Letter to Obama from 4th Grade Teacher

[Big Daddy]

Good post Dave.

 

[me&thegals]

Agreed

I saw a bumper sticker this weekend along the lines of "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

Isn't it great that we can sit here and debate back and forth about the merits and demerits of our government?

By the way, I don't see ANYbody completely buying into the healthcare plan. In fact, I know almost nothing about it. But, Davaroo, you're right that it seems to boil down to those points mentioned above. We all have life experience, religious views (or not), and other perspectives that cause us to hold our views. So, coming from our own particular places, I guess we just might all be right.

From a conservative, economic point of view, though, it would seem that a healthy citizenry would be an excellent economic boon. Think of how poor the economies are in countries with a diseased and dying citizenry.

 

[enjoy the ride]

Re: healthcare- I can't even see the point in arguing whether health care will be universal or not, whether poor people will be covered at taxpayer expense, etc. I have no faith that the Congress will pass anything but a patched up mess of conflicting regulations without suppling real funding. Anything that actually gets through will have sops to the health insurance industry, the AMA, the social working lobby, the conservative lobby, etc and succeed with very little if anything. It will please no one and become a burden that will be patched up with further legislation and increasing shares of the budget for generations. That simply is the state of government at the moment.

Now, what I would love to see is several pilot plans tested in various areas to see what works and what doesn't- then having some data to use, craft something that will work.

The main trouble with the US healthcare system is that we don't really have one. We have no concensus on what will be covered and what will not. We don't have the guts to control costs by regulations. We can't say no or yes. We waffle with every news story of someone suffering a wrong at the hands of health care, no matter how poorly researched or understood the stories are. We all don't want to pay more taxes and, being held in contempt by our elected officials, those taxes will certainly fall on ever shrinking pool of working men (or women.) We hesitate to make coverage universal by law. We want to keep living in never-never land where wishing makes it so.

The truth is that I have a health care plan that looks so fine on paper- but living in a rural area where Medicaide is the largest insurer, there are simply so few doctor's who want to stay here. They can make so much more money in city settings.
Those that do maximize their earnings by refusing to accept people who don't have the types of insurance that allows them to charge for a million different things (no managed healthcare accepted, private or public.) I can not get a doctor. No one can make doctors treat people against their will.
NPR ran a segment not too long ago that tried to figure out what worked in health care and what didn't. They took a look at two towns in Texas, comparing costs and outcomes of health care providers. It turned out that the by far lower cost one also had the best results with the healthiest population.
They (the doctors and hospitals) did so by - oh gasp- restricting tests, medications, etc based on "best practices." No on demand MRI's or prescriptions by anyone- no myriades of tests to cover their butts if they got sued. (No explanation in the story about how the managed not to get sued- killed all the lawyers??) The results were better and the costs less.
I can just hear the screams from the public if such practices were universal- the first time a fatal illness happened that could have been caught with more tests on a photogentic person or the news media caught wind of some poor person not having a test, never mind the fact that it was the nature of the illness not the social level, or race or gender or whatever' we would all nod our heads saying the "system" had failed all of us.
The truth is that not only the politicians don't have the back bone, neither does the public.
Costs are running away with us all because that is what we have demanded. We want it all. The health insurers promise that but of course, spend their effort to afterward slashing costs for indiviuals that no one can afford and be profitable. The government can't supply our wants especially as less and less of the public is working and paying taxes. Technology has run past our wallets.
To have anything that works, we either must restrict what we are willing to pay (unequal care) or who we cover or both. Even Canada excludes care for those who are not legal residents. We won't even do that.

 

[Big Daddy]

The most effective health plan would be a national single payer health plan. That would provide the biggest pool of providers. Doctors could be salaried employees. If their medical education was provided for them they wouldn't need to make huge salaries to pay back their school loans. Believe it or not, a lot of doctors actually go in to medicine because they enjoy it and enjoy helping people. The reason we have a shortage of GP's is because doctors owe 300k or more as soon as they get their diploma unless they are a trust fund baby. So they go in to specialty areas like plastic surgery to make big bucks. Agreed they go in to other specialty areas that are also very important. If there was public funding of schools we would have a lot more doctors in general.

