"The Straight Talk Express lost a wheel on that one".. lol. They just played that clip of Obama on tv this morning. I must've missed that line when I was getting home and had to go from car to home. I think it trumps "Say it ain't so, Joe" as a one liner (and it's grammatically correct).
Mortgage bailouts: It seems to me that McCain's plan would be doing exactly what he argues against in most instances.. nationalizing our mortgage system rather than leaving it to the private sector. I don't think I want the government being our primary mortgage lender. I think regulation of the private sector's practices makes more sense than creating yet another large government agency.
Health care: I've been working in health care for 21 years now so I feel like I know a bit about it. There are so many facets to this. Some facets are commodities (pharmaceuticals, durable medical equipment, etc), some are not. In Michigan, all hospitals are required to be non-profit. As a non-profit, I don't think you can argue that it is a commodity. However, all the vendors that a hospital must use are commodities. It's just not cut and dried. *If* we don't see health care as a right, then why must hospitals treat anybody who walks into the ER and eat the cost? They should be able to require payment immediately. Physicians in our medical group earn approximately $150K a year. This is NOTHING compared to what the top earners in "commodity" businesses make. They aren't getting $47 million severance packages, that's for sure. They are saving lives, keeping us alive, making us healthy and that's what they make. They also spend significantly more than the rest of us on their educations and pay extraordinary amounts of money in malpractice insurance (another commodity that feeds off of the health care industry). Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan is non-profit. Other health insurances in Michigan are not.
Dictionary.com's first definition of commodity is: 1. an article of trade or commerce, esp. a product as distinguished from a service.
Health care is a service that needs to utilize commodities to provide that service. I wouldn't call it a commodity in and of itself. I believe it is a right as in "The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". Without health care, the right to live and pursuit of happiness is pretty near impossible for many. Personally, I put it in the same category as Education. Education is also a service that utilizes commodities to provide the service. We have a right to equal opportunity to education and it is my personal belief that health care should be treated the same way. I don't think the agencies (hospitals) that provide the service should be the ones who bear the burden when the people don't have a way to pay for it. Car mechanics aren't required to fix your car if you can't pay for the service and parts. Why are hospitals required to fix people if they can't pay? Because we (society) recognize that human life is valuable.
People will always say "well there's a free clinic in my neighborhood" and that's great to hear. It's not true in many neighborhoods. In many neighborhoods, the only way people get free care is for the hospitals to eat the cost of ER visits for things like strep throat, sinus infections and indigestion.
And yes, this credit crisis is also hitting the health care industry. If the credit market doesn't open up soon, health systems may not have cash flow to purchase the needed commodities to provide their service. The health care system that I work for had much invested in the Reserve Primary Fund (money market), which is where our Pensions were. If you haven't heard of this fund, you can read more about it here:
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/new-mone...-may-lose.html
But it fell below $1 because it was holding bonds from Lehman Brothers. What a mess. They have to guarantee our pensions so that money has to come from other sources now. Add that to the extra millions of dollars of free care we're providing now that the unemployment rate in Michigan has been over 7% for months on end...
My basic point is that health care is not nearly as cut and dried as "is it a commodity, right, privilege or responsibility?"
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