Posted on 04/04/2012 7:52:56 PM PDT by Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri
What is the conservative position on health care? Or education? We can all agree that Obamacare and the individual mandate are unconstitutional, but it seems less clear when you address other aspects. Is EMTALA and the unfunded mandate forcing hospitals to treat anyone regardless of their ability to pay constitutional? Should a hospital be forced to give 80 illegal aliens around $2 million worth of dialysis? What should our position on Medicare and Medicaid be when no one other than Ron Paul would suggest attempting to undo them entirely? Medicare is costing half a trillion each year and Medicaid is 25 to 30 percent of a state budget? So do we suggest minor tweaking, demand the federal government out, or accept the cuurent level of intervention priot to 2009?
Then education was once clear, but now it is a bit confusing these days. Despite ramping up the billions the federal government spends each year (even under Bush), public schools are little more than daycares for big kids. I remember when Newt wanted to abolishment of the Department of Education, but now that would be portrayed as crazy by the establishment. We know that schools are pushing the progressive line. Even Mitt Romney was fully behind homosexual teachings for kindergarteners? So what are we left with?
>> So what are we left with?
A lot to fight for.
Save the children from the Marxist scumbags!!!
The “public school” is BY FAR, the largest, most expensive, most subversive, and most destructive entitlement program in the country.
The “public school” is better understood as the “government school collective”.
It is silly to imagine that you can fix the public schools, because the very concept itself is communist.
Any child that comes out of the government school collective with their moral compass and common sense intact does so in spite of the government school indoctrination, not because of it.
If you want to win the culture war, have lots of children (see my tagline) and homeschool them or form your own school cooperative with your church or synagogue and like-minded friends and relatives.
Nobody loves your children more than you do.
Nobody can teach your children like you can.
Your children would love nothing better than to be taught by you, if you start doing so before they are corrupted by the government school collective.
It is hypocritical for you to submit your children to an authority with whom you fundamentally disagree. And your children will know it.
If you have children, make whatever sacrifices you must to get them out of the public schools.
DO NOT FEED THE BEAST!
Especially not with your own children.
Paul Ryan has laid out a pretty good blueprint for medicare and medicaid, and many have espoused good solutions on health care in general. Open up more competition, fix regulations to allow more catastrophic insurance options, medical savings accounts. Governors like Mitch Daniels have done a lot on Indiana to lower costs and and expand coverage. Also, in my opinion the key is decoupling employment and health care. Offer individual the same tax benefits companies get...fully deductible. Individuals and families should be able to select their own insurance programs that are not reliant on a particular job. Much of the pre-existing condition problems would be addressed by this simple change.
For education, there is more than can be covered quickly here. There are plenty of resources out there. The bottom line is it is a state issue, not national and the less the federal government does, the better. The Department of Education has been around for only 40 years, and education has steadily declined ever since. This may be correlation or causation, and probably a little of both. Schools need to refocus on the core curriculum and cut the extras. Be very good at whatever is most important to preparing kids for the real world. I am sure Heritage and other sites would offer some more.
Answer; Less government in both.
Education should be local and health care should be personal. If you need help, ask. But act like you are entitled to free stuff. Charity does not spring from tyranny.
Education should be local and health care should be personal. If you need help, ask. But don’t act like you are entitled to free stuff. Charity does not spring from tyranny.
I can agree with you on all points. Maybe the only recourse we have is to promote homeschooling, but there’s a lot of children stuck in the collective and they are being molded in those formative years while we’re still forced to fund it no matter how poorly they perform.
both education and health-care are bubbles being blown by Government money.
Sadly, reform, or collapse of the bubble are both going to hurt a lot of people who have set their lives to the present system. Its a choice of which would be more painful.
Milton Friedman made the point that insurance is to protect only against catastrophic events that are unlikely to occur, but health insurance is used to cover everything..it would be like car insurance paying for the gas and an oil change. Ryan has a good proposal to tweak entitlements, but it doesn’t alter the fundamental nature of dependency on the government and we know the effects of government subsidies because the U.S. Goverment spends more on health care per citizen than France, Britain, and other nations. It will always strain supply when you artificially increase demand when others people foot the expense.
I cannot believe the federal government can continue to throw billions at education and despite failure over decades, the solution is always more money with more failure. At some point politicans have to admit they have failed and stay out of it. I’m concerned by the cultural impact as well.
Sadly it looks more likely that collapse will be the option, because even slight reforms are met with screeching insanity and politicans don’t have the stomach. I would like to see a gradual return to empowering individuals to meet their needs because the ills of depending on Uncle Sam are apparent.
