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Written by Ozaukee Press
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Wednesday, 16 January 2013 17:27 |
In a new ranking of the health of people under 50, the U.S. is at the bottom of a list of 17 countries
The flu is almost as scary as the fiscal cliff. Television news seems to be giving as much time to reporting this year’s reputed health disaster as it gave to the recently dodged financial disaster. Hypercaffeinated TV talkers are reporting from hospital emergency departments instead of the floor of the House of Representatives, but their messages are similar—cataclysm is at hand.
Not quite. This winter’s flu outbreak is not the worst in recent years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On the other hand, it’s bad enough, especially for those who are unlucky enough to catch the virus. Some of those who are avoiding the flu are not lucky but smart—smart enough to get a flu shot.
They are a minority. Less than a third of the people in the country get flu shots. Many of the vaccination avoiders seem to fear the shot more than the flu. A frequently heard canard is that flu shots actually cause one to get the flu.
The flu is America’s health problem du jour, but in the scheme of the nation’s health challenges it hardly rates a notice. The problem that deserves much more notice than it’s getting is that Americans are among the least healthy people in the developed world.
A study by a panel of experts assembled by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council released last week presented an awful picture of the health of Americans under 50, showing it to be worse than that of their peers in all of the 16 other countries studied.
American men ranked last in life expectancy. American women ranked second from the bottom. This in a country that spends by far more on health care than every country in the study, which included most European nations as well as Australia and Japan.
Among other dismal findings, the U.S. has: the second highest death rate from heart attacks and lung disease; the highest rate of infant mortality; the highest rate of death by violence, with gun homicides at least 20 times higher than other countries in the study; the highest rate of women dying from complications of pregnancy and childbirth; the lowest probability of living to age 50.
Americans pride themselves on being exceptional. The most nationalistic among us sometimes use the term “American exceptionalism” to extoll our culture as superior. The country that is the world’s longest surviving representative democracy and has the world’s largest economy and the most powerful military certainly has some bragging rights.
But the study illuminating the negative American exceptionalism in health confers no bragging rights, of course. Rather, it comes with an imperative to wake up and face the fact that in caring for the well being of our citizens we are not the best—we are the worst.
The panel recommended some general and obvious solutions, including universal health insurance, more efforts to encourage healthy behavior, a more effective safety net for the poor, better gun control.
It is telling that all of those recommendations, which are widely embraced by healthier countries, are controversial here, a clue, perhaps, to the source of the problem.
The panel chairman observed that the fact that the American culture “wants to limit the intrusion of government into our personal lives” may hamper efforts to improve the health of the citizenry.
If that’s rugged individualism, it’s coming at the price of shortened lives.
When those TV reporters hanging out in emergency rooms get over their flu fixation, maybe they will discover America’s far more dangerous health problem—falling behind the rest of industrialized world in taking care of its citizens’ health.
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Written by Ozaukee Press
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Wednesday, 09 January 2013 17:44 |
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Wisconsin has cut aid to public schools more than any other state over the past two years, according to some statistical comparisons.
That was the doing of the state Legislature, however, and it would be a mistake to conclude from it that the people of Wisconsin do not understand the need to adequately fund public education. There are many signs to the contrary at the local level.
A few examples:
In school districts across the state, more school spending referendums were approved by voters in the 2012 fall election than in any Wisconsin election in recent years.
In the Port Washington-Saukville School District, school board candidates who campaigned on cutting teacher compensation were trounced in the 2012 spring election.
At Port Washington High School, a magnificent Steinway concert-grade grand piano graces the auditorium stage.
The last example requires some explanation. The piano was not bought with tax dollars. It was bought by people who pay their fair share of school taxes but then gave more in the form of donations to enrich the music program in Port Washington-Saukville public schools.
More than $65,000 was raised by the Music Boosters to buy the Steinway. This was not a case in which a few donors stepped up with big checks. Rather, the money came in hundreds of small donations from people who simply wanted to do something for students beyond the school support required of all citizens.
The result, officially unveiled in a concert Saturday night, is not only an utterly splendidmusical instrument, but a gleaming symbol of the community’s commitment to public education. The piano, 13 years old (barely broken in as concert pianos go) and in perfect condition, is the Steinway model—a Model D Concert Grand—that can cause concert musicians to go weak in the knees in appreciation of the lovely quality of its sound. It replaces a worn-out grand piano that was nearly a century old and unfit for serious performance. The new Steinway will be available for use by students in all Port-Saukville schools at the discretion of their teachers.
