Am I my brother’s keeper?

My dad actually gave me this title as I was fishing around for topics to blog about. The argument I’m going to make is actually the result of an argument I had with my cousin. I kind of wanted to keep this blog about politics, and in the spirit of truth, I could care less about this years batch of politicians, so I’m going to stick to ranting about the issues. Today’s topic is Social Change. Are we really our brother’s keepers? My short answer is yes and no, so is that definitely maybe, or sometimes yes sometimes no? I’ll elaborate what I mean, but in my opinion we all need to care for our fellow human beings, just not in the way we’re currently doing it.

Homelessness

This is one social issue that really bothers me. Here we are one of the richest countries in the world, and always ready to drop ship food to some underdeveloped nation, but we can’t even keep our own citizens off the streets and fed. Growing up in NY I’d see them every day on the subway or in the street. We called them bums, most of them smelled like urine or worse, some begged, but some just slept and ignored you. The real nuts would wait until there were enough people and then they’d put on the show. They’d start with the story of how they got this way. They’d end by standing in front of you asking you for whatever change you could spare. Most of the time, I’d give them something just to have them go away. Of course the big argument is going to be that “Well some of those people don’t want help” And that is a valid statement, SOME DON’T, but that some is such a slim some that just happens to stand out, but they’re not the majority.

I was able to get to know a few homeless at my old church, and I learned something. Some of them just made wrong choices or had bad luck, and just ended up there. Once there they lost hope and couldn’t find their way back. The church I attended helps out at a local mission, and every Sunday they’d bus in several homeless men and women. Some would stay and with enough help reintegrate back into society. Some would just move on, never to be heard from again. All of them made an impact on someone’s life, some more than others, but to be honest, most of them didn’t want that lifestyle. It kind of just happened.

In today’s economy we seem to be spawning homeless at an alarming rate. In my area alone the local parks, which allow camping, seem to have a much bigger population. News reports in the area state that the problem has hit, not the nutty homeless guy, but whole families. Now everyone shares some blame in the housing loan debacle of the last few years, but there are real families, losing real homes, and living on the streets as a result. To me that’s unacceptable.

The question I wrestle with is; Should the government step in and solve the problem? If so how? Personally I’m for any approach that still requires repayment, and does not cost the government much out of pocket. For instance allowing people who are not first time buyers to refinance into a government secured loan and stretching out the loan period for 40 – 50 years. I would also suggest allowing the homeowner to skip the first 2-3 payments after they refinance, and spread those payments out throughout the first year. This will allow them to catch up on any bills that they may be late on, and truly give them a fighting chance. This would not solve homelessness, but would at the very least keep more people from ending up on the streets, and possibly give some of those families who did end up on the streets a second chance.

In truth we as Americans should do all we can do make sure all Americans have a safe place to live. We as Americans should do all we can to eradicate homelessness until all of those who do want to have a home or apartment have one. This can be done without becoming a tax burden. People can be assisted in finding work; people can be given low interest, long term loans. People can be put back on the path to achieving the American dream.

Healthcare

This was the debate that actually spawned this blog entry. My cousin is a democrat, yeah I know we can’t all be perfect. Anyway he and I were discussing the whole healthcare issue, and debating the finer points of Obama’s idea to provide free healthcare to all. Now whenever a politician starts throwing the word FREE around I get nervous. You see even in my short 37yrs on this planet I happen to know that NOTHING IS FREE. Everything comes at a price. Freedom is usually paid for in blood, families are paid through hard work and time, and homes are paid for in sweat. Either way someone somewhere is paying the price. All my life in church the pastor would say, “Christ’s gift of salvation is free” Yes it was free to me, but again Christ had to pay a price for it, so again nothing is free, and someone did have to pay.

Now I would love to have totally free healthcare, but I live in the real world where things are purchased with real money, by people who really work. In the long run FREE healthcare for all would accomplish one thing in this country, it would bankrupt us. As it stands this country is in serious debt. We don’t make much, but we owe quite a bit. Our Medicare and Medicaid systems should have shown us that whenever the government starts to throw money around, an unscrupulous company will arise to take advantage of it.

Some time ago my grandmother went into the hospital with a broken hip. She was treated for the amount of time that her Medicare would allow, and she was released into a nursing home to be rehabilitated. In the nursing home, she spent most of her day in bed and essentially got worse. She ended up with an infection, and the treatment, which was supposed to make her better, made her worse. The nursing home tried everything they could to stretch out her stay there. Any guess as to why? FREE MONEY!!! Good old Uncle Sam was paying for grandma’s expenses, and they were all too willing to cash the checks.

To me that’s a total crock. Whatever happened to doing no harm? Whatever happened to helping the sick get better? Healthcare has turned into a business, and like all business its bottom line is the almighty dollar. That is the problem with healthcare in this country. That is what’s raising the price for all of us. Our greed is making it difficult to make sure that the truly sick get the care they require to get better. My wife was recently admitted for some surgery, and the cost of pills in the hospital was actually humorous. Why do insurance companies allow a $5 Tylenol, when I could buy an entire bottle at the local Walgreen for that much?

