America's New Agenda » Access to Healthcare http://americasnewagenda.americandreamproject.org Ideas from the American Dream Project Members Mon, 05 May 2008 03:26:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 en Universal Access to Capital, Health Care, and Education http://americasnewagenda.americandreamproject.org/2008/03/27/universal-access-to-capital-health-care-and-education/ http://americasnewagenda.americandreamproject.org/2008/03/27/universal-access-to-capital-health-care-and-education/#comments Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:18:01 +0000 ADP http://americasnewagenda.americandreamproject.org/?p=10 Capital: Capital is protein in the diet of freedom. Investment is necessary to produce sustainable growth and financial security. America’s great original promise was the right of individuals to own land. Land was the prized income-producing asset until the industrial revolution. It was productive capital. Today financial capital is necessary to become self-sufficient. As micro finance has proved in the emerging world, reasonable access to capital is the key to raising the prosperity of entire nations. We must insure that entrepreneurs of all size have access to capital at similar terms and conditions to insure the most efficient flow of capital. Capital means the most to people who have it the least. Health Care: We’ve reached a time when mothers should not have to put up posters and plastic buckets in supermarkets to collect money for their child’s cancer treatments. We have reached a time where as a nation we must be wiling to pay for catastrophic care costs for all our citizens. Citizens must also take responsibility to insure themselves for routine sickness and small accident costs (less than $50,000). American citizenship should make you part of a universal group that makes us all insurable. Insurance can be private but non- profit. Medical schools must train thousands more doctors. We should pay less for and buy fewer prescriptions. And above all we need to educate and give incentives to everyone to live healthy lifestyles.

 

Education: The greatest single factor in improving human well-being is education. Research reveals that the more education a person has the less likely they are to divorce, abuse family members, smoke, become overweight, suffer from addiction and depression, or be imprisoned. The better educated make the most money, report the greatest life satisfaction, volunteer and vote the most, and use the least public assistance. Education is the best investment a society can make. So how is American Education? We are not getting much for our money. We spend $500 billion a year K-12 and 20% of American youth do not even earn a high school diploma. Half of our kids who start college never finish. For those that do, college education has become a life long financial burden. Is this the best we can do? We must institute ways to raise and equalize the quality of our K-12 schools and lower the actual cost of college. The greatest investment in our future is the wise investment we make in universal effective education.

 

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