Obama's Government Health Plan Will Look Like Public Schools

The American Thinker ^ | June 15, 2009 | Geoffrey P. Hunt

[Scanian]

Much of the speculation around Obama's health care reform centers around a single payer government monstrosity resembling either a larger bankrupt Medicare platform or the discredited national health schemes in Canada or the UK. Yet it's just as likely Obama's inspiration is the failed public school model.

The government school monopoly, compulsory with mediocre results, unaffordable and ungovernable with beleaguered local taxpayers hopelessly unable to force accountability from teachers' unions co-dependent with democrat party legislators, is a perfect model for Obama to finance and ration health care for the masses.

Who can argue against the noble objectives of universal healthcare? Horace Mann's education reform exhortations in the late 1830's and 40's were eerily parallel to the pitch for Obama today: full inclusion, mandatory attendance, standardized pedagogy, along with coerced community participation by virtue of local taxes providing funding. It promised to eradicate illiteracy, violence and vice. For decades, the payoff was impressive.

But one hundred years later, Mann's idealism would be corrupted by John Dewey's progressive advocacy of self esteem replacing subject matter mastery. Finally, any hope for high performance pedagogy was thoroughly crushed by President John F. Kennedy's executive order enabling collective bargaining and unionization of public school teachers. It is safe to expect none of Mann's idealism but all of today's public school abominations will shape Obama's health care system.

In a seductive overture to private health plan stalwarts, Obama says the government health care system will not be a mandatory substitute for private health care preferences, only an option. Of course those who remain in a private system will face double jeopardy -- covering their own private medical costs while suffering higher federal taxes to pay for somebody else's -- in the same manner that private school parents, opting out of horrible local public schools

[ALPAPilot]

There are plenty of Freepers who adamantly defend the public schools where they send their kids. They’ll probably love this.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Epic fail.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I’d love to know where these mythical “successful” public schools are located. Somewhere over the rainbow, no doubt.

[KingLudd]

It might look more like the dmv than the public schools.

[EVO X]

I’d love to know where these mythical “successful” public schools are located. Somewhere over the rainbow, no doubt.

Try affluent communities where leftists haven't gained control of the school board..

[fieldmarshaldj]

Very few of those, and even at that, many affluent areas are filled to the brim with leftists.

[q_an_a]

Public schools are like the local congressman - folks like theirs but are not so happy with the bigger picture i.e. congress or the national school system. The majority of the most recent voters are the kids just out of those public schools and their parents - telling them they are not well educated won’t get their vote.

[OldBlondBabe]

Try affluent communities where leftists haven’t gained control of the school board..

I live in a somewhat affluent, conservative community in the Detroit Metro area. People (many of whom are not wealthy) buy homes here because of the success of the school district. A very high percentage of seniors go to and graduate from college every year with higher than average GPAs. Are some of the teachers lefties? Yes, but they tend to keep their mouths shut about it.

There is a lot of parental involvement in the schools, more in elementary, but at all grade levels. This is a big contributor to the successes of the students in the district, IMO. I would also say that a larger than average percentage of students come from two-parent households. None of this is scientific, just based on my own observations after having 3 kids in the system for the past 20 years.

I will tell you though, the teacher’s union in Michigan is very strong and these teachers are well compensated. If I were to have young kids NOW, just starting out, I would consider home-schooling for all or part of their education...

[socialismisinsidious]

Socialized Medicine aka Universal Health Care PING LIST

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[EVO X]

Are some of the teachers lefties? Yes, but they tend to keep their mouths shut about it.

As long as they keep their mouth shut, that is fine with me. Schools should be focused on getting these kids the skills to survive in a global economy. They shouldn't teach begging as a skill set.