Posted by
Mike on Friday, April 13, 2007 9:44:00 AM
The California health care system is slipping just like the educational
system. Immigrants are not to blame because they provide much of
the tax revenue. The problem is not that there is not enough
revenue. The problem is how the money is being spent.
Voters elected Arnold Swartzennegger governor on what was essentially a
beauty contest in 2003. In 2004 he supported a three billion
dollar bond initiative to fund stem cell research. The results
have been negligible. Not one cure and the destruction of many
live human embryos. Who needs someone in government who has such
disrespect for human life? Today the fetus, tomorrow your
grandmother.
California also has a school lottery raising billions of dollars each
year. Yet the people are still taxed heavily and there is
pressure to roll back Proposition 13, a major reason for the recall of
Governor Davis. The children are still receiving a poor education
in the public schools and there is very little discipline.
Welcome to the nanny state.
I have a 50 year old brother suffering from schizophrenia. To get
his neccessary medication, he must be given a laboratory blood test
periodically. After I take him in for the tests, the laboratory
in Ventura County run by Quest Diagnostics usually does not fax or send
the test results to the pharmacy on time necessitating additional time
spent in requesting them to do so. They are reimbursed for the
tests by Medicare and perhaps also by state funds. There is no
accountability because the labs are now unregulated. This is
probably the result of budget cutbacks yet it causes a great deal of
inconvenience, as also when my brother was taken to his last doctor's
appointment which had been cancelled without there being any advance
notice due to a scheduling error.
Voters must demand our elected officials return to the principle of
subsidiarity in health care, education, and all other government
services. This means family first, then local government
assistance when needed. Only when local government cannot
adequately do the job should the state intervene. There are
values that transcend the marketplace. The state must regulate
private health care providers and related facilities to insure adequate standards.
When Ronald Reagan was governor, he began the process of closing the
state mental hospitals. This saved tax dollars but also left a
lot of mentally ill people homeless. Today, the only alternative
to county and local mental health services for most people in Ventura
County would be the Norwalk state hospital in Los Angeles which has a
history of patient abuse and neglect. So we make do with the
health care closer to home in the county. There are problems, but
overall it works.