Why We Should Socialize the Basics in America

Anthony Burgess, an English author, wrote a column for the New York Times in November of 1971, a time eerily similar to our current time. With a title like Is America Falling Apart? Burgess would seem a bit cynical, but his was a message of hope. He said in his article that “The future of mankind is being worked out there (in America) on a scale typically American – vast, dramatic, almost apocalyptical” (Burgess 99-102). Coming from a Brit, that is a pretty good compliment. My message here in this discussion is hopeful as well. But, consider the following: our health care market has become the most inflated in the world because of escalating drug costs, baby-boomers approaching retirement, and consumption of unhealthy food. In the future only the wealthy will be able to afford health care insurance coverage. Transportation energy prices are out of control as our country plunges further into debt to conduct a war to stabilize a geographic area where petroleum resources will only yield a fraction of our energy needs over the next twenty years. Higher education costs are on the rise and fewer middle-class high-school graduates’ parents can afford to educate their kids without mortgaging the house. Not many average Americans who work full-time can afford to better themselves via higher learning without student loans. Unless we socialize health care, transportation and higher education in this country our society and way of life will deteriorate irreparably.

First off, let’s talk about health care. Even though there are token programs by drug companies to offer prescriptions to low income patients for free, pharmaceutical corporate profits are at an all time high, reporting in 2004 an average of 17.5 % for the top three (Top 50 Pharmaceutical Companies). Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO’s) are financially healthy: a sample of 528 found that profits increased 52 percent during the first nine months of 2003 from a year earlier on the strength of higher premiums (Gerencher). This is not chicken scratch here, folks. We are talking billions of dollars worth of profit. This profit is often protected from tax by off-shore tax shelter schemes (Brittain-Catlin 53-54). That in no way is going to help the average American’s physical well-being. Surely we can legislate a way to harness that off-shore revenue stream to make the field fair for Average Joe.

People are living longer all over the world, not just in the United States. Here in America 12.4 % of the population are over 65 with projections for this age group to increase by at least 2.4% percent a year until 2020 (U.S. Interim Projections by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin). Average people over 65 have many more health issues than the rest of the population. These overall increases drive up the cost of premiums due to increased critical-care caseload consisting mainly of heart disease and cancer.

As for the rest of us, Americans like to eat fatty foods. In Seattle there is a measure before the City Council to ban all trans-fat-containing foods from restaurant menus (KUOW Program Archive). A similar measure was passed in New York City last year. Why would governments step in with such drastic measures? Because the statistics are alarming and we have a national health crisis on our hands. In the past nine years, obesity in America has increased by a startling 17 % (Overweight and Obesity). Obese and overweight people statistically have more health problems (Overweight and Obesity). Maybe the government could help out in ways other than banning our dietary habits. Preventative care measures could be implemented by a national health care plan that would create incentives for doctors to keep their patients on target with weight and health issues.

I know what you’re thinking. Why should we consider asking the government to step in to help us out? In fifteen years, if current trends persist, health care insurance premiums will be stratospheric and only within the reach of the wealthy. In other words, only the rich will be able to afford medical care. The rest of the free-world has socialized medicine without collapsed economies or communist revolutions (Bramley-Harker). In those countries, citizens are healthier than ever. Sure they tax rich corporations to finance these programs, but they also have laws in place to prevent the unbridled and wanton propensity of corporations to cover their wealth in loophole-legal tax evasion practices.

Then there is the question of transportation. Tragically, America has designed cities around the automobile, and consequently the petroleum industry. In his 2006 State Of The Union address, President Bush publicly acknowledged for the first time the startling fact that we are addicted to oil. Oil is a finite resource that is almost depleted. Another startling fact is that the United States population consists of five percent of the world's inhabitants yet consumes 25 % of the world's crude oil production; importing 60 % of the oil it consumes (What is Peak Oil?). Oil resources were first exploited in the Middle East by Britain early in the 20th century. Michael Meacher, former British Environment Minister, comments on the startling state of the oil market due to the impending shortfall created by the oil supply crisis:

Market forces will undoubtedly exert strong signals, but are unlikely to be able to prevent abrupt dislocations without powerful accompanying strategies ruthlessly enforced in the face of vested interests. CIBC predicts that likely supply shortfall will be some 9m barrels per day by 2010 and that the oil price needed to reduce demand will be around $100 per barrel, and of course thereafter figures steadily rise further. But with oil prices at say $100-$150 per barrel, economies of heavily oil-dependent countries (the great majority in the world) will be forced into a tailspin of decline, leading to violent uprisings, revolutions and mass migration on a scale we have never seen. (What is Peak Oil?)

