HEALTH CARE COSTS

WHY DO DEGREED PEOPLE THINK THAT THEY HAVE A RIGHT TO EARN MORE THAN THE AVERAGE WORKER?



I realize this topic is not popular. The subject is greed. When is enough, enough! If you think about the three fields of professions where people make more money in a day than most make working a month or in a year in some cases, you focus on those in the professions of finance (banking, stock broker, insurance etc.), legal (attorneys) and those in the medical professions (pharmaceuticals, doctors, researchers).

Most of these people are undoubtedly bright, and have worked hard for their degrees. There is no argument there. Many have achieved their degrees on tax payer dollars in the way of grants, scholarships and low interest or low cost loans. Many don't even bother to pay their loans back and in years past, that has been overlooked. A chosen few have achieved their degrees on generational wealth that they have had bestowed upon them; wealth that all too often has been made at the expense of others.

Let's realize that these gifted individuals show their gratitude to society by graduating and demanding salaries that are far in excess of what the average person makes. Making more than even those average people that have been in the work force for decades. On both sides of the aisle and those in the middle, they work for the glory of themselves. They have been led to believe that they somehow deserve more than the average person working decades. Worst yet, the average person working has been programmed to believe that these gifted individuals deserve to coast through college on taxpayer paid low-cost loans, scholarships, grants and gifts from their families and that they somehow deserve to make more. WHY?

Do they work any harder than someone who sweats in a welding or machine shop for eight to ten hours a day, trying to support their families and paying their taxes? Do they work any harder than the department store worker who normally gets paid nominally and has to stand on their feet on a concrete floor all day? Do they work harder than the carpenter, the electrician, the brick layer, or the concrete finisher? Anyone who thinks so has never done an honest day's work in their life. Sure they are bright, but let's not discount the knowledge and expertise gained through years of work experience.

Sure they deserve to perhaps start work at a salary commensurate with their years of seniority for time spent at educational institutions; and, perhaps, in line or slightly above the average wage earner for their given working region, but do they really deserve to earn two, five, ten, fifteen times or more than the average worker? How many houses or cars are enough?

This greed has made it unaffordable for everyday hard working people to buy their shelter, food and clothing needs. This greed has made medicine unaffordable and has caused the average hard working Americans not to seek much needed health care and has forced others to buy these high deductible health care policies that are worthless in times of real need. This greed has caused our banking institutions to fail and has allowed the rip off of billions in the way of pension dollars and life savings and investments.

These same individuals want you to believe that it's all the unions' fault. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unions have done more to lift the wages of every American over the last seven decades than anything else. Henry Ford's philosophy was to provide an affordable product, and a livable wage to every worker so that they, too, could afford his product. That philosophy did more to make other employers compete with each other for workers and to provide livable wages which lifted the standard of living for most. I might add that Ford Motor Company did not ask for or receive any bailouts and they have a union.

It was only when the greedy bankers, insurance companies, attorneys and health care professionals thought that they deserved much, much more than the average worker that caused employers to start screaming about health care costs. This is not new. Since the late 1970s and on through the 1980s, employers across America have assaulted the blue collar worker, which was the base of American manufacturing, by removing hospitalization benefits, limiting wages and threatening the American worker that they had to compete with the rice patty farmer in China. Rather than stand up in America and scream at their legislatures to stop the excessive greed, Corporations touted free market enterprise and they no longer were loyal to America or Americans. They not only threatened, but proceeded to take the jobs, technology and wealth overseas. Now they gripe why Americans are no longer loyal to them.

Why were these Corporations and their executives not charged with treason?

When we talk about containing our national budget, a large part is health care costs comprised largely of Medicaid and Medicare spending, why don't we talk about taking the PROFIT out of health care and limiting the large excessive salaries that have caused our nation such hardship. We could forgive all college loans and make education free if graduates worked for the good of the country and its' people, rather than themselves. Aren't humans valuable and deserving of the most basic of human services?

We need a universal single payer health care system for all Americans. It is the only way to ensure that the public system is not rationed health care for the poor. We need to eliminate the profit out of health care so that we can still pay our physicians a fair market rate and provide quality, affordable health care for all. How much more we would get for our premium buck if we all pulled our money to pay directly for health care services and eliminate the insurance companies and health management organizations (HMOs). Medicare manages to run an efficient system and it is only the large population of baby boomers approaching retirement that threatens it. If everyone paid into the system, the taxpayer system would reap the benefit of profits to be redistributed to the taxpayer, rather than the insurance companies and the HMOs. Those workers could be re-employed to assist health care management through a single payer Medicare system at salaries that could be sustained and supported.

Your taxpayer paid degree does not give you the right to rape the American public!


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