The wrong message to take from this achievement would be that it somehow demonstrates that school districts should be prepared to seek private funding when tax revenue is insufficient to adequately support school budgets.
Public schools should exist wholly dependent on public funding. That’s the idea—universal education paid for by everybody. When tax revenue is inadequate to support schools at a level necessary for quality education, it’s not a sign that private resources are needed, but that the Legislature is not fulfilling its obligation to provide sufficient state aid and flexible enough limits on local tax levies.
A piano as costly the school district’s new acquisition is not essential, of course, and no one would expect funding for it to be included in the school budget. It is an enhancement, a marvelous one, that will benefit music students and those who hear their performances for generations to come.
The piano should also be seen as a testament to the public’s high regard for the admirable music education program in Port-Saukville schools. That appreciation is regularly shown in standing ovations at the excellent school band and choral concerts that showcase student talent and elevate community culture. Now it is also being shown by the presence on that auditorium stage of a truly “grand” piano.
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Written by Ozaukee Press
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Wednesday, 02 January 2013 16:18 |
Congressional dysfunction is pushing American families toward another cliff—the food price cliff
Milk prices could double early in 2013 if the House of Representatives does not pass a new farm bill.
With an incentive like that—the obvious need to act to avert sticker shock for family food budgets and economic misery for dairy farmers resulting from the inevitable reduction in milk consumption—Congress will act quickly and decisively, right?
Wrong, most likely. This is the Congress, after all, that has proved itself incapable of meeting its responsibilities to the American people even when the alternative was to push the country over the fiscal cliff of drastic tax increases and spending cuts. Why would we expect this increasingly foolish-looking legislative body to be able to deal with the nation’s food supply?
The Senate passed a farm bill in 2012 that would avert the milk crisis, and the House Agriculture Committee approved a version of it. But Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have not allowed the measure to be debated by the full House—apparently something to do with government spending.
If a farm bill is not passed by Jan. 1, the government’s farm policy will revert to a law passed in 1949, which includes an obsolete formula for calculating the price of milk that would push today’s prices to unheard of levels.
Farm policies involve subsidies—it’s the government’s way of balancing the needs of food consumers and producers to ensure bountiful food resources for the nation’s population.
Billions have been spent on dairy subsidies, but as agricultural subsidies go, the amount is relatively small. In the past 15 years dairy subsidies have cost about $5 billion. During the same period more than $80 billion was spent on subsidies for corn production.
The corn number is another reason to revamp farm policy in a new bill. Corn growing doesn’t need to be subsidized by direct payments to corn growers, as it is now, because corn prices are high.
So are some food prices, and corn is the culprit. The price of corn affects the prices of numerous foods, from livestock to processed food products, and the price of corn has gone through the roof. The drought of 2012 is one reason. The other is ethanol. Nothing can be done about the drought. Plenty can be done about ethanol: Congress can end mandates for ethanol use and subsides for ethanol production.
Using food to fuel automobiles is folly no matter what the price of corn. But with the price of corn high, and going higher because of ethanol, it’s indefensible.
Forty percent of the corn produced in America is used to make ethanol—more than 5 billion bushels in the past year.
Ethanol is good for corn growers and ethanol makers, but it’s hard to find anyone else who benefits. It’s an inefficient fuel that hasn’t made the U.S. less dependent on imported oil. It raises the price of gasoline into which it’s blended. Its net effect on the environment is negative when the impact of corn production is factored in—cultivation and transportation costs, chemical fertilizer use and depletion of soil nutrients and water resources.
Meanwhile, the mandate to feed the gas tanks of motor vehicles with corn ethanol pushes up the cost of feeding human beings.
Congress has ensured this trend will continue with its mandate requiring the use of 15 million gallons a year of ethanol by 2015.
The spending scolds in the House of Representatives profess to love the free market. Here’s their chance to prove it. Put an end to ethanol mandates and subsides and let the market decide how much corn will be used to make fuel.
That would lower the price of food. Imagine that—a positive achievement from this Congress.
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