My answer to this insanity, well not mine really, you can thank Rudy Giuliani for this one. Remove the strangle hold insurance companies have on corporations, and allow the insured to pick where they want to spend their money. Here’s how it works. My company shops for insurance. They go into the search knowing how much they want to spend on me each year, and pick the one that will have the least amount of impact on the company and the employee. Instead of doing that, they’d simply have to tell me how much they’re willing to spend, and I start to shop around for a provider. This approach does something sorely needed in today’s market; it drives competition. Thanks to the power of the internet I can now shop several hundred insurance companies at once, and find the one that’s right for me.

Now, this does nothing for the actual price of healthcare, but let’s actually look at those prices. As it stands most insurance companies pay a price over the patients deductible. This price is usually over inflated by the hospital because they too have their expenses. One huge expense is transcription services. Nuance, the company I work for (shameless plug), provides software services to convert speech to text. This saves hospitals millions each year in transcription costs. Several companies provide paperless systems, something touted by Hillary Clinton, but also another great idea to cut costs, and help the ecosystem. Another great money saving tip, stop ordering unnecessary exams. Some exams are required to get a good diagnosis, but some are just a waste of time and money. Finally what’s with the 500% markup on everything. Why should I pay $5 for one pill when I can get that same pill for $.50 at the pharmacy? Why do hospitals charge $3 – 5 for a silly comb that is purchased in bulk and costs the hospital $.30? They do this because they can get away with it.

The current system allows for hospitals to overcharge their patients, and the insurance companies. This raises the price of insurance, which raises premiums, which then gives hospitals the excuse to raise their prices. It’s a never ending cycle and under the Obama plan it’s just going to continue. Again the answer is not to give free, but to solve the actual problem. A big issue I have with the Democrats is that their answer to all of society’s woes is to raise taxes, and open the purse strings. Well that only leads to huge taxes and a society that is dependant on the government rather than independent. When you create a dependency like that you simply expand the problem rather than solve it. Sure the short term issue of people without medical care is solved, but the long term issue won’t be seen for years to come.

Education and Self Esteem

What this country needs more than anything else is improved education. We need to restructure how we teach our children. We need to focus on actually teaching them and not simply giving them exams, and teaching them to pass the exams. We need to pinpoint a child’s interests and learning pattern early on in the child’s life, and determine how to best teach that child. Once we’ve taken care of the future we need to look to the present, and solve the problem that our current adult population has. You see it’s one thing to throw money at a problem, and another to waste it. Giving a person their lively hood does nothing for the person except enslave them. Pretty soon you start a cycle of people who live off of people because that’s just how they were taught.

Yes Sen. Obama, people do need hope, but not the kind of hope that someone will swoop in and save the day with handouts and freebees. They need self esteem, they need to know that they are part of something bigger, and that they can achieve their dreams if they work for them. To do this they need education. They need to know how to read, write, use computers, and do basic math. They need the kind of hope that only comes from knowing that I John Q. Public am in charge of my own destiny, not my government. I can decide and learn to do for myself, and not rely on someone else. That is the freedom which provides true hope.

Growing up in NY taught me a lot about the welfare system. Everywhere I looked people went through life depending on someone else. Mothers had daughters, who had daughters all on welfare, because it was there, it was safe, it was what they knew. Quite a few of the people I knew dropped out of school early, had babies and restarted their cycle, never knowing that there was something bigger and better outside of the tri-state area. Most of these people voted Democrat because the Democrats are for the little people. They help out the average Joe. Well that may be how this all started, but what we’ve ended up with is a society born and raised into dependence. Education to them is a joke because government will provide. Hard work is for suckers because government will provide.

We the people of the United States of America have taught ourselves is to depend on someone else instead of to improve our own situation. With this dependence comes inadequate education, sub standard living conditions and a ghetto mentality. Public assistance goes from giving the person a hand up to putting the person down. Those within the system come to be known as the poor, the leaches of society, and most cannot hold their head up high to say that they earn their own way.

The hope I’m speaking of will take money, but money well spent in the right place. Money spent on quality education which brings out the various talents that might otherwise remain dormant. Yes the poor have talents too. They can do for themselves, and can strive and achieve greatness if we only give them a real chance. There’s a proverb that says “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” I think it’s about time we start to follow this wise saying and start educating those who have all the potential in the world without any direction. I think it’s time we stop making excuses for them and ourselves and get everyone together to work hard as one America together. That is true hope that lasts, true hope that will carry future generations to greatness instead of leaving them wallowing in the pit of mediocrity.

Only after our society is reeducated to fend for ourselves will we be able to really and truly solve poverty, homelessness, medical costs, and all of the things that plague us without creating a burden that society can not and should not carry. So yes I am for hope. I am for change, but only if it’s change for the better and not change for the worse. And yes we should be our brother's keepers. We should mind our extended family and help them to prosper, but we should do it through education and independence, not through handouts and dependence on us.