Sowell only goes so far. I can't see him saying, "Once you have had to walk across the bridge in freezing weather, day in and out, to work hard....the thought of going bankrupt from lack of health care from lack of medical insurance seems trivial after my heart attack. As I watch a stockbroker in the same condition getting far better care and fully covered by his employer, worried only if his heart attack means the end of recreational yatching...."

It's basically the old Patron` line. "The hard working peasants are happy with their dirt huts and the rice and beans I give them. It is only the idle that are malcontented with their meagre existence".

hmm... they could at least invent an antidote to slothfulness, could be money in that. I dunno.

Cedarford:

I have been hungry, and I have had a heart attack. I'm now in a position to enjoy my labor, but I guard it jealously because I know hunger and I know lack of insurance/medical care, and housing, and...

You're right, though, Sowell doesn't go far enough. What he ought to propose is that anyone demanding I give up my Lexus or Suburban ought to be required to give up his/her's first, with no chance of regaining it. Or give up his/her country home, or ability to get there without walking. I imagine there would be fewer "rich" wanting me not to buy farmland to build on.

Liberalism is so phony it stinks. It is based entirely on the premise that I have mine, now I'm gonna prevent you from ever having a chance to get yours.

Libs can go suck eggs.

Sowell's comments go hand in hand with that story about the Dems not understanding why the "working class" is moving Republican vice Democratic.

It's not just because Republicans are less patronizing-- although that's a big part of it. It's because the whole concept of earning and property and income and "fruit of your labors" appeals to, well, everyone.

The working class in America is a class that works. . . for about a generation, maybe two. Then through education and hard work, people succeed. It's hard on that first generation-- poverty always is-- but the whole working class conceit ignores the American dream.

The working class doesn't want the working class coddled by handouts-- it wants to *leave* the working class. This is such a self-evident duh that I am still shocked the Democratic Party hasn't realized it even after sixty years.

Poverty is not noble, and no one wants to stay poor. When you have no money, you may begrudge the people who have money but did not earn it, but very few will begrudge the people who worked hard to get where they are. Which is the majority of the so-called "rich" in this country.

Oh, one other tangent, more closely related to Sowell's comments-- America's poor are the wealthiest in the world.

Owning a television is not poverty. Owning a Playstation is not poverty. Wearing hundred-dollar sneakers is not poverty. Hell, having a fridge and air conditioning and immunizations and a diet that provides *too many* calories is not poverty.

That does not mean the poor have it easy, nor does it mean that their lives can not be improved significantly.

But what it does mean is that our society's conception of poverty is still mired in a 1930's, Dust Bowl watercolor stereotype that exists in very few places in America.

I wonder-- how much is our consumer culture driving our conception of poverty? Since our lives are so often dominated by our need to acquire ever increasing amounts of "stuff," does that mean those who can't play in that game as successfully are "poor"? Is there an objective standard of poor any longer, or is it simply skewed?

I'd venture that many times more people in America are suffering from envy rather than poverty.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

The local "alternative" weekly here is very much into things like requiring a higher minimum wage, yet a significant amount of the employment at that same paper is in unpaid internships...

Umm. I was going to make a couple of the points that Dave at Garfield Ridge made, but he did so much more eloquently than I would have.

Perhaps more importantly, they want their children to have the opportunity to leave the working class. America is unique because of the relative ease of intergenerational class mobility.

Looking back a couple of generations, my forebears were relatively poor German farmers (father's side) and relatively poor Swedish factory workers (mother's side). I am professional, and affluent (and like my German and Swedish forebears, Lutheran).

Odd that the communist vision of a classless society is more true here than anywhere else. Even in other nominally free, capitalist and "Western" societies, like the U.K., your destiny is determined by the social class of your parents far more than in America.

I doubt that there will ever be anything like a classless society. We seem to be wired to stratify ourselves. Tribal, feudal, communist and capitalist societies all end up with well defined classes and the inevitable Top Dog. There is always a Pharoah, an Inca, a Charlemagne, a Louis XIV, a Stalin, or a Bill Gates.

But in America, more than anywhere else, your children can become anyone. The social class of your parents is less a limiting factor than anywhere else.

Parents everywhere know this. That's why they keep flocking across our borders.

And (if you want to know what I think about immigration), to them I say -- God bless you. Welcome to America. Have kids. We need them to fund the Social Security system.

