Wednesday, April 16, 2008

DIVIDED WE FAIL

During the debate tonight I saw a commercial for dividedwefail.com. They want to see an end to the partisan bickering (and reach across the aisle) to get things done. The premise, of course, is that gridlock is bad.

We believe all Americans should have access to affordable, quality health care.
We believe...
All Americans should have access to affordable health care, including prescription drugs, and these costs should not burden future generations.
We believe...
Wellness and prevention efforts, including changes in personal behavior such as diet and exercise, should be top national priorities.
We believe...
Americans should have choices when it comes to long-term care - allowing them to maintain their independence at home or in their communities with expanded and affordable financing options.

Who isn’t for affordable health care? But what is affordable? Is it worth having mediocre health care if it’s affordable?

No one is for wellness and prevention more than me, but how can you make individual choices a top national priority? And if you make health care “affordable” doesn’t it offer less incentive for the personal behavior push?

How do you finance long-term care? The people getting the care will not live past the need of the care and will thus be unable to make their payments.


We believe all Americans should have peace of mind about their future long-term financial security.
We believe...
Our children and grandchildren should have an adequate quality of life when they retire. Social Security must be strengthened without burdening future generations.
We believe...
Workers should be provided with financial incentives to save, should have access to effective retirement plans, and should be able to keep working and contributing to society regardless of age.
We believe...
Americans of all ages should have access to tools to help manage their finances, and save for the future and better, easy to understand information to help them increase their financial literacy and manage their money wisely.


Like the platitude in the first section. The word “adequate” can mean anything. Simple math will show you that Social Security cannot be strengthened without burdening future generations.

Social Security has created the disincentive to save. The problem is that people do not realize how little money Social Security will pay them. Had the program never been invented, people would be saving more today. Everyone has access to retirement plans. “Effective” is another great sounding word that has relative meaning. The best retirement plan is getting the government to let you have your money back.

The third desire can easily be a part of public school curriculum, but that would take teachers who understand money and they weren’t taught these concepts either.

We stand as strong champions for the new American dream -- to build a 21st century America where these issues are paramount so that all people can have the opportunity for a prosperous future. We also believe that individuals, businesses, health care providers, non-profit organizations, and government must work together to find solutions - personally, privately and publicly. We represent tens of millions of Americans and we believe that all of us share a responsibility for making our society work and restoring peace of mind to all Americans.

This is a fine sentiment, but society is having trouble working because of too much involvement by do-gooders and technocrats. If they hadn’t included government in the solution I would applaud such a statement. But you don’t include the government in solutions, because they don’t partner with anyone. They only participate by regulations, laws and demands. Once you get the government involved, the other groups are merely ceremonial.

There are 300 million of us in this country and there are no solutions for 300 million people. If individuals only had these wasted resources back, so many of these issues would be nonexistent.

1 comment:

Serena said...

Bravo! Well said.

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