This is the last segment of the series on Socialism. I put together the significant learning I have garnered from the series which is attached. It is broken down into six categories:
Pure Socialist Societies
China
Capitalism vs. Socialism
Democratic Socialism • The Rise and Fall of Socialist Europe • The Myth of Successful Sweden Socialism • The Flaws of Democratic Socialism
The United States and Socialism • The Creep of Socialism in the U.S. • U.S. Public Schools – Socialism in Action • Healthcare
Where to From Here?
Throughout I have included a few quotes to remember.
My Takeaways: When I started researching this series last July, I had no idea that Socialism would blossom into the contentious debate that has emerged in the U.S. I hope this series will assist you in separating the “wheat from the chafe,” as the debate continues.
This is the last segment of the series. I hope you found it of interest and more importantly learned a few things.
Happy Learning, Harley
P.S. I’ll end this series with a story and a quote. When I was selecting books to research, I was troubled because I could not find any that spoke positively about Socialism. Then I came upon one titled “Why Socialism Works.” Usually before purchasing a book I get a bio on the author, read reviews of the book, go through the table of contents, and read the introductory pages if available. In this case I did none of that, because I wanted a positive slant. When I opened the book it had 130 pages with two identical words on every page – “It doesn’t”
SOCIALISM – SEGMENT 20 SUMMATION – PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
This is a summation of the entire series. It is a combination of my thoughts generated by the learning from the series coupled with summary excerpts which are noted.
PURE SOCIALISTIC SOCIETIES – COMMUNISM “Throughout history there has been a class of certain educated individuals who believe that direct control over individuals is the sure path to peace and prosperity,” reports Paul B. Skousen in the Naked Socialist. That was certainly the perspective of Marx and Engels, the founders of socialism as reported in The Communist Manifesto; Nikola Lenin in Russia, Mao Zedong in China, Kim II Sung in North Korea; Fidel Castro in Cuba, and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Each followed the same playbook.
Wipe Away the Old Society – achieved via revolution in all but Venezuela where it was achieved via dictatorial legislation
Establish a Dictatorship
Confiscate all Property for the State
Enact Collectivism – primarily via agricultural communes
Centralized Planning – under government control
Erode or Destroy Civil Liberties – primarily via censorship, restriction of speech and execution and/or exiling dissenters
Attempt to abolish the family as a social unit
All five such socialistic societies had the same results:
Economic Collapse
Starvation
Famine – in 3 cases
“Over the course of the 20th century, political movements understanding themselves to be socialist were responsible for the deaths of some 100 million people” reports Kevin D. Williamson in The Politically Incorrect Guide of Socialism. No country with a pure socialistic society has achieved a different result. Quote to remember: With pure socialism you do not have the opportunity to pursue happiness.
CHINA China has fared the best of the five pure socialist societies, but only after they rejected the socialist economic system and adopted capitalism. “The crest of the transformation is one hundred times the scale and ten time the speed of the first Industrial Revolution which created modern Britain. The Chinese people no longer want for food. In 1978, the average Chinese income was $200; by 2014 it was $6,000. By almost every measure the Chinese people have achieved longer, heathier, more educated lives,” reports Evan Osnos in Age of Ambition. China still has a totalitarian government with one political party, the Communist Party of China.
CAPITALISM VS. SOCIALISM As in China, capitalism has been a fantastic economic system throughout the world greatly enhancing the standard of living where implemented. Conversely socialism as an economic system has failed in every instance it has been applied.
Capitalism is a system of mass production for the satisfaction of the masses. It puts the masses in control; for if they don’t purchase the product in large quantities, the producer of the product will go out of business.
Capitalism has given the world greatly advanced new products of substantially higher quality, as it spurred innovation and competition.
Capitalism has not only enabled the citizens of a country to meet their basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter, but importantly has provided the opportunity to attain self-satisfaction, pride, and economic security.
It has been proven time and again throughout history of the modern world that if a society wants to get out of poverty it needs to fully adopt capitalism as the means, e.g. South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, China, etc.)
Capitalism functions efficiently with very little guidance or supervision
Private businesses are far more efficient than government-run enterprises in a capitalistic society because of the need to make a profit in a competitive environment
In 1900, over 50% of the U.S. production power was provided by animals and men. But after 50 years of capitalistic development that dropped to 2%. That change not only resulted in huge standard of living improvements, but also reduced working hours with less physical exertion for the common man. Other countries have experienced the same
Socialism, at its best, provides people with basic needs and none of the rest.