Being someone who provides a lot of medical care to heart attack victims who will never pay me back, I think someone who posted above doesn't know WTF they are talking about. If you get standard US hospital care for an MI, but don't get to stay in the private hospital suite with 24hr private nurse, you are not deprived. You are merely getting a hell of a lot better care than 99% of non-americans get for their heart attacks. Whether you pay your f'n bill or not.

Sorry Dave at Garfield Ridge -

America's working poor are by no means the best off in the world.

The working poor in Europe and modern Asia fare better with higher life expectancy and standards of living - because they are not denied health care.

Debt is reasonable on the working poor there and they have access to higher education.

America's poor are the wealthiest in the world.

Nonsense. No other advanced nation places it's working poor in risk of being utterly wiped out by a job loss or urgent medical condition like America does.

you may begrudge the people who have money but did not earn it, but very few will begrudge the people who worked hard to get where they are.

No, methinks that Americans no longer worship the greedy entrepreneur like they used to, or justify hard-working CEOs or lawyers earning 2,000 times the average wage of their workers or clients as America's wealth continues to concentrate in a small elite at the top of our society.

BigWig -

No, America is set up to provide free care to illegal aliens or other indigents, and will give medical insurance & care that gets better with wealth - but screws the working poor. Other advanced countries protect the working poor and their medical needs , hence, their whole societies have higher average life expectancies than the US does.

Key to that is preventative care. Japanese, Thais, Greeks, Finns all ensure that their hard workers at any strata can get a doctor's visit and low cost cholesterol drugs....so they have less heart attack deaths per annum. You "save" a restaurant worker with no health insurance from a heart attack here, the hospital charges full rates, no insurance discount, and goes after the man's home, life savings to recoup the costs.

Latin America recently tried the American system and found it led to crony capitalism, wealth concentration in the hands of a few, and screwing the working poor. The whole continent is now moving to the Left after the failure of the American system to work.

I know some people are probably writing furious rebuttals, but do us all a favor and STARVE IT.

Thanks.

Advice noted and taken, lauraw.

lauraw:

OK -- but it's not easy.

*Stuffs sock in mouth*

Hurts, I know.
You guys are awesome.
Just exhale and the pain will pass...

While we're waiting, how about some boob status reports from the ladies?

Dogstar:

Thanks for keeping our priorities straight. Sheesh. I can't believe I was posting my views on intergenerational class mobility.

Who's in the mood for some Batman quotes?

Cedarford: So that's why middle-class Brits fly to India to get their medical care? Here's the link: http://www.yahoo.com/_ylh=X3oDMTEwdnZjMjFhBF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEdGVzdAMwBHRtcGwDaW5kZXgtY3Nz/s/240162

Old Coot - Its like middle class Americans and elderly swarming across our borders for cheaper drugs in Canada, and cheaper dentistry in Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Brits have noticed that India, Cuba, even Russia offer far cheaper operations with no wait and comparable success rates to the Public Health Service. Britain has always said the waits are not due to lack of funds, but lack of capacity due to unexpected surges. Labour has responded to petitions (along with New Democrats and Scottish National Party) to reimburse patients going overseas for high quality but cheaper than offered in Britain health care. They are favorably inclined to do so, but the PHS opposes it - for now.

American insurers are also becoming interested. Many nations crank out far more doctors than the AMA-rationed US educational system does. Doctors and nurses in most countries make far less than the medical guild here has set up as "reasonable and customary compensation for services".

Savings also exist, considerable savings - if we start using overseas nursing homes.

With a 24 trillion unfunded Medicare liability, more debate on saving taxpayers trillions will happen in the future. Opposed naturally by the people who jingoistically believe America has the Best Health Care in the World and note the exclusive private clinics here serving the global billionaires and multi-millionaires (fine - the UK, Bahrain, Singapore, France, and Switzerland have similar clinics offering deluxe heath care to the filthy rich. China offers transplant bargains to overseas clients).

Just as there is no magic and American exclusivity anymore to high tech manufacturing - China does it cheaper and just as competently - there is no magic and true American lead anymore in high tech services - be it IT or quadruple bypasses. Many countries would dearly love to get a piece of the lucrative American legal business now protected by "Americans - only" laws and Bar memberships set up by our lawyers.

The cost savings are even greater if we look at lower skill services like prison warehousing, security, teachers...

Where it all leads is obvious - the only safe American jobs are the ones protected from the Global Labor Pool....

Cedarford

Interesting, that "swarming over the border for cheap drugs" schtick...since those same people are actually letting their fellow Americans pay for the R&D that Canadians don't.

TANSTAAFL, Cedarford

I'd no more run off to India for medical care then I'd have some de-licensed doctor from Mexico perform cheap plastic surgery on me on my kitchen table (my office has prosecuted more than one of those kind of cases).

