13 Comments

Victor, you finally hit on the reason for increasing costs of health care in the USA. Remember when the universities were graduating untold numbers of ‘Law’ students? Everyone wondered what they were all going to do for a living. Well now we know. The legal costs involved in every layer of our society makes us totally uncompetitive with the real world. Even our own health care system can be done better and for far less cost, ‘offshore’. Pendulums tend to swing only so far before they start to return in the other direction. Maybe, just maybe, the swing will slow down before ‘Isolationism’ is seen as the ultimate cure. Fostered as always, by the return to a ‘Zero Sum’, trade union dominated, economy, where only the ‘Union’ workers ‘Win’.

My solution for the border problem has been to move ours two hundred miles south. First, the defensible length would be cut by two thirds. Second, the US could develop the incumbent natural resources more quickly and more efficiently. Third, we would cut the corruption faced by the inhabitants by 90%. And fourth, we could establish a go/no-go line on the original border.

It’s perfect, the Latins get to come here without really coming here.

As to these vile little movies that give guys like de Palma and his ilk a way to make money here, I suggest the movies will tank because the sensible America I know will vote with their feet.

We are in this predicament of prevarication by projection because our artistic elite are untouchable. Lawyers, PR men, newsies who fawn over these people do their best to keep them untouchable, and the elite like it that way.

But it’s not just the entertainment clique who enjoy such privilege. Check out most of our politicians. They are among the adored few, as well, from the former President, down through the ranks of Congress, to state and local politicians —hubris on the half shell.

The “greatest generation” did a poor job of telling the story of WWII. They considered it duty to maintain honorable silence so their children and their children’s children would not have to know war. This was foolish.

American arrogance and complacency were born with the baby boom because we smugly believed we had truly ended world war, that negotiation was possible just because we wanted it. After all, Reagan ended the Cold War without firing a shot…or did he?

Fear is such an uncomfortable emotion, it fades faster than the silver bromide on a tintype in direct sun, that it vanishes when spring returns, and that’s why we forget danger, forget the world is a dangerous place, forget why we must be ever ready to defend with lethal force.

I believe our young understand. Why? Because they live with the same danger in microcosm daily. To wit, gangs, drive-by shootings, drug wars in many more cities than we hear about, and the young get it in spades…I’m talkin’ thirty-five and under.

No one can possibly believe law enforcement and courts today are adequate, least of our young people.

Re: medical care. I am so glad you brought this up because this is the best place for market forces to do the dirty work of cleaning up a system, and believe me, this system is filthy.

I have always believed Brandeis’ monograph that “Sunshine is the best antiseptic.” Therefore, it’s time to expose the dirty little, tiny, minuscule monopoly of medical care here and all over.

For three years, I have called for the establishment of more medical schools, not only in this country, but world wide. I wrote years ago that, notwithstanding el-hi poor education, our country turns out three or four times more qualified candidates for medical training than we have facility for schooling. We have at least that many qualified instructors who can’t find a position.

Certainly, we need tort reform ala the Texas model, but the real cost actuator in medical care is a dearth of practitioners. It is supply and demand.

Gigantic institutions who hoard their endowments (I refer you to the huge cash supply of the Ivies and most other schools) can quite easily afford facilities if they are not monuments to some monstrous ego that requires a brass plaque on a fifty million dollar building. (I remind you that higher learning was born on porches.)

Costs are ridiculous, but they can be ameliorated through a tax deductible public service plan that would provide low cost care over a five year period rather than government grants.

This plan is workable and can be in place in as little as two years. The sole sticking point is the lack of vision to accomplish it.

Right answers requires right questions. Right questions arise only from critical thinking that takes into account a view toward the future.

We are living in a dangerously forgetful time where the past is clung to like some Runic amulet, and now we run the risk of losing not only the past, but the future to the past.

The power structure, embryonic as far back as Wilson, saw its birth in the fifties, its teens in the sixties, its pure development in the final thirty years of the 20th century, its senescence in the first decade of the 21st century, and now it is time for the experiment to be remanded to hospice care.

It’s difficult to let go of the torch, but the task now falls to the young. Let’s hope they can ask the right questions.

The effects of closing our borders will be that we’ll have 12m+ illegal aleins among us still. Thus, closing the border is just one of many steps necessary. We must deport enough that others leave voluntarily, deny government services, including check cashing and money wires to those without proof of citizenship, visas, or green cards. Finally, the government must speak English.

If all of those things happen, many of us hawks will become bullish on increasing the number of legal immigrants, as long as those immigrants had to learn to speak and read our language at at least a high school level (which isn’t saying much, these days), our constitution and history (and not the Zinn version).

I for one would like to see people allowed in on merit. Bring in the scientitists, the capitalists, the doctors, and the soldiers. In short, with hundreds of millions and probably billions dreaming of becoming citizens in the US, let’s take the creme de le creme, the people who would make our country stronger, not weaker.

Make sure you get adequate medical attention, sir. We need you out here!

Essential vdh. Reference medical doctors and main steam medicine. You should never confuse good health with simply going in and have the “doctor” check it out. It makes no difference if a physical or a specific reason. If you are going to get better–take responsibility for your own health or else pay the ultimate consequence. Your doctors do not know better. You should.

I feel sorry for any one who does not understand the nature of the level of incompetence in today’s medical profession. Not knowing when you are getting good treatment or bad within the main stream medical profession today is a premature death sentence.

Current mainstream medical practice is comparable to a mechanic who says don’t worry about changing the oil we will simply change out the engine if it blows. The worst of it is they do not even know what kind of “oil” you should be taking for your “engine”. Their main concern is making sure you have your insurance papers in order.