The following are reasons capitalism is such a good economic program as reported by W. Cleon Skousen in The Naked Communist
Capitalism is by far the best-known system to provide for the physical needs of man
Capitalism permits man to satisfy his spiritual needs
Capitalism allows for variation between individuals
Capitalism is naturally self-expanding which tends to create strong economic ties between communities, states, and nations
Capitalism can permit everyone to participate in making a profit
Capitalism provides the individual the “freedom to try, sell, and buy.”
Capitalism preserves the greatest single force of human motivation – the risk of failing
Capitalism tends to increase the wages of workers in relation to prices
Capitalism increases the workers’ share of the national income
Capitalism is proving the be the most effective means mankind has yet discovered for “sharing the wealth”
Quote to Remember: Capitalism has lifted people out of poverty. Socialism has most often put people into poverty
DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM Democratic socialism is defined as people who vote for socialistic policies; e.g. “involvement of the masses who vote democratically for policy instead of relying on an elite class of leaders to impose it,” reports Paul B. Skousen in The Naked Socialist. European countries have been the pioneers of democratic socialism. Therefore, Europe became the place to research to learn more about this form of socialism.
THE RISE AND FALL OF SOCIALIST EUROPE: from The Naked Socialist There is an eerie similarity between today’s decaying European Union (EU) and the failed Soviet Union. Both attempted to amalgamate a variety of sovereign nations, each with its own unique culture, history, economy, resources, and national work ethic into a simple economic and political power. Both empires adopted a common currency – the ruble for the Soviets, and the euro for the Europeans. Both adopted central ruling bodies to act in behalf of the individual nations and both started to crack up after about six decades.
The European dispensers and recipients of social welfare and social justice have long boasted of an elevated life style – shorter work weeks, generous holidays, universal health care, early retirements, full pensions, and cradle-to-grave care of the highest order. Much of this luxury has been paid for by ever-increasing taxes and the money the EU saves by not carrying the full load of self-defense – the cost of military protection has been left largely to the alliances with NATO and the American nuclear umbrella. So, life in socialist Europe was relatively rosy for many years until it all came to a screeching halt at the foot of reality.
When the international debt crisis of 2008-09 forced the EU to examine its profligate ways, the long-ignored wreckage was massive – deeply entrenched unemployment, shrinking tax revenues, bloated budgets, growing numbers of retirees, exploding numbers of pensions coming due, and heavy welfare demands. People weren’t dying fast enough. Longer life expectancy, lower birth rates, low economic growth, lack of productivity, too much reliance on services, lack of manufacturing, and all the problems and complexities that followed, exacerbated the rapid drain on the treasuries. There are many faces of a meltdown:
Pensions: In 1950, each retiree in member nations was supported by taxes from seven workers, a ratio of 7:1. By 2050 the ratio is expected to be 1.3 workers per retiree.
Ever-rising costs: Nationalized health care is the norm among EU nations. However, the EU has not controlled escalating costs. In Germany, for example, a person was taxed 13.1% in 2000 for health care. By 2010, it was 15.4% and by 2040, conservatively 23.1%
Bankrupt: By 2011, the EU’s money ran out, all the treasuries were being raided, no more easy credit was available, and the alliance was in general economic collapse.
Bailout: In 2011, a one-trillion-euro loan was secured to bail out failing banks in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece. The result was puzzling. The people who were guaranteeing the loans would be paid back, were those same people receiving the loans. There was no new money coming in – the classical Ponzi scheme at work
The Same Thing all over again: “Why do I have to work and pay for someone else’s luxury? Why don’t they work and pay for their own?” Such is the nature of socialism in Europe and around the globe. People come to expect certain services from their governments. And when taxes and borrowing don’t cover the costs, economic reality forces governments to take a few steps back and reduce health coverage, pension plans, insurances, etc. And how do the people respond? With riots in the streets. It takes very little time for the entitlement mentality to grow oblivious to the basic economic realities of life; they think welfare is their God-given right.
Ever Promising, Never Delivering: The world’s descent into socialism is a loss of efficiency. Heavier tax burdens are placed on the populations. Dissatisfaction increases, crime rates rise, clashes with the government increase, and in some instances, full-scale rebellion breaks out and rulers are toppled. Source: The Naked Socialist by Paul B. Skousen Quote to Remember: Socialism: Ever Promising, Never Delivering
THE MYTH OF SUCCESSFUL SWEDEN SOCIALISM From: The Problem with Socialism: Socialists like to point to Sweden as an example of how a heavily regulated economy can outperform a free market one. But they are wrong. Socialism nearly wrecked Sweden, and free market reforms are finally bringing its economy back from the brink of disaster. The real source of Sweden’s relatively high standard of living in the past had nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with Sweden avoiding both world wars and jumping into the industrial revolution when its economy was one of the freest, least regulated, and least taxed in Europe.
