Two Ideas - Trial programs, and Dual Systems.

[grahamhgreen]

Two Ideas - Trial programs, and Dual Systems.

Trial Programs:

Other countries often enact TRIAL PROGRAMS to see if a policy is viable before instituting said policy across the board.

Any program can be enacted in this manner, ie, we could have enacted "no child left behind" in Alabama ONLY to see if it would be a success or failure without having to waste the money establishing the program nationwide. Or we could have tried it just in one city or county.

We could do the same thing with various health care plans. Or tax ideas, or anything.

This model is often used around the world with a high degree of success.

(EXAMPLES: http://newsroom.nt.gov.au/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewRelease&id=4402&d=5, http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=676275)

Dual Systems:

A dual system approach would be to have two systems of health care (or other services such as social security).

One system would be public, single-payer not-for-profit health care set up by the government, available on an opt-in basis for the populace; the other would be a private system. this would allow the two systems to compete and make each system more effective.

of course, in reality the private system would be there for the wealthy while the public system would be there for the rest of us.

DUAL SYSTEMS!!!!

[Greyhound]

1. We have (hopefully) learned that separate is never equal.

On the education front, we have dozens of very successful pilot programs going back decades, our problem is that even when we find something that works, we never implement it.

[Warpy]

2. A dual system that allows the wealthy to opt out

simply ensures that the public system will be chronically underfunded and that public care will deteriorate to the point that the people it is supposed to serve will reject it.

The wealthy can always have elective surgery offshore where they can live in