Everyone needs to sort it out by the time the get into their 50’s and 60’s. Here is to your good health and needed knowledge.

Your comments about your visit to the emergency room are spot on. While agreeing that your care was nothing short of substandard, the Doctors and Nurses must be given a certain degree of pardon for their actions for they have become the keepers of the cesspool of society. When the police cannot handle a deranged criminal they bring him to the emergency room. When a patient cares not to have health insurance or a primary care physician but finds himself ill he goes to the emergency room. If you are an illegal alien and you are sick, if you are an abuser of prescription drugs and you need a fix, see the pattern? It gets worse; if the hospital beds are full guess where the displaced patients go? They are affectionately known as ERADS. If the nurses, overwhelmed with the sick and dying, try to spread out the suffering by moving the patient “upstairs” shrieks and howls of protest can be expected from the staff. My wife has been an emergency nurse for over 20 years and could write a book. She works two 12-hour shifts on the weekend so that she can spend the weekdays with our children. She often needs some serious consolation when she gets home. Her outrageously high union wage isn’t nearly compensation for what she lives through.

BTW - greatly enjoy your writings both here and at National Review. Thanks for the food for thought.

“The only mystery will be when we get hit big again—and what will these critics of the present war say?”

What will they say. What they said the last time. It’s the “little Eichman’s” own fault. The US deserved this and our own reaction to their attack caused it to happen.

Sorry, they’ll never get the point that we’re going to be attacked irrespective of what we do. The isolationists don’t want to try and make a better world. They just want to surrender and believe that they’ll be just as comfortable now as they will be in dhimmitude.

Mr. Hanson,

You may want to try a Med-clinic instead of an emergency room at a hospital. I went to a Med-clinic (name of the clinic is “First Choice Emergency Room”). I went in with a severe throat pain. The doctor saw me and diagnose me with bronchitis (spelling). All within 10 miutes of me walking in. I had not even finished filling out the paper work before the nurse came in to give me a shot. These Med-clinics are showing up every where in Dallas. I asked the two nurses there how long they have been nurses and the answer was 15 to 20 years each. And they were all happy to be working there instead of at a hospital. These Med-clinics can handle broken arms, cuts,…about anything except major trauma victims. I will never go to another emergency room again. The wait is too long. These Med-clinics I believe are the answer. Please check them out.

David

It often seems like the patient is incidental to “the life” of a typical US hospital/emergency room.

Also, D’Souza and A. Sullivan (among many others) seem to be heavily invested in defense of personal theses or positions and less interested in truth.

Victor Davis Hanson,

I think that you have to go back to the melting pot ideal. I am an American in spirit and I want to be welcomed as an immigrant when I return to America sometime in the future. I studied and worked in
the U.S.A between 1997 - 2002.

Do you think that the commander in chief will give orders to the military to start an attack against the headquarters of terrorism, Iran? It is time to terminate the “axis of evil,” once for all, before it is too late. I don’t want to see another 9/11 coming…

Living in the socialist “paradise” of Sweden, I am sick(o) and tired of socialized medicine. I am glad to hear that you have organizations like Americans for Free Choice in Medicine.

Al Qaeda has taken a hit, but how dangerous are the autonomous cells nowadays?

In my own observations, why do Mexicans come to El Norte? Not as said just for the money. Much of it is dignity. Despite the slurs, the US, especially its popular culture, treats aliens far better than does the Mexican government its own.

True Mr. Hanson. But it’s not just true in Mexico, as I’m sure you know. Americans are very unique in this way from much of the rest of the world. I have a friend who is from a former Eastern-Bloc country who lived her childhood under communism and remained in her home country after the fall of communism as they strive to build… everything. She has been in America now for about 3 years and almost every day we have a conversation about this very subject and just how amazed she is at the lack of prejudice among our people. She often tells me that those Americans that she hears complaining about being discriminated against; don’t know what that really is like. In her eyes, there is NO discrimination in America. Another funny little thing is her amazement at how we all voluntarily stand in line and wait for our turn and just how much we have respect for laws, even stop signs! And it amazes her how much of our self-policing is based on the honor system, like self-paid parking lots!

I have been able to see a much better America thru her eyes that I’ve been taking for granted.

Piff.. piff the ugly American!!

< Everyone disagrees on the effects of closing the borders. But if we were to—and we may be beginning to—the results would adjudicate the issue.

I think this not as likely as it seems. To many on the right, the immigration issue is to them as the Iraq war issue is to certain of the left. See no progress, hear no progress, speak no progress. They have adopted conspiracy theories with such alacrity that I think argument is of little use. As evidence, I could cite the Bracero Program of years ago. Are any results from this experiment not in dispute? Or for that matter, does it matter to liberals that rising tax receipts correspond with lower tax rates? Nope. What one thinks should happen, one tends to see happening. So the certain part ofthe right convinced that the country is being destroyed are never going to see any positive benefit of immigration at any rate.

“My memory of the pre-9/11 Britain was one of deep anti-Americanism on issues like Ireland ….”

How ironic that by 2003 an informal Irish Times poll in Ireland indicated that anti-Americanism in Ireland had surpassed anti-British sentiment for the first time in its history.

In the summer of 2001 distrust of the US in Dublin seemed to center on three issues, a widespread repugnance for George Bush supporting all three: Kyoto [Ireland couldn't then and still can't reach its own commitments]; US rejection of the ICC [somehow Bush's doing, exclusively]; and the execution of Timothy McVey [Bush's record of non-stayed executions in Texas was relentlessly visited on Ireland's state-run RTV].