Yes, I agree. Health insurance has been re-written into something it should not be. This is largely a result of government over-regulation. It also has to do with its acceptance as a ‘benefit’ - whether from an employer or the government for low income and elderly. This must be broken or we are in serious trouble. Ryan’s plans in both the 2011 and 2012 budget do make significant changes to the programs. For medicare, it returns much of the program to the private sector and follows the structure of Medicare part D that has consistently beat budget numbers. For medicaid it block grants back to the states, lowering the federal control over the programs. I agree, he does not eliminate them, but he does drastically overhaul both and get the spending under control. In both cases, there is a significantly reduced role in federal control, which is a conservative victory. There is no public interest in eliminating either, which is why Ryan’s plans could potentially get through the cheese grater of partisan politics. He did some nice things in the 2012 budget, adopting some of the bi-partisan efforts to reform medicare. The Ryan budgets not perfect, but they are significant steps. They both move the ball forward, which is the ultimate goal.
The larger issue of healthcare problems that the rest of us face are different. IMO, I don’t want to see ‘overhauls’ or ‘comprehensive’ bills. They get too ugly. We need to push 1-2 key reforms at a time in digestible bites...ideas that are popular and can be easily supported. Both parties seem to produce terrible legislation when they try to do the big overhauls. We have nearly 100 years of bad legislation, and need to reform in modest steps to keep the American people behind it.
Education is so much more complex to change course. Any change is so easily demagogued. While the problems are more staightforward than health care, the solutions are so much more difficult to implement.
Government and Medicine do not mix.
All known Government Medical Programs have failed financially.
The US Federal Government is broke.
We cannot afford to allow ANY Government Medical “Entitlement” Program to continue, except for our Military Veterans.
It is all about the money.
After 80 years, the experiment of buying votes by promising “Entitlements” has ended in financial ruin for America.
The longer that the voters ignore the above facts, the greater the damage will be for America.
BTW, to test my assertions, just look into the eyes of your children and grandchildren, and then tell them that they will pay a large portion of each of their workdays to pay for the failed Federal Entitlement Programs that we began.
It is all about the money, your grandchildren’s money.
No, I agree we need to make gradual changes instead of sweeping measures as long as we can stick to our end game. I can support Ryan’s plan as a first step, but we do need to counter the marxist dialogue on the relationship of the people to the government. I disagree on education only on the idea that the solutions are tougher, because the federal intervention has been costly and harmful. Take it from me, I went to a public school. I remember the ‘Got Marx?’ Flyer in the teacher’s lounge among many other horrors. About half my biology class was spent on evolution, it was like attending the church of Darwinism mon-fri and it wasn’t optional.
If you ever decide to run office, I will volunteer full-time. That’s a message never heard in the Obama media or the halls of Congress.
Thanks for the kind offer. I am to old and grouchy to meet with the LAM, (Liberal Agenda Media).
However, if anything in my stash of comments (name, flag page, in forum) strikes you as something useful, just copy and send it to the Republican Primary Candidate of your choice.
For example, if you and I sat down at your kitchen table we would come up with many common sense ideas such as this one:
Republican Candidates could improve their Primary vote count by campaigning with the following idea:
Due to the FHA, Fannie and Freddie Bankruptcies of September, 2008, American home owners lost 30 % of the value of their homes. That is a 30 % cut in just one month. Home values are still down 30 %.
Thus, let us cut the total compensation to all elected Federal politicians, and their staffs by 30 %, and an additional 10 % cut to elected Federal politicians each year until Federal Spending is LESS THAN the average of the previous 2 years of Federal income.
BTW, since slightly less than half of the US House, and 2/3 of the US Senate are Millionaires, it will be a great opportunity for Congress to lead by example that EVERYONE should give up their “fair” share of the American Dream.
What better way can there be to demonstrate that Federal politicians are on the same page as the voters?
_________
BTW, BTW, welcome to FR! Follow Jim’s Rules, develop a thick skin quickly, and enjoy FR!
I consider myself and American, period. My position is this.
The Federal Government has little of no business being involved in my health care or the education of my children.
TYhe Federal Government can not deliver the mail without losing money. Why would I want them running my healthcare or childrens education?
They should be issuing guidelines in both to some degree, but nothing more.
The conservative position on health care is to never buy you health insurance and your annuity from the same outfit. The government forced you to buy an annuity, calling it “Social Security,” and subsidized its senior health insurance plan, calling in “Medicare,” to a sufficient extent that it has made it difficult to buy completely independent health insurance if you are over 65 yo (or whatever it is now). Your employee health plan switches over to a supplemental plan, with Medicare being the primary coverage.Consequently, the government takes over your health insurance at the selfsame time that it has an interest in your death’s terminating your annuity. Can you say, “Conflict of interest?” I knew you could.
The conservative position on education is simply that parents are the only ones who care about their children enough to get up at 3AM to nurse them, and care enough to spend their own money to pay for their college education. Nobody else gives a darn in comparison to that. Anyone who believes any educator who claims to care about children as much as their own parents do is mentally defective.Others may claim authority, but no adult has actual responsibility for the outcome of a child’s education. Except that child’s own parents.
This is the problem that occurs with all government enforced programs, once they are started they are extremely difficult to stop. That is why Bozocare needs to be stopped now before it is fully implemented.
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