Government spending as a percentage of Swedish GDP rose from a relatively modest 20% in 1950 to more than 50% by 1975. Taxes, public debt, and the number of government employees expanded relentlessly. The country remained relatively prosperous but could not avoid economic reality. It is impossible to maintain a thriving economy with a regime of high taxes, a wasteful welfare state that pays people not to work, and massive government spending and borrowing. By the 1980s, Sweden’s collapse of economic growth and a government attempt to jumpstart the economy with a massive expansion of credit resulted in economic chaos.
By 1990, Sweden had fallen from fourth to twentieth place in international comparisons. It failed to create any new jobs from 1950 t0 2005. This precipitous decline led to a revolt against the socialist regime. More conservative governments sharply reduced marginal income tax rates; abolished currency controls; deregulated bank lending; privatized several government enterprises; deregulated the retail, telecommunications, and airline industries; and implemented deep government spending cuts. But it was a long road back thanks to the incredible burden of Sweden’s welfare state.
While conservative reforms are restoring Sweden’s economy, the social and economic effects of many decades of socialism will take years to undo. For instance, so many Swedes live off of government “sick benefits” that the actual unemployment rate is probably at least three times higher than the “official government unemployment rate.”
Despite Sweden’s economic recovery after the mid-1990s, socialist might be surprised to learn that it is still poorer than Mississippi, the lowest-income state in the United States. Another surprise for socialists is that Sweden has been privatizing portions of its socialized healthcare, social security, and education sectors; and private health insurance is booming because of the inevitable rationing, shortages, and long wait times of socialized healthcare. Source: The Problem with Socialism by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
From: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism: Sweden is recent years opened itself up to high levels of immigration; about 13% of its population today is foreign born. Swedish-speaking people from neighboring Finland, easily assimilated into Swedish society. For non-Scandinavian immigrants, who include refugees from the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East, prospects are very different. They are not greeted with jobs. But the non-white immigrant is greeted with generous welfare benefits and a hefty dose of suspicion. While immigrants constitute nearly 15% of the working-age population, they make up a far higher proportion of the unemployed. In fact, Sweden has one of the highest disparities between immigrant and native-born unemployment in the developed world. When Swedes see that so many immigrants live of the government, their interest in contributing to the system fades.
About 16% of the national government’s expenditures goes to subsidizing workers’ sick days, and employee absenteeism is at epidemic levels. How is it that one of the healthiest group of citizens on the planet are so frequently disables and so often too sick to work?
The most likely answer is this: they aren’t disabled, and they aren’t sick. In Sweden, a society once defined by its work ethic, gaming the system – defrauding one’s taxpaying neighbors – has become socially acceptable, something that would have been unthinkable to Swedes a generation ago. Swedish economist Johan Norberg argues that this shift in national psychology is a direct reaction to the incentives created by the Swedish model of socialism.
Mentalities have a tendency of changing when incentives change. The growth of taxes and benefits punished hard work and encouraged absenteeism. Immigrants and younger generation Swedes have face distorted incentives and have not developed the work ethic that was nurtured before the effects of the welfare state began to erode them. According to polls, about half of all Swedes now think it is acceptable to call in sick for reasons other than sickness.
The Swedish model is on the socialist skids. In fact, it looks increasingly likely that Sweden’s socialist system will end up undermining the country’s egalitarian, trusting, and hard-working ethos – leaving Swedes with the high taxes, expense, and dysfunctional public sector familiar to students of the European welfare state but depriving them of whatever benefits such a system may have offered. Source: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism by Kevin D. Williamson Quote to Remember: Every Socialistic policy is government controlling one more aspect of your life.
THE FLAWS OF DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM As reported by Paul Skousen in The Naked Socialist and Thomas J. DiLorenzo in The Problem with Socialism the following four points are flaws with the Democratic Socialism ideology.
An Incentive Problem: As is Sweden, people take advantage of welfare by not working when they could, by taking sick days when they are not sick, by not striving toward excellence, by being satisfied with mediocrity (“just getting by”)
A Dependency Problem: Because people can “get by” on welfare they become a permanent failure as their daily work becomes “working the system” and it turns into permanent debilitation.
