Used to be mom and dad could educate their kids around the supper table for the price of a couple of cookies and a glass of milk. Seems since government got involved, the costs have exploded, the standards have slipped and and kids are taught to believe the boneheads at school before they believe their parents. The worst things get, the more money school administrators demand. That is like an employee demanding a raise every time he's late, and he's always late. It's a bad formula. The employee should be fired.
But this is what happens when rights are conflated with desires and responsibilities. It starts out that parents are responsible for their kids education. Parents meet this responsibility primarily by moving into a descent school district, meeting teachers and checking text books and homework. Then the government got involved. As government interference increased so did the costs, but not the quality. Then the desires for modern schools and all the gadgetry came along and the government conflated desires with rights. Every student has a right to Internet access new athletic facilities and band uniforms. Cost rose and standards predictably declined.
We are now engaged in the great Dope-a-care debate which will send our health care system the way of our educational system. My first memorable visit to the Dr. was as child when I cracked my head open playing "timber logs." For the uninitiated, that's when you stand on the edge of the bed and fall backwards. I miscalculated the arc of my fall, and instead of my head landing on the soft pillow, it hit the hard headboard. OUCH!
The family Dr. stitched me up. Mom wrote a him a check, and that was that. I guess mom and dad felt they had a responsibility to to provide health care for their family. It never occurred to them to go door to door asking the neighbors for money to pay the Dr. Although I'm sure some would have gladly contributed.
Somewhere along the line that responsibility to take care of our own medical costs morphed into a right for your neighbor to be forced into taking care of your medical costs. How'd that happen?
Some people cannot afford to buy insurance. Even though most 'poor people" in this country have 2 color TVs, a car, a microwave, a cell phone and several pairs of $100 jeans with "style holes" placed in them BEFORE purchase, they cannot afford insurance. Instead they rely on the local hospital emergency room for routine care.
Fine, I spend money on dopey stuff as well, but I'm pretty good at prioritizing some of those things. I definitely make sure the gas and electric bills are paid before dumping $200 on race tickets.
But now Dr. Dope has decreed that no one has the responsibility to take care of themselves with regard to health care. That is now a right and the government will distribute equal health care to all.
The quality of that health care will, over time, go the way of the our educational system. American education was once the envy of the world but today is a laughing stock. With all of the faults in the health care system today, it remains the best in world. Why anyone would want to turn the system on its head, seek the lowest common denominator to ensure everyone gets equally crappy health care is beyond me.
And don't think that if this thing becomes law the Republi-Rats will ever over turn it. It can't be done. Look at every other failed government program. Whenever it is determined that a government program is a failure the government answer is ALWAYS to throw more money at the problem.
Every single person in the Department of Education should have been fired for cause 20 years ago. Instead that Department has seen a steady increase in spending with ever poorer performance. Does anyone seriously expect that government health care will be any different?
I expect that Dope-a-care will pass. Then the ONLY thing standing between us and government health care will be 500 years of litigation. But who is appointing the judges these days? Oh yeah, the Dope.
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