This will be my last “political” post, for some time, as I am eager to get back to pure Cleantech, but there are parallels to clean energy, healthcare and national debt that are critically important. They are all on unsustainable paths.
HEALTHCARE
Healthcare is a major economic problem in the U.S. for individuals, businesses and the country. As you can see below or at the National Geographic website where you can zoom in on this graphic, the U.S. spends $7,290 per person per year on healthcare compared to 19 other countries, largely from western and eastern Europe as well as South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, who spend between $1,035 and $4,417 per person per year. The cost in these countries is distributed across this cost range as is the average life expectancy at birth across the 73 to 83 years range. The U.S. average life expectancy at birth is 78 years.
Americans are paying more than 2 1/2 times as much on healthcare per person per year (over $350,000 if the costs were to remain fixed over a newborn’s lifetime) in exchange for the equivalent average life expectancy at birth compared to these other countries. All 19 countries in this comparison provide universal healthcare coverage to their citizens at that lower cost per person.
NATIONAL DEBT
The chart below, based on data from the Bureau of the Public Debt, United States Department of the Treasury, shows our annual deficits. It appears to me that lower taxes, during Republican administrations without a comparable reduction in annual government expenditures, are largely responsible for our annual imbalances and total national debt.
SUSTAINABILITY
Senator-elect Scott Brown’s pledge of lower taxes is dangerous. In his campaign-defining tv advertisement, he stated “Every dollar released from taxation that is spent or invested will help create a new job and a new salary and these jobs and new salaries can create other jobs and other salaries and more customers and more growth for an expanding American economy.” I am sure we would get some more jobs in the short term by lowering taxes, but repeating this hollow fiscal promise as shown above in the national debt chart, will very likely move Americans and the United States of America that much closer to bankruptcy.
Debt, similar to climate change, does not seem important until the day it is and then it is too late to do anything about it.
Our energy use is unsustainable. Our healthcare “system” is unsustainable. Our tax reductions, adding ominously to our national debt, are unsustainable. It is time for us to live sustainably.
NO HEALTHCARE
Most of us living in Massachusetts still have the jobs we had before the “Great Recession”, thankfully avoiding the Great Depression sequel. Those of us who are unemployed, about one in ten including me, receive some of the best unemployment benefits in the country while we search for a job. We also have universal healthcare coverage in the Commonwealth which reduces the burden on those of us who are struggling.
About 100,000 more of us voted this week for someone we really did not know, except for a three week mini-series, instead of for Martha Coakley, who has worked tirelessly and successfully for us, and for Senator Edward Kennedy, who dedicated most of his life to the people in this state and country and the promise of healthcare for all.
Roughly one in ten Americans today from coast to coast suffer without healthcare coverage that we in Massachusetts now apparently take for granted. Due to our vote, they will continue to suffer without healthcare coverage as this nasty downturn continues to unfold.
Shame on us.
Well said, Peter! I would like to see the health care bill passed right away through the reconciliation process, with a few revisions here and there that can improve it I’m sure. I would not mind if some sort of limits on lawsuits for medical malpractice were added. I think the most important thing is to get it done and to move on to other pressing issues. Much of the Scott Brown vote was (amazingly) not opposed to health care reform, and many who were voting against health care reform were misinformed about the provisions of the bill. It’s complicated, and it was easy to whip up opposition, especially when ugly deals were required (Ben Nelson) due to 40 Senators just saying “no.” It is so ironic that some of the key features of the bill that will enable us to start controlling costs and getting value for the massive amounts we spend on health care were prominently placed in Scott Brown’s fear campaign to stop the bill.
Our leaders must show courage and lead. I am confident that the benefits of the bill can be demonstrated and will become obvious in the next 6 months. I cannot accept the idea that our nation can become completely paralyzed, unable to take critical steps needed to behave responsibly. If the entire nation descends into the pit California is in, unable to address its massive deficits due to the requirement of a supermajority to do anything, we will be in very, very serious trouble.