Human Equality vs. Human Reality Problem: Each of us has a uniqueness as a human being – different physical and mental abilities, different aptitudes, different desires – we are an individual. Socialism wants us to all be equal – equal incomes; legal immigrants equal to illegal ones; equivalency of all races, genders, and sexual orientation; students equal to teachers; children equal to parents; the rich equal to the poor. If you disagree, you are a racist, greedy, or deplorable.
Robbing the Treasury Problem: It’s a circular problem – socialists push welfare which becomes entitlements and then entitlements become a right. Then the socialists push for more welfare which becomes entitlements and then entitlements become a right. Until it builds to a point of unsustainability at which point it forces austerity which results in rebellion, protest and higher taxes which results in dissatisfaction which results in the election of conservatives. Things settle down and then new socialist promises are made and enacted and the cycle starts all over again. Unfortunately, as was the case in Sweden, more people lose faith in the system and moral values erode.
Quote to Remember from Margaret Thatcher: Socialism Works; Until You Run Out of Other People’s Money
THE UNITED STATES and SOCIALISM THE CREEP OF SOCIALISM Entitlement spending in the United States was negligible until the Great Depression in 1930, when spending on welfare was introduced. It grew marginally from there until 1950 when it reached 3.3% of GDP. In the 1960s spending increased rapidly with the enactment of the following legislation.
1960s – Social Security Benefits Greatly Expanded
1965 – Medicare and Medicaid added
1997 – CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance) added
2003 – Medicare Part D (Prescription Drugs) added
2010 -- Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) added
Entitlements have grown so much that in 2017, entitlement spending reached 63% of the total spending by the Federal Government -- $2.494 trillion.
More frightening, if we had a balanced budget in 2017 with that amount of entitlement spending it would be 75% of total Federal spending.
Quote to Remember: The American Dream is not a handout
U.S. PUBLIC SCHOOLS – SOCIALISM IN ACTION Based on the research in this series, I would describe the traditional U.S. Public School System as follows: A one-system-fits-all design, administered by central planners who are rigid, regulated and focused on rote learning. A system which stifles teacher innovation and creativity; where parents are denied the right to select a school (as their child is assigned one); with a teacher incentive system that works to the detriment of student learning and financial efficiency; where there is no academic performance accountability. A system stuck in its old paradigm versus leveraging the opportunities the Information Age presents to radically improve academic performance and student learning.
America’s public schools evolved into this socialistic state as described by David Osborne in Reinventing America’s Schools HOW DID THE U.S. SCHOOL SYSTEM BECOME SOCIALISTIC? As late as 1890, 71% of Americans lived in rural areas, where one-room schools predominated. But over the next decade many cities tripled in size, as manufacturing boomed and immigrant labor poured in. A 19th century education system could not cope with the cities’ new needs, so reformers gradually developed a new model: large districts with one-size-fit-all schools. At the time, political machines controlled many urban school boards. To stop the machines from firing teachers of the opposite party and hiring their own party members – or otherwise discriminating against those out of political favor – reformers invented teacher tenure and strict pay scales, determined by longevity and protection for seniority. The progressives also sought to standardize public education, to fashion all primary and secondary schools from similar molds. By 1925, thirty-four state departments of education had managed to standardize their schools, using legislation and regulations. Accreditation agencies added muscle to the drive for uniformity. All the while, schools grew in size and their entire system grew increasingly bureaucratic. Then many public systems unionized, and the detailed labor contracts unions negotiated intensified the rigidity.
By this time, however, the schools’ customers were changing in important ways. African Americans had begun leaving the South for northern cities during World War II, and in the 1950s whites began moving to the suburbs. In 1950, roughly 90% of public-school students in our 14 largest cities were white. By the 1970s, only half were. The cultural rebellions of the 1960s and 70s brought new problems, including widespread drug use and the decline of the two-parent family. Meanwhile immigration picked up, doubling the percentage of public-school children from households that didn’t speak English from 10 to 20%. From there, the pace of change only accelerated. By 2014, a majority of public students were minorities. The emergence of a global marketplace and the shift from an industrial economy to the Information Age created a growing gulf between those with skills and those without, driving incomes down for many. At the same time, our Information Age economy radically raised the bar students needed to meet to secure jobs that would support middle-class life-styles. And computer technologies created enormous opportunities to personalize education, so each student could learn at his or her own pace. Held back by their traditional structures, rules and union contracts, our public-schools struggled to seize these opportunities and respond to these challenges.
