Michael Moore's "Sicko" is hot internet news

[--Pete]

Hi,

And Pete, in regards to technique and technology, if we were to take that, and run with it, then a monarchy, or something along those lines would be the best form of government. Not in terms of fairness, but in terms of how well off the top 1% is.

Poor analogy. The form of government has little to do with what government does since all governments do basically the same things. But in discussing health care, one has to be a little more careful to specify what metric is used to measure 'good, better, best'. Universally available health care that can treat little more than routine medical matters may be 'better' for the bulk of the population. But for the person with a condition that only one institution has the means to treat, then that institution is 'best' reguardless of whether that individual can afford it or has access to it. It is in this sense that the USA has the 'best' health care system. The reason has to do with profit motive, over charging, govenment funding for research, and the tie between many hospitals and universities. That complete ball of string is hard to unravel and there are many debatable points, but the quality of the system resulting from the process (and in some cases, despite the process) in terms of improvement and innovation is beyond debate. Simply follow the progress of medical research in Science, Nature, Science News, or any similar journal. Or look up the history of medical breakthroughs in the last six decades. The story tells itself.

On test grades, my distate for them, is when you tie funding to them.

And on that we are in complete agreement.

Just because your parents managed to persevere doesn't mean you should wish it on anybody else, or brush attempts at improvement of the system away because they managed it, on that factor alone.

Not my point at all. The question was about the so called 'cycle of poverty'. I consider that a cop out and used immigrants as a counter example. However, if the discussion is to go towards what is being done to 'help' the poor to get out of poverty, then the old adage comes to mind: "Insanity consists of repeating an action multiple times and expecting a different result." Based on the results to date, the attempts to help the poor are insane. Perhaps the reason is that the underlying assumptions as to the causes of poverty are wrong. But that, too, is another whole discussion.

--Pete