The quality of medical care in the U.S. is horrendous

Kllrnohj · ☢ PH34R |\/|3 (Posts: 8196)

Yes they are. They've been holding steady relative to inflation over the last 30 years, actually.

qazz42 · Vampire Killer (Posts: 4253)

well, if they ruined themselves finantially out of greed and other things do they deserve the care?

<note, I am just wondering...>

Kllrnohj · ☢ PH34R |\/|3 (Posts: 8196)

From that article: http://www.postandcourier.com/photos/2011/mar/18/67852/

It's down from the past couple of years (and note, this is mostly speculation as the real data isn't in yet), but it is barely lower than it was 10 years ago, and much higher than it was 15 years ago. Also note that they used the age old trick of playing with the scale to exaggerate the growth/drop. The economy does not grow constantly, it always rises and falls - you have to look at it over a significant length of time to determine the trend, and if you do that it is obviously rising. The problem is nobody does that anymore. Nobody saves for a rainy day. People immediately spend every dime they make.

qazz42 · Vampire Killer (Posts: 4253)

ah, but I never said all, I said What if a certian poor person was lazy and greedy and put himself in said situation?

elfprince13 · OVER NINE THOUSAND! (Posts: 11872)

because education money isn't spent effectively. And the sort of education we're talking about comes through organizations like NeighborKeepers.

elfprince13 · OVER NINE THOUSAND! (Posts: 11872)

Unfortunately real education reform is a hot mess and certain death to a political career. And while correlation ≠ causation, the amount of spending on education has gone drastically upwards in recent years, and the quality of education has gone drastically downwards, which could lead people to believe that there is a relationship of some sort implied by that correlation.

graphmastur · Power User (Posts: 464)

The question is there, although it didn't have a librarian, what did it have that they might have not spent their money on wisely. See, sometimes (and granted, this is how it should be), when you have less money, you have to make it go a little farther. I think that's what the republicans are hoping for here.

And I really don't like when someone says vote democrat or republican. I like to look at the person themselves, and see if I like their ideas and platform and then decide on them.

elfprince13 · OVER NINE THOUSAND! (Posts: 11872)

Mileage may vary by locality, but on a national level: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1996_2011&view=1&expand=20&units=b&fy=fy12&chart=20-total&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&title=Education%20Spending%20Chart&state=US&color=c&local=s

Qwerty.55 · Expert (Posts: 617)

I'm not defending the school, but there's only so far you can stretch a dollar, particularly when your hands are bound by the sheer amount of regulation surrounding education. For example, my old HS put out a budget report each year. It's also a problem when much of the money is wasted on ineffective programs. I remember seeing year after year how the drug intervention programs and the teenage pregnancy programs got literally millions of dollars in state funding. Both of these programs had spectacularly low success rates, as the drug usage and teen pregnancy rates went up almost every year and the rates were among the highest in the country (very little impact before/after implementation). Those programs were state mandated. Sometimes it's just the bloody regulation.

elfprince13 · OVER NINE THOUSAND! (Posts: 11872)

I hate to sound calloused, but you can't argue about national policy from a single case. See the link I posted in my last post.

But, the fact that despite national increases in educational spending your school doesn't seem to be getting any budget increases is further evidence to me of why local community and government need to step up, because the federal government can't handle the whole country effectively. Working for small federal government doesn't mean republicans think education is bad, it means they want the decisions about it to be locally by the people who know what the problems are.

elfprince13 · OVER NINE THOUSAND! (Posts: 11872)

The fault is with the administration of the school system as a whole - this is at the local, county, state, and federal levels. I'm not sure what is meant by "with the schools" in this case, because schools aren't unified entities.