Back to the point though. I am in agreement that they will probably not accomplish anything this time around. It will be a hodge podge mess like the above post stated. There will never be single payer. The insurance companies have the citizens scared to death of anything but the current inadequate system. They put actors on telling alleged true stories about the horrors of health care in Canada. I wonder how many people believe those guys in the white coats on pharmaceutical commercials are actually doctors. They put Goebels to shame with their propaganda efforts.

The way government has worked for the past 20 years or so has made them very ineffective. Between lobbyist and voting along party lines nothing of any use gets done. Our representatives care a lot more about raising money to get reelected than they do about making a better country. Until there are no more contributions from lobbyist and campaigns become publicly funded, we can't expect much on anything. How depressing.

The whole system needs fixing. It's not just the health care system. Like Dave says though. We need to find some money to pay for it. Maybe we should start using tariffs like other countries do. Then some of the big corporations that have shipped all the jobs overseas to make a better bottom line would find it cheaper to produce in the USA instead of China. What a novel idea. Try getting that one past the lobbyist.

 

[davaroo]

The most effective health plan would be a national single payer health plan. That would provide the biggest pool of providers. Doctors could be salaried employees. If their medical education was provided for them they wouldn't need to make huge salaries to pay back their school loans. Believe it or not, a lot of doctors actually go in to medicine because they enjoy it and enjoy helping people. The reason we have a shortage of GP's is because doctors owe 300k or more as soon as they get their diploma unless they are a trust fund baby. So they go in to specialty areas like plastic surgery to make big bucks. Agreed they go in to other specialty areas that are also very important. If there was public funding of schools we would have a lot more doctors in general.

Back to the point though. I am in agreement that they will probably not accomplish anything this time around. It will be a hodge podge mess like the above post stated. There will never be single payer. The insurance companies have the citizens scared to death of anything but the current inadequate system. They put actors on telling alleged true stories about the horrors of health care in Canada. I wonder how many people believe those guys in the white coats on pharmaceutical commercials are actually doctors. They put Goebels to shame with their propaganda efforts.

The way government has worked for the past 20 years or so has made them very ineffective. Between lobbyist and voting along party lines nothing of any use gets done. Our representatives care a lot more about raising money to get reelected than they do about making a better country. Until there are no more contributions from lobbyist and campaigns become publicly funded, we can't expect much on anything. How depressing.

The whole system needs fixing. It's not just the health care system. Like Dave says though. We need to find some money to pay for it. Maybe we should start using tariffs like other countries do. Then some of the big corporations that have shipped all the jobs overseas to make a better bottom line would find it cheaper to produce in the USA instead of China. What a novel idea. Try getting that one past the lobbyist.

My biggest concern is that doctors as 'salaried employees' of the State will be like most salaried employees - lackluster, although adequate and occasionally great.
Excellence is proven to be mitigated under the sponsored system, since the sponsoree has little personal investment in his achievements. Do-good, "warm and fuzzy" feelings don't always carry the day, wot?

Do you know the story of how the original Pilgrims got here? The REAL story?

Well, as we know, these religious malcontents (called Separatists by everyone else) weren't loved in England, and were ousted on the toe of the Kings boot. They landed in Holland... the only place that would accept them. It seems no one else respected their version of dissent at the time. But Holland has always had a tolerant streak, I suppose.

Now in Holland, there was a ruling class of Dutch merchants, who saw opportunity. They offered to fund the Separatists with an all-expenses-paid trip to the New World, so they could practice their crackpot religion - with a caveat.

The Separatists were to farm indigo and flax, timber the land and gather furs, and each year the merchants would send a ship to collect the bounty. The Pilgrims for all their work, would keep a percentage of what they had amassed as their "salary." Sounds pretty good, right? A nice trade and a real workers paradise? Utopia, at last.