Yes, I'd like to see the government sanctioned monopoly of the AMA which has restricted medical schools ended. At the same time, I'd want no part in demanding that doctors and nurses be part of "civil service". Look what its done to public "school teachers."

And no one is "denied health care" in the US. Emergency care is given, regardless of ability to pay. Look at how the illegal aliens pour across the border and camp out in what few ER's are left in So Cal, AZ, et al.

Darleen - Excuse me for saying this, but you are jingoistic and ignorant of the quantum advances made in medical care overseas. You simply assume America must be the best...because...well, we're Americans.

India and China are doing operations at 1/8th to 1/4 the cost of American medical service providers with comparable or better success rates. Your chances of dying of post-surgical infection are actually higher in American hospitals than in Indias new modern complexes.

And over in Europe, higher life expectancies exist than in America because everyone is insured and gets regular dental and medical care. No one is Denied care??? Hardly. While we give that for free to illegal aliens and welfare mammies, and gov't employees and CEOs get the best without co-pays or deductables.....America's working poor - the sort that join our Army and Marines - find that military enlistment gives them their 1st real dental care and routine doctor's visits...Because the problem is that the uninsured working Americans..your store clerks, restaurant workers will pay a higher price than what insurance companies or the Gov't negotiates as the discounted price they will pay for services....and the medical bill collectors will go after the working poor's life savings, car, and house if they have one to pay for services.

Which is why America has 3rd world child mortality rates, 1million and growing medical condition bankruptcies - unheard of in all other advanced nations - and why working poor are excluded from transplant lists while prisoners serving life in most states are eligible...

I might agree with you....that the poorest get free care...the homeless that ride the ambulance 100 times a year to the ER because their drink themselves comatose, the refugees from Islamic countries that detest America, the illegal alien.....as long as you agree that 40 million hard working Americans do not get the care that the poorest get...and up to 80 million Americans on top of that have seriously inadquate insurance only set up for covering PART of a major medical catastrophe...

And that health costs have gone up so fast above inflation in America that economists are now looking at private insurance as going out of the reach of middle class Americans not employed by the government or protected by a union. After the GM pension news, people began adding up the corporate unfunded liability of retiree health care and it looks like the accounts are underfunded to 800-850 billion..And companies are more and more considering going into Chapt 11 bankruptcy to combat unaffordable health care obligations....

Dear Cedarford,

Move to Europe, if you haven't already. We don't want you any more than you want us. And, your children will have a much better chance of surviving since we have '3rd world child mortality rates.' What's your source for that, Castro's medical statistics? Clown.

Warmest regards,
The USA

Cedar:

http://www.medhunters.com/articles/trivia112304.html

US is tied for 6th-LOWEST child mortality rates in the world. Some hypothesize we're not doing even better just because we actually over-treat our children: there's new studies that lead us to believe a sizeable number of those infant deaths could have been prevented by waiting to administer common childhood innoculations (which everybody gets, rich or poor), some of which can be more dangerous (we now discover) than the disease they're intended to treat, especially in the very young. We would have found this out earlier, except all our health care dollars are going to fund a malpractice court system gone bat-shit-the-fuck-insane instead of research into things like vaccine-induced mortality. Here in Maryland, you can't find an OBGYN to save your life, because they've been sued out of business. But no, let's focus on the real issue -- those greedy bastards that want to keep their money instead of giving everybody free health care. Like they do in the EU, where almost twice as many people die while waiting for routine treatment as do here.

It's naieve to think that a lower life expectancy in the States comes directly from poorer health care; rather, I would contest that it's more likely to come from poorer lifestyles: the way that we tend to be much, much more obese, eat more, and exercise less than our EU counterparts. Is this the health care system's fault? Should we be spending taxpayers' money to tell people to put the fork down and go outside for a while? I humbly submit that no, I should not have to pay for:

a) the message telling you you're going to need heart surgery if you don't lay off the Triple Quarter Pounders with Cheese, Mayo, and Three Packets of Ranch Dressing; or
b) said heart surgery when you don't listen to me.

That's the real problem here: people do irresponsible things like that because we don't live in an EU-style nanny-state, then we don't have the stomach to tell them "tough shit" and we end up having to pay for the consequences. Which burdens the crap out of our medical facilities with easily-preventable conditions. Between Horace the 800-Pound Man and Jorge the Mexican Illegal, the free portion of the health-care system is threatening to collapse under its own weight, please pardon the pun.