The Need to Publicly Fund Healthcare,

 Education, and the Electoral Process


For almost 150-years business interests have lobbied professional politicians and worked to remove the parameters designed to keep capitalism within certain bounds. Corporations were given the rights of a citizen - which destroyed our system of one person one vote - and corporate officers were required by law to place earning profit for their shareholders before all else - including people, the planet, or the effects of their business on the local community, as long as it was legal.

This ideology has permeated every aspect of our society and the institutions in place are designed to maintain this status quo. The separation between the rich and the poor continues to grow, and an increasingly smaller group of people control more and more of the world’s resources. They are not in these positions of power because of personal character, but rather their ability to continually refine the economic system from which they arose. The needs of a few are consistently placed ahead of the rest with the result being a society – possibly our entire civilization – imploding upon itself.

If we wish to create a more caring society, solve the greater problems facing our world today, and insure that our best people serve in our government, we must put into place the programs that allow these ideals to come about. The law of cause and effect can seldom be broken and the momentum from the past takes time to redirect. Understanding these principles offers us insight into how to proceed. A better country tomorrow - and eventually a more fair, just, and equitable world - requires that we insure that those people with the greatest minds, integrity, and commitment to public service are given the opportunity to participate. This requires that our society funds health care, college education, and participation in the electoral process to insure all people have an equal opportunity.

Health Care

For-profit medicine - the capitalist model of today’s healthcare system - requires constant growth: stagnation does not allow for survival. As such, there is no incentive to help people prevent disease, and great incentive to rely on long-term management of sickness rather than cure. While this may not be the mindset of the individual practitioners involved, it is the motivation behind the associations to which they belong and the corporations for whom they work. The result is a health care crisis that threatens to bankrupt our nation, both morally and economically.

Refusing to care for those people who do not have money has torn the heart out of our country: many of our children have come to consider it natural to base a person’s value as a human being on their total net worth. We build our friendships, community, and corresponding values around others with income levels similar to ours. Compassion has become an ideal, not a primary virtue upon which we base our character - neither as a nation nor as individuals. If we hope to see a better day, we must become better people. To turn the tide requires teaching the next generation our society’s duty to care for those less fortunate.

Instituted correctly, a publicly funded health care system will revitalize our nation and increase the pool from which genius arises. When the motivation for profit is removed the medical profession can redirect itself toward prevention and away from disease management. The political focus becomes one of reducing public expenditure through creating a healthier population. Laws can be enacted to insure a quality food supply: corporations and their investors will no longer profit by feeding “junk” food to the poor, and those of lower incomes will have more money available to make better decisions. Health and physical education classes will return to our public schools, and incentives for adults to stay fit become viable. We reaffirm the dignity of all people, and over time our country will regain its humanity. In this way we provide an environment that offers us our greatest chance to evolve, and all people - whether rich or poor - have a greater opportunity to develop to their full potential.

Education

Our world is facing problems of a scale never before seen. Whether global warming, increasing religious antagonisms, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, or a worldwide epidemic of a new disease, these problems require our greatest minds to solve. We must allow those people in our society with the highest potential an opportunity to develop regardless of the social stratum from which they originate: never should genius be qualified by financial status.

To enter college today requires either a top GPA to secure scholarships or family money to pay one’s way through. This leaves a large segment of our society, those who are poor or low to middle income, with much less opportunity than the rest of our society. The quality of their K-12 education is often less than those with higher incomes, and their parents do not have the money to pay for tuition outright. Financial aid is available, but federal drug laws again reduce the chances for this group: those busted for smoking pot - over 750,000 people a year of which the vast majority come from poor or low income families - are stripped of their right to receive assistance. When the rich are educated and the poor not, the class system is reinforced. To craft a more fair and equitable society - and give our world its best chance to meet its greatest challenges - requires a merit based educational system funded by public money.

When universities become businesses academia becomes corrupted. Gate keepers – professors and administrators who determine who enters graduate school – often make their decisions with their donors in mind. Having to rely on private money determines what disciplines get the greatest funding. Law, business, and technology – those fields leading the quest for profit – thrive and increase their hold on society, while education, social services, and liberal arts – those departments necessary to develop a greater understanding of our humanity, continue to languish. Forced to comply to survive, most professors are unwilling to speak out until reaching tenure, and by then many have lost the desire to do so. This type of system restricts the freedom of thought so important in the quest for knowledge.

A publicly funded educational system allows for fundamental change in our society. Rather than addressing the symptoms of our problems, we affect their primary cause. Free, merit based education allows our brightest people to enter the institutions directing our country without pressure to maintain the status quo. The diversity of culture, experience, and thought within all disciplines is broadened. Social issues currently not addressed and that do not directly affect those with higher incomes will receive greater attention. In this way we set the stage for our best leaders to develop the skills needed to serve our country.

The Electoral Process

The most important element of a free society is the ability of its citizens to choose their best leaders without influence from special interest groups. We require people who view political office as a service, not a profession: officials who are willing to design policy that best meets the needs of all citizens and who understand our responsibility to future generations. Expediency can no longer trump reason, science, or the higher traits of our humanity: empathy, compassion, and good will. Only by removing private money from the electoral process can we ensure that our greatest leaders will rise to the top, and that integrity becomes more important than garnering donor support.

It is estimated that the current Presidential Campaign will total at over one billion dollars. No longer can we say that we live in a country where anyone can become president. Today, and for many years, the top leadership in our country has been confined to those with the money to participate. The class system that has resulted keeps one group of people crafting our society for their benefit, and ensures that the status quo is maintained. Every seated politician at a national level needs financial support, and to receive and maintain this money they must bow to the will of special interest groups at the expense of the general welfare.

By instituting a publicly funded electoral process that insures all people have an opportunity to participate in our government – regardless of their creed, gender, ethnicity, or social status – we secure our best hope to finding safe passage through the problems looming ahead. It allows leadership to arise from all segments of our society and offers better representation to the many diverse cultures of which we are comprised: the needs of the whole are placed before the desires of a few. Different lines of thought are introduced and those marginalized today are allowed a more equal say in developing the laws that structure our society.

Removing the need to beg for money frees people to place their highest allegiance to the greater welfare of society: the public interest is protected and the rights the individual remain sacrosanct. Only the most crass among us subject themselves and their families to the degrading process that defines our elections today. These are not the people we want as leaders. No longer can we tolerate a mindset that believes those who own the country should rule it. Achieving financial success – or being born into it – is seldom, if ever, an indication of character, tolerance, or wisdom. Until we create an environment where the best among us are both allowed to and want to participate, we will remain at the mercy those willing to sacrifice their humanity for power.