Well the Pilgrims disagreed. Life here wasn't easy, as the records prove. They reckoned that since they did all the work and suffered the most, well, why should the merchants waaaay back there in Holland be due anything but their thumb up their own arses. Ungrateful wretches, them Separatists.

So the Pilgrims began trading with any ship that came along, French, Portuguese, Spanish, etc., it didn't matter. Pretty soon they had a pretty good little reputation going, as the trading "go to guys" over here. In time, they thumbed their noses at their original sponsors, leaving them holding the bag, so to speak. They soon expanded and so formed the puritan branch of the Colonies - a hundred years before the American Revolution.

I keep this little story in mind whenever I hear someone espousing the idea of "collective socialization." My concern is that it takes more character than humans have in them, now and in the foreseeable future to make it stick. Look around at your fellow man... it is what it is.

But we will see. Maybe things are changing...

 

[Big Daddy]

So the moral of the story is that the Puritans didn't fulfill their contract. It was ok as long as things were easy but when they found out they had to work hard it wasn't enough. It would have been a more fulfilling story if they built their ships from sweat and blood and came across. Then they could have sold their furs to the highest bidders and those too weak to contribute their fair share would be left outside to die. Much more Capitalist that way instead of guys breaking contracts. What would Dave Ramsey say?

 

[davaroo]

So the moral of the story is that the Puritans didn't fulfill their contract. It was ok as long as things were easy but when they found out they had to work hard it wasn't enough....

That is one moral one can take from the tale, I suppose. There are others, certainly. This is where perception enters into the matter.

...what would Dave Ramsey say?
Most likely he would disapprove. He is not in favor of breaking your contractual debts because they are inconvenient. You made 'em, you make good on 'em, in other words.
Since he is adamantly opposed to working from a debt based structure, though, he would likely not have endorsed the Separatists entering into such a contract, in the first place.

 

[Mackay]

Mr. Obama:

"I have had it with you and your administration,
sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally. You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America. You are responsible to the citizens of the United States."

Appeasing? how about just not war mongering. How many wars would you like us to be in that we cannot and will not win? Bushes total lack of knowledge of history and disregard for historical precedence will totally annhilate Iraq. We will be there forever or the country will surcumb to terrorists. All the intelligent people with enough money and left the nation. They are doomed.

So does any body ever bother to ask why some Muslims hate us and fear us? It is not their Koran telling them to do this, It perhaps has a lot to do with our actions, and our international policies that send weapons to middle eastern nations, that have supported the tyranny of the Jewish state and Zionism... a policy that forced Muslims out of their homes into the dessert in the 1950's because the Jewish religion was more true and more important than these people, as well as international political will. Yes, people have a long memory.

Seems to me Obama acts a little more Christian than some Christians. Christ said turn the other cheek.... he taught love. Bush spewed anger and hatred and thats what he got in return. He created a war not based on truth and hundreds of thousands of women and children and old folks have died, all based on lies. If there is a hell he will surely burn in it. Never once did the bible say that a Christian life was worth more than a Muslim life... and all done based on 9/11 lies.

and if you were a careful watcher of the news you would have seen Bushes intent when he was governor of Texas. He said a few things back then that made me know he would go after Iraq, and I said it many times during his first run for president and of course it all has to do with oil and power. He had regrets that his dad did not do Iraq in. Instead of developing our independence and alternative fuels he marched on into environmental and war disasters all for black gold and perpetuation of an oil empire and system that intends to keep you controlled and them in power.

"You are not responsible to the
peoples of any other country on earth.
I personally resent that you go around
the world apologizing for the
United States telling Europeans that we are
arrogant and do not care
about their status in the world. Sir, what do you
think the First
World War and the Second World War were all about if not
the consideration of the peoples of Europe? Are you brain dead ? What
do you think the Marshall Plan was all about?"

I think this woman is brain dead. We ignored the war in Europe until Pearl Harbor was attacked. It was all about us.

And she is a teacher? OMG, help us!

