Week 11 - Financing Our Health

Our discussion regarding capitalist society and promoting change illuminated some interesting perspectives. It seems that in order for change to happen in a strictly capitalist environment such as the U.S., drastic and even tragic event must occur for people to pay attention and do something. People like their power and are unwilling to give up what they think are personal rights and freedoms. At the same time, many other countries are functioning quite well in comparison with several different types of government acting side by side. Most of the European market is based on capitalism, yet most countries there have socialist education and health systems. They have higher literacy rates, life expectancies, and higher scores on the Happiness Index. People are stubborn, but by revamping and regulating the system a little better, we will actually have more freedom. How long do we have to wait to show that our school and health care systems as they are now are actually doing a disservice to the community? We have the data, if cost-benefit analyses could be conducted on a state by state basis according to improvements to be made by socializing these two systems, I don't think change is too out of the question. Do we want to keep up with the rest of the world or become obsolete like so many other great nations of the past? We have enough money, now we need to invest in our people and in order to do that a major shift will needs to happen on a systemic level.