Our leaders have tried to force change on a bureaucratic system built to resist it. Anything more than incremental change is almost impossible when school leaders can’t fire failing teachers because they have tenure and school boards can’t replace failing schools because employees and their unions retaliate at the polls. District reform efforts have run headlong into the limits of the old, centralized system. Principals have struggled to improve their schools when virtually all the important decisions about school design, teacher’s pay, and budgets are made at district headquarters. Teachers have struggles to help their students when they have no power to change what they teach or for how long, or how their schools work. We have inherited 20th century systems whose centralized control and vast web of rules repel innovation and frustrate innovators. In their place, we are attempting to build 21st century systems that not only reward improvement but demand it. They leave behind the old model’s insistence on one organization, one best way to run a school, and one correct curriculum. Source: Reinventing America’s Schools by David Osborne
So, what makes U.S. Public School socialistic?
Centralized Control
A focus on collectivism vs. individualism
No individual choice
Lack of incentives and accountability to improve
CHARTER SCHOOLS: In 1992, the first charter school was opened in Winona, Minnesota – with a new formula for educating America’s children. The components of that new formula include:
Schools having significant autonomy, including creating a diversity of academic designs.
Accountability for academic performance including the potential shutdown of a school if the performance in insufficient.
Latitude to fire individual teachers or in some cases a cadre of teachers in a school for poor academic performance.
Opportunity for parents to choose a school for their child and then to pull a child out of a school and send them to a different school if they are dissatisfied.
Comparative analysis of academic performance based on standardized test scores.
Study after study comparing charter schools to traditional ones show that charter schools consistently (not exclusively) outperform traditional ones academically. Why is that so? In a charter school, by design, the entire system focused on individual student performance, individual classroom performance, individual teacher performance, and individual school performance versus the 20th century paradigm of rote learning bounded by a ton of rules. The following is a listing of the seven C’s of Charter School success as reported by David Osborne.
Control: Decentralized operational decision making at the school level.
Choice: Creating different kinds of schools for different children and given families
Consequences: Creating accountability for performance
Culture: Giving school leaders the freedom to mold school cultures
Capacity: Building talent pipelines of teachers and school leaders
Contestability: Ensuring that no school has a right to continue if its students are falling too far behind.
Clarity of Purpose and Role: Separating steering (setting policy and direction) from rowing (operating schools), so system leaders and school leaders can each focus on clear missions and the former are no longer politically captive of their employees.
REFORMING SCHOOLS: At the turn of the 21st century, efforts were initiated to reform some public schools, most particularly some large inner-city schools. Reforming such schools who are stuck in the 20th century paradigm is exceedingly difficult. After analyzing such endeavors in New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Denver, and Newark, many have concluded that the most successful way to do so is by introducing charter schools and providing parents with the opportunity to select the school their child will attend. History would indicate that because of the autonomy – particularly the ability to diversify academic designs plus the latitude to insist on academic accountability including the freedom to fire poor performers – that charter schools for the most part will academically outperform the traditional public schools. Given parental choice, then parent will select such schools for their child to attend. Over time, therefore, charter schools will grow and the student population in traditional schools will decline until they have to be closed for lack of attendance. As a result, schools will improve, enhanced learning will prevail, and our nation will benefit. [Note: Only 6% of all students in the U.S. today are in Charter Schools.]
So, what is the socialism lesson to take away from this educational research?
How easy it is to slide into a Socialistic system via bureaucratic overcontrol (centralization of power)
How the resultant consequences sneak up and compound over time.
How difficult it is to extract or move the populace from the socialistic grip, even though the need and the benefits derived are so apparent. This is true even though a pathway for change is proven and the end result crystal clear.
Quote to Remember: Freedom to Act, Innovate, and Choose Outperforms Centralized Control.
HEALTHCARE As reported by T.R. Rein in The Healing of America throughout the world there are four basic healthcare models in existence today.
The Bismarck Model which uses private insurance, usually financed by employers and employees. The private insurance companies are usually nonprofit and cover everybody. This model is utilized by France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Belgium and to a degree in Latin America
The Beveridge Model: This is a system where total healthcare is provided and financed by the government through taxation. Medical treatment is a public service like the fire department or the public library. All healthcare professionals work for the government in government owned facilities and patients receive no bills. Countries using this model include Great Britain, Italy, Spain, and most Scandinavian countries.