The Marshall plan was about building a trading partner rather than leaving nations destroyed and susceptible to infighting and more dictators as their history had demonstrated was likely possible.

The world is a changing and the World War 2 was over 60 years ago. Since then we have failed in many wars that were none of our dam business. We have sent paid assassins into other countries to murder
and done covert operations that we the people were not permitted to know about, not our congress, not our senate.... just CIA black projects. Like Reagan and Iran - Contra.

And why the hell did we give Saddham Hussein Chemical weapons anyway? What in gods name did we think he would do with them?
In this act we are as guilty as him for those dead Kurd women and children laying in the street.

"Do you not understand or
know the history of the 20th century? Where
do you get off telling a Muslim
country that the United States does
not consider itself a Christian country?
Have you not read the
Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the
United States?
This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the
principles
governing this country, at least until you came along, come
directly
from this heritage. Do you not understand this?"

I don't consider this a Christian country although there are a lot of Christians here. I consider this as a country that accepts all religions and was built on the idea of religious freedom, which back then was a revolutionary concept and never promoted by our Christian ancestors or churches or governments of Europe or anywhere. Remember the Crusades? Perhaps that murderous rampage has a lot to do with why Muslims are leary of Christians. Freedom for all means some need to keep in their place and not force others into stuff... like bible reading in school or hanging for scientific research, or witch burning, or subjection to religion though political force, all promoted and acted out by Christians and a multitude of false belief systems that I won't buy into ... people do have a long memory, at least some of us.



"Your bowing
to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all
Americans. Our President
does not bow down to anyone, let alone the
king of Saudi Arabia. You don't
show Great Britain, our best and one
of our oldest allies, the respect they
deserve yet you bow down to the
king of Saudi Arabia . How dare you, sir! How
dare you!"

If I remember correctly George Bush held hands with the King of Saudi Arabia...hmmmm?
and his family has buttered his bread for a long long time. Look into it if you dare.

How dare they?

If I remember right it was Bushes doing that bailed out Fanny Mae and made the agreements with them, on his watch. What else would you expect? Bush has long supported corporate interests and the CEOs that run such institutions, even though it is a government backed corporation. Why oh why do conservatives support corporate interests and the people who support them? When corporations and the CEOS have proven time and again that they just as soon spit in the American people and its workers, by overpaying themselves and moving industry to other countries. Obama is dealing with a big load of C that was left to him. An you expect him to fix it all in the first month of office when this particular issue came up?

Like Whirlpool. I will never purchase another whirlpool product again in my life... along with Hershy candy. Corporate interests that milk America then run when the going gets tough or the grass looks greener. Bush and Clinton and Reagen have done much to damage this nation and we are reaping the ill rewards now...


Thank God my children have not be subjected to dim wits like this teacher.

 

[Big Daddy]

Well said.

 

[davaroo]

Mr. Obama:

"I have had it with you and your administration,
sir. Your conduct on your recent trip overseas has convinced me that you are not an adequate representative of the United States of America collectively or of me personally. You are so obsessed with appeasing the Europeans and the Muslim world that you have abdicated the responsibilities of the President of the United States of America. You are responsible to the citizens of the United States."

Appeasing? how about just not war mongering. How many wars would you like us to be in that we cannot and will not win? Bushes total lack of knowledge of history and disregard for historical precedence will totally annhilate Iraq. We will be there forever or the country will surcumb to terrorists. All the intelligent people with enough money and left the nation. They are doomed.

So does any body ever bother to ask why some Muslims hate us and fear us? It is not their Koran telling them to do this, It perhaps has a lot to do with our actions, and our international policies that send weapons to middle eastern nations, that have supported the tyranny of the Jewish state and Zionism... a policy that forced Muslims out of their homes into the dessert in the 1950's because the Jewish religion was more true and more important than these people, as well as international political will. Yes, people have a long memory.

