I was interested in Nancy Wigington’s letter to the editor on ‘Care for All’. It has become obvious to me that increasingly educated citizens are often ill informed in the key issues of our day. For example, Nancy believes that governments the size of the US are wonderful efffective. Please understand there is a difference in limping, ineffective and costly, poor service programs even if they do some good but uneconomically.  So let’s look a bit further with some effectiveness examples:
  1. Public Education is failing [not based on money] and behind most industrialized and developing countries,
  2. Medicare and Medicaid [dumped mostly on the states] have the highest fraud levels well beyond the insurance companies. Medicare, Medicaid and public Mass./Washington Public Health Programs have the highest rates of disapprovalsin the US along with only one insurance company and will bankrupt the US.
  3. The FAA is using 1970 computers having failed three times in the past to upgrade to current technology after Billions spent uselessly,
  4. The wonderful US dominance of Global Positioning System (GPS) is likely to end since the satellites will increasingly fail/crash to earth and the multiyear program to replace them is more than three to five years late, and triple the cost with no end in sight,
  5. The recent Stimulus program dedicating Billions to infrastructure is years late and best of all fixed bridges that are mostly in good shape in stead of the 50% or more bridges that the US designated as in critical need of repair/replacement,
  6. NASA once effective and single mission (Moon) dedicated has been a disaster for decades… we spent money on the Space Station [mostly wasted], we spent money keeping the ill-fated vehicles now to be mothballed. We spent years thinking about a replacement which is a decade late and will need to depend on Russian Space Rockets/Vehicles for our heavy missions for years.
  7. The Post Office is technologically deficient by comparison with many countries.
  8. The military, the best in the world and yet has never completed a major program on time or on budget.
  9. Years since 9/11, the government and state agencies were directed to program intercommunications and share databases… which still isn’t done to any modern standard. Furthermore, Homeland Security gave funds to state/local areas not based on threat but spread the wealth…Feel Safer?
  10. The Health Care bill close to passage has 19 agencies all to be involved in massive bureaucracies to organize our semi-nationalized health care…wonderful!
  11. Now name a countries the size of the US in population that has effective Health Care?
As to caring, I do… but not a $1.8-2.4 Trillion cost total [real cost] in a recession …of course paid for by massive tax increases including those with incomes less than $250,000 a year. As to cost, except for rationing of health care [obvious] there is little cost reduction except to cut elder-care.
And yet, I value your right to voice opinion. I hope you reciprocate.
Allan Gerard
Boulder

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