Managing Healthcare

Sent to Letters to the Editor of The Hill
Our government at all levels, including many state mandates, already manages heathcare for active duty, the VA, in Medicare, Medicaid, Government employees insurance (including Congress, SCHIP (children) and for 100 years through the IHS [Indian Health Services]. Depending on who gets elected, quality and accessibility waxes and wanes because … politicians tend to make decisions based on, well, politics:

“many believe IHS sits low on the government's priority list. As a result, the IHS has remained terribly underfunded. For example, IHS spends approximately $2,100 per patient each year. Medicare …pays about $8,000, and Medicaid …pays about $4,500 per patient each year. ..these figures, says the Leader, ..come from the government's own statistics”

The Pine Ridge infant morality remains about double the surrounding area. If Congress thinks costs can be cut by encouraging life style changes, shouldn’t they prove it on the Pine Ridge first? Of course, we are assured, all new plans from DC are being designed to be ‘FAIR’ – no favoritism.

When I graduated from Omaha Benson High in 1960, there were about 400 in our class. By 1964, new wings were being added. The boomer generation’s size always seems to amaze the public facility planners and it’s about to hit and, I believe, collapse Medicare. Who are we kidding with planned ‘savings from Medicare’? And those ‘meanie’ insurance executives are actually looking forward to the plum of ‘required coverage’. The pharma-controlled FDA makes sure drug profits stay high too.

The government consumes wealth; private industry creates wealth. This is why socialism leads to Hayek’s ‘Road to Serfdom’. In medicine, capitalism created cutting edge care and innovation and still does. If reform happens, let’s increase, not decrease, capitalism and reduce the unfair favoritisms of politics. Lets not fall victim to the tyranny of the majority and have our individual options removed.

Technology, in a marketplace, brings down prices and increases quality as in Lasik eye surgery which is not covered by insurance. The more we return to ‘fee for service’ in medicine, the more prices fall and the more efficient the system becomes.

We don’t have too little government in medicine. We have too much.

PS. Daschle was Senator of S.D. for many years. He is our publicly administered medical ‘Expert’?

Housing/Education

Many marginal income earners find themselves teetering on the brink of losing their home. They simply cannot make their mortgage payments. But what portion of their payment actually goes to the lender? Some pays for insurance and real estate taxes.

Raising real estate taxes during a recession and job losses only piles onto the homeowners woes. Douglas and Sarpy counties are facing additional taxes from a new taxing authority, the Learning Community. Per pupil costs, in total, from the ESUs, the districts, the Learning Community, and state level spending keep rising. K-12 isn't enough so pre-school is being added.

A shakeup in funding may be in order to get overhead costs under control. The TAC building could become Tech High school again. Omaha is large enough for a school of the arts, and could share that beautiful old building with trades training again.

But back to funding options.

A shakeup in funding would not 'do away' with public schools. Any school doing a good job would maintain the loyalty of the parents. Nebraska has a responsibility to test all children (annually) making sure to catch disabilities early, and assess goals of reading skills, arithmetic and science, but never to administer the schools. Testing gives parents a gauge to rank their neighborhood school's quality and effectiveness for their children. Renters need not think they are free of real estate taxes or taxes from the State going to local schools.

If public schools lost all tax funding, who would fund them? How could they stay open? Parents would fund them. Principals would quickly learn that with choice came responsibility. Ineffective teachers would find other, more appropriate, work. The College of Education [lowest SAT scores] would close. Arts and Science would add a major in primary education, and minor in education for science and math majors who want to try teaching at the secondary level. If teaching is fun for them, that may become their life long career, but an A&S degree in their field allows them the choice of leaving teaching, getting a masters or moving into industry.

Oh, but the POOR.. what about them? And what of those who cannot afford tuition?

First, spending on education should all be tax free. For the poor, food stamps work well because we don't dictate what food recipients eat or what store they use. Do we care if the store is owned by a muslim, jew or christian? Education stamps, funded federally (diverted from department of education), could work equally well, in my opinion. And annual testing will ensure children are being taught facts, not fictions, and not being hidden in the attic. It's in Nebraska's interest to identify and any child abuse.

My real estate taxes are over $300 a month and I would gladly help pay tuition for my grandchildren. Cost for education would, in my opinion, be half what it is today. Schools could cost shift, too, so that the schools of the elite include diversity of economic classes. Church schools run on a shoestring, a small percentage of the administration of the government public schools.

I honestly believe that over 1/2 spent today is not going to educate our children. These dollars fund the suits who roam the halls of government just like any other lobbyists.

Taking the lid off of public education will result in innovations bottled up for generations. Remember when Ma Bell gave us a princess phone for a monthly fee as an innovation and now look what we have in options.

Central planners have broken the education system just like they broke the medical system provided by our free market. Some suburban districts still work well because they are competing for residents and residents check the school district quality first. Some small community districts still work because everyone knows what goes on there and the parents still have some control over their local schools. Consolidation and districts with 10s of thousands of children move control so far up the ladder that the parents have no control or choices based on the needs of their individual children.