Seems to me Obama acts a little more Christian than some Christians. Christ said turn the other cheek.... he taught love. Bush spewed anger and hatred and thats what he got in return. He created a war not based on truth and hundreds of thousands of women and children and old folks have died, all based on lies. If there is a hell he will surely burn in it. Never once did the bible say that a Christian life was worth more than a Muslim life... and all done based on 9/11 lies.

and if you were a careful watcher of the news you would have seen Bushes intent when he was governor of Texas. He said a few things back then that made me know he would go after Iraq, and I said it many times during his first run for president and of course it all has to do with oil and power. He had regrets that his dad did not do Iraq in. Instead of developing our independence and alternative fuels he marched on into environmental and war disasters all for black gold and perpetuation of an oil empire and system that intends to keep you controlled and them in power.

"You are not responsible to the
peoples of any other country on earth.
I personally resent that you go around
the world apologizing for the
United States telling Europeans that we are
arrogant and do not care
about their status in the world. Sir, what do you
think the First
World War and the Second World War were all about if not
the consideration of the peoples of Europe? Are you brain dead ? What
do you think the Marshall Plan was all about?"

I think this woman is brain dead. We ignored the war in Europe until Pearl Harbor was attacked. It was all about us.

And she is a teacher? OMG, help us!

The Marshall plan was about building a trading partner rather than leaving nations destroyed and susceptible to infighting and more dictators as their history had demonstrated was likely possible.

The world is a changing and the World War 2 was over 60 years ago. Since then we have failed in many wars that were none of our dam business. We have sent paid assassins into other countries to murder
and done covert operations that we the people were not permitted to know about, not our congress, not our senate.... just CIA black projects. Like Reagan and Iran - Contra.

And why the hell did we give Saddham Hussein Chemical weapons anyway? What in gods name did we think he would do with them?
In this act we are as guilty as him for those dead Kurd women and children laying in the street.

"Do you not understand or
know the history of the 20th century? Where
do you get off telling a Muslim
country that the United States does
not consider itself a Christian country?
Have you not read the
Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the
United States?
This country was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and the
principles
governing this country, at least until you came along, come
directly
from this heritage. Do you not understand this?"

I don't consider this a Christian country although there are a lot of Christians here. I consider this as a country that accepts all religions and was built on the idea of religious freedom, which back then was a revolutionary concept and never promoted by our Christian ancestors or churches or governments of Europe or anywhere. Remember the Crusades? Perhaps that murderous rampage has a lot to do with why Muslims are leary of Christians. Freedom for all means some need to keep in their place and not force others into stuff... like bible reading in school or hanging for scientific research, or witch burning, or subjection to religion though political force, all promoted and acted out by Christians and a multitude of false belief systems that I won't buy into ... people do have a long memory, at least some of us.



"Your bowing
to the king of Saudi Arabia is an affront to all
Americans. Our President
does not bow down to anyone, let alone the
king of Saudi Arabia. You don't
show Great Britain, our best and one
of our oldest allies, the respect they
deserve yet you bow down to the
king of Saudi Arabia . How dare you, sir! How
dare you!"

If I remember correctly George Bush held hands with the King of Saudi Arabia...hmmmm?
and his family has buttered his bread for a long long time. Look into it if you dare.

How dare they?

If I remember right it was Bushes doing that bailed out Fanny Mae and made the agreements with them, on his watch. What else would you expect? Bush has long supported corporate interests and the CEOs that run such institutions, even though it is a government backed corporation. Why oh why do conservatives support corporate interests and the people who support them? When corporations and the CEOS have proven time and again that they just as soon spit in the American people and its workers, by overpaying themselves and moving industry to other countries. Obama is dealing with a big load of C that was left to him. An you expect him to fix it all in the first month of office when this particular issue came up?

Like Whirlpool. I will never purchase another whirlpool product again in my life... along with Hershy candy. Corporate interests that milk America then run when the going gets tough or the grass looks greener. Bush and Clinton and Reagen have done much to damage this nation and we are reaping the ill rewards now...


Thank God my children have not be subjected to dim wits like this teacher.

Funny thing about any aisle - it has two sides. And both sides can be full of a lot of rhetorical, podium pounding.