Later, I will respond individually to several posts from the last week or so. Here is my overall philosophy on what are the criteria necessary for a nation to have affordable health care for all who really desire it.
I believe that the only way a democracy can have a chance to succeed is if there is an educated middle class that meets the following:
- That has a yearly income enough to afford a home or housing that is safe, protects from the elements, and has enough rooms or square feet to to easily meet the standards that human resources or whatever it is called in a particular state sets for foster children to live. No society can promise to have a fancy mansion with 10,000 square feet. Some people do have the money. Some inherited it or earned it honestly. Others achieved it by stealing. There are books written on this.
- That has available free education for all children through high school that compares positively with other western world countries: Japan, UK, France, Germany, Canada, etc.
- There will always be private colleges that have very high tuition costs that are more than the median middle class income. Bravo for the students that want to go to those schools whose parents can afford it. For the middle class there needs to be affordable beyond high school education. That includes college, but it also includes many other beyond high school avenues.
- Medical insurance should work similarly to the way car insurance is done. Everyone has to have it. Therefore, the cost of medical insurance will drop significantly if somehow the middle class that makes more than 140 % of the poverty income as stated by present US agencies can afford the premiums.
- When a significantly number of people work full time, but have salaries that fall into the subsidized plans, the middle of the middle class and the upper part of the middle class through taxes has to pay these subsidies. One reason some of the large corporations have such huge percentage profits is because those corporations are being heavily subsidized by the working middle class to pay the premiums of health insurance. The corporations should be providing health insurance or pay a reasonable salary to all full time employees that this is their career.
- I can see paying less for employees who are temporary or are in get training as you work High school and college students who are working to have a little extra to buy a new computer, etc. Students age 16 to as high as 22 can gain great on the job education that will pay great dividends later when they finish their education. There are many more examples I'm sure.
- There is very good rationale to start a new employee at a rate lower than the employees who have been there a while. Employees starting at a certain amount and getting a raise every month or period of time until they have mastered the job position makes good business sense.
- I firmly believe that corporations who hire an X (not sure the number 50?) amount of employees should be paying all employees at least 140 % of the poverty level if those corporations are making a profit. The income of two parents working a 40 hour at Wal Mart or McDonalds should make enough to have one car that runs and pay for health insurance, and feed and clothe two or three children as well as themselves.
- The average employee at Wal Mart gets about $6500 in some kind of governmental assistance. While some might disagree, I've read the middle and the upper sections of the middle class are subsidizing Wal Mart, etc.about $6500 per associate. I didn't bookmark the source. I'm quite sure it was AlterNet. Consider if Wal Mart, McDonalds etc. paid their employees enough to cut the subsidies their employees get from the government in half to $3250, think what that would do to the federal budget! The deficit would come down significantly.
- I also firmly believe that for a society to have a true functioning democracy where the vast majority who are willing to work can get 40 hour a week jobs that pay well enough that they don't have to have governmental assistance except in extraordinary situations.
The middle class is slowly sinking into a standard of living that is considered poverty or just barely above poverty. We have to be realistic. There will for whatever reason be the homeless. There will be a few people who live a standard of living that is at poverty.
There is no utopia where the poorest live like kings; there is no need for prisons; all students in school will be one time for every class because we have increased the passing time to one hour to go to a class down the hall. Some student will still be tardy. Some people will get fired because they are an hour late to work and when they get to the work site do absolutely nothing Unless there is a tremendous change in human behavior, there is no way to legislate everything that might be negative into oblivion.
However, when a nation with the wealth America has, it is a sin that a significant number of people are living in or at poverty and the percentage is increasing despite the fact that the people are willing and eager to get a good paying job and get superior evaluations. The trends since 2008 should be a red flag that something May Be Wrong, Vastly Wrong.
When the large international corporations and the government become totally under the control of the same group, the result is likely to be that the honest working class will get the shaft day after day. The ones that are in on the group will look down at everyone else and come to believe that they are really superior. Some of those that believe in God as a creator may come to believe that somehow they were created superior to the common people who don't deserve to have a life anywhere close to the life they live.
Government of the people by the people and for the people will become an illusion. Are we there yet? I don't know. Can we stop the train that is headed there? Americans can. The question is will Americans even try to stop this train toward a total corporatist government.
This post is very relative to this thread. Some of the very rich have come to believe that only they should be granted entitlements, sometimes entitlements in the billions of dollars. These come through tax breaks or special under the counter deals where the profits are designed to be very excessive for some while others have been set up to lose a significant amount of everything they have.
Furthermore, many of the ultra rich believe that the ones in poverty in the lower middle class don't deserve and should not get any entitlements from the government. At the same time these ultra rich don't believe they should be required to pay a decent wage for honest work to the common people.
Making Obama Care be totally successful entails a lot more than tweaking this or that.