Along with Mr. Meacher’s remarks, bear in mind that crude oil is currently about $77 per barrel. Because of the finite amount of reserves on the planet, America's dependence on oil will create a future economic catastrophe. Our economy is energy-based and our oil products prices are the cheapest. Those two details represent a precarious cliff from which a fall will not offer any economic cushion when we hit bottom, or when we attempt to climb back. Gasoline accounts for almost 50 percent of America’s oil consumption (Annual Energy Revue 2006). With this in mind, it is time that changes are made in America’s overall transportation picture. Sure, many of America’s cities were designed around the automobile, but unless we create a mass-transit system on a national scale that is at least as accessible as systems already in place in Europe, we are destined for economic ruin.

Part of our automobile culture was created by a natural evolution of our free market economy, which depends heavily on consumerism and the flow of products outside and from within our borders. Unfortunately, our higher education system has suffered the same fate as the automobile. Colleges depend more heavily on marketing and financing from secondary sources than ever before. It has become wiser financially to invest college tuition money into bonds, certificates of deposit, or other banking instruments because of the declining rate of return via salaries for college graduates entering the workforce ("College is a Waste of Time and Money " 268-276). Not only is tuition an inefficient means to make money, it is one of the most debilitating financial obligations a student can undertake. Most student loans are issued by private corporations and are underwritten by the U.S. government. Interest rates on these loans are somewhere in the neighborhood of seven percent. That interest is not paid to the government, but to the banks who issue the loans. So we have a privatized educational loan system that financially benefits only banks, not the government or the student. The overall student loan default rate has been increasing and was measured at 5.1 % in 2005 compared to 4.5 % in 2003 (Shuppy). This figure accounted for all student loans. The figure for loans that were only subsidized by the federal government is consistently higher. There is something definitely wrong with this picture. By the time a student graduates they have to get a job to pay back their education debt. Once the graduate gets a job, it is more likely that the graduate will hold onto to that job for dear life.
This brings us to a picture that is repeated often in this country: Debt from education leads individuals into jobs that might not be what they had envisioned; and because our cities are designed primarily for automobile accessibility, the job more than likely involves a commute, which requires more debt to finance a car. Once on the job, there is an extremely high ratio of health insurance cost to the amount of the graduate’s salary. The graduate is not happy, but persists in an unhappy situation, which creates stress that causes health problems, which in turn increases health care premiums for everyone. It is a vicious cycle. A possibly more controversial aspect of this picture is corporate profit. It is in the best interest (no pun intended) of corporations to keep those graduates in their predicaments. The banks make money, and even though productivity suffers from low morale, the employers make money, and the health care industry makes even more money. Everyone but Average Joe is happy. Average Joe is afraid to speak out or to organize because he fears for his job and everything material to him.

It is not an unseen fact that corporations lobby our government to their own gain. Laws affecting corporate finances are the way they are in this country largely due to this lobbying. If the United States wants to truly be the land of the free then action must be taken to free her citizens from the burdens of debt that have financed what other countries’ citizens take for granted. That is, the debt that most of us have been shackled with since we left school needs to be abolished for a generation of new students. Avoiding the debt of health care costs, transportation costs, and education costs will make us all healthier and happier. Maybe the citizens of our country can create their own corporate lobby. But wait a minute, weren’t we supposed be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people? Or was it of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations? If our country takes the side of the average citizen by making access to healthcare, transportation, and secondary education simple and free, then the need to accomplish the daunting task of reigning in the corporate lobby will be greatly reduced.


List of Works Cited

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Bird, Caroline. "College is a Waste of Time and Money."
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Brittain-Catlin, William. Offshore: The Dark Side of the Global Economy.
1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.

Burgess, Anthony. "Is America Falling Apart?." New York Times
Magazine 07 Nov 1971: 99-102.

Gerencher, Kristen . "HMO profits jumped 52%." MarketWatch.
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"KUOW Program Archive." KUOW.org. 11 July 2007. Puget Sound
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Shuppy, Annie. "Loan-Default Rate Creeps Up." The Chronicle
of Higher Education 22 Sep 2006 1-2. 21 July 2007 .

"Top 50 Pharmaceutical Companies." Pharmer.com. Sep 2005.
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"U.S. Interim Projections by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin."
U.S. Census Bureau. 18 Mar 2004. U.S. Census Bureau. 21 July 2007 .

"What is Peak Oil?." CrudeAwakening.org. 11 July 2006. CrudeAwakening.org.
21 Jul 2007 .