for education, I have another story. There is a high school in New York City. Harvey Milk High School. Sounds like a regular school, right?"

hhaha, typical tea party fashion the "master warrior" (thats your name now huh, wow) knows nothing about the history of the name Harvey Milk but just plows straight into his argument.

As for the US health system,, if you cant wrapped yourselves round why the US has a lower Life expectancy, higher infant mortality rate but spend nearly double Per capita expenditure on health and double Healthcare costs as a percent of GDP than most developed nations then....
golly you guys do need a better education system!

@ Draugnar: "COMMUNIST!" he cries out upon hearing JamieT's proposal to ban private schools... :-) But then I knew you were a communist anyhow as you admitted as much."

Yep, that's me.


"But realistically, in a society based around the free enterprise system, you cannot ban something from being private to make everything equal."

But of course, I do not support the free enterprise system.


"We aren't talking about banning drugs or alcohol or tobacco here, which would be a nationwide ban of the entire industry, but banning schools from being private so everyone has to attend the same low-grade teach to the test substandard schools."

Yes, but I am arguing that banning the private schools would actually help us raise the standards of the public schools.


"Many of these private schools are funded by religious organizations and you are treading on suppressing the freedom of religion, not to mention pissing off the various Catholic Diocese. I'm not Catholic, so the Rome and the Pope mean little to me spiritually, but ban Catholic schools and the political ramifications would be staggering."

I'm not sure about the USA, but here in the UK we have religious schools (both Catholic and Protestant) which are funded by the state. I am not a huge fan of them, but in terms of addressing your specific point, I hope this helps.


"It's a slippery slope you go down when you start banning any previously legitimate business enterprise in the US. Look at how well prohibition worked..."

Surely, Draugnar, you're not suggesting that if private schools were banned, organised criminal gangs would start running private schools, disguised as legitimate restaurants, funeral parlours and laundries?


@rlumley: "@ Jamie: "And where are we going to get the money to spend on increased funding for education?"

Less spending on the military would be a good start. Both the US and the UK governments spend vast amounts of money on useless things like nuclear weapons.

"Less spending on the military would be a good start. Both the US and the UK governments spend vast amounts of money on useless things like nuclear weapons."

I'll agree, but you're a fool if you think that alone can make up for it...

Private schools are not an excuse (proclaimed or otherwise) for our failure to provide good public schools. Private schools are the answer to the problem for those who can afford it because those in charge of managing public schools are so buried in politics and bureaucracy can't or won't do anything about the issues. (Personally, I got a full scholarship to a private Catholic school, and I received an immensely superior education to any of my friends in public schools in the area for exactly the same cost.)

It would be a better start for the government to subsidize private schools than to ban them, but then they couldn't be selective, and half the benefit of the private schools would be gone. They'd also start to control the curriculum if it was in Massachusetts or New Jersey, and the other half of the benefit would be gone.

What I mean to say is that, at least in highly bureaucratic states like Massachusetts, there's no good way to convert our current system into a good one, and in progressive states like Massachusetts, there's no chance of a good education system because of the forced rule of the golden mean wherever government is involved. The golden mean doesn't work anywhere, and especially not in education--but you expected this argument from someone named John Galt, I'm sure.