National Health Insurance (NHI): The healthcare providers in this system are private, but the payer is a government-run insurance program which covers everyone. NHI countries include Canada, Australia, Taiwan, and South Korea. This is termed Universal Healthcare, Medicare for All, or Single Payer. Historically, such countries have controlled costs by limiting and/or controlling medical services which often results in patients waiting for treatment.
The Out-of-Pocket Model: Only about 40 out of 200 countries have any established healthcare insurance system. The basic rule in the remaining 160 countries is simple and brutal. The rich get medical care; the poor stay sick and die. You only get treatment that you directly pay for.
There are several downside consequences that countries have experienced when implementing model 2 & 3 – The Beverage Model and National Health Insurance.
Doctor shortages – either because they left to earn more money in a different country or because young people didn’t view being a physician as a lucrative career so not as many went to medical school (e.g. England and Canada).
Significant Patient Wait Times – because of doctor shortages, doctor productivity (or the lack thereof), and/or waiting for administrative approval for a medical procedure associated with controlling costs (e.g. England, Canada, Sweden).
Non-Coverage or Lack of Skills/Medical equipment: With centralized control, decisions on what to provide, what not to provide, who to grant the treatment and who not to grant the treatment are all under the umbrella of centralized planning whose mission is to control costs. Invariably the outcome does not meet the patients needs and/or the decisions become politized. (England and Canada)
Insufficient medical treatment capacity: as the result of huge increases in medical requested treatments because now it is “free.” (Sweden)
IN THE UNITED STATES: The U.S. has elements of all four models in our healthcare system:
For most working people under 65, we have the standard Bismarck system where the worker and the employer share the premiums for a health care policy. People who purchase Obamacare also have this system.
For Native Americans, military personnel, and military veterans we follow the Beveridge Model where the patients go to a government facility and they never get a bill.
For those over 65, we essentially have a National Health Insurance – Medicare. A similar system exists for low-income people – Medicaid.
For the 28.1 million uninsured (8.8% of the population) are Out-of-Pocket. The 28.1 million uninsured break-down as follows:
7 million are illegal immigrants and therefore do not qualify.
12 million qualify but feel it is too expensive on a cost/benefit analysis (e.g. they feel they don’t need it in the short term). Most of these would be covered under Obamacare if they chose to participate.
4 million would qualify for the adjusted maximum income requirements for Medicaid per the Affordable Care Act legislation. However, 20 states have not expanded the Medicaid program to do so in their state.
3.3 million are children [Note: I did not research the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) which provides low-cost health coverage to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid to find out why there would be that many children not covered.
Net, we do not need a new government program to cover the people still uninsured.
In 2016, the U.S. census bureau reported that 91.2% of the population had an insurance policy, broken down as follows: (Note: adjusted to total 100% including the uninsured)
44.5 % employer-based private insurance
13.5% direct purchased private insurance via Obamacare
15.4% Medicaid – private insurance for the poor, full reimbursement by the government
14.3% Medicare – government insurance
3.7% VA coverage – government insurance with government-run facilities.
8.8% uninsured
Net, government insurance plans (Medicaid, Medicare, and VA) totals 33.4% and private insurance totals 58%.
WHERE TO FROM HERE? The first paragraph of this series (segment 2) was the following: Promise of Regime? For most people the word “socialism” conjures up two very different images in the mind.
Beautiful Promise: A utopian promise of a fair and simpler world, a longing for some rapturous path toward a different way of living – it is socialism of wishful thinking, of make believe, it is the socialism of the future.
The Regime: An actual structure or formation of socialistic ideas in society, in a government, in a nation – it is real socialism, the harsh and brutal socialism of today.
The “PROMISES” for the 2020 election are already building. Some that I have captured include: Spending:
Medicare for All
Free College
Universal Basic Income (UBI)
Minimum Wage of $15/hr.
Expanded Social Security Benefits
Family Leave – guaranteed 12 weeks/year
Reparations
Open Borders
Legalized Prostitution
Abolish ICE
Voting Rights for Illegal Immigrants
Green New Deal (per Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes -- AOC)
*Eliminate all fossil fuel usage in 10 years
Upgrade all existing buildings for energy efficiency
No gasoline powered automotive vehicles
No airplanes
No cows (fart too much)
Ban Nuclear Power
High-speed rail
*Guaranteed job with family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security *Federal support for all people who can’t work or are unwilling to work Revenue:
Wealth Tax
Raise top income tax rate to 70 -90%
Quote to Remember: Socialists believe they can more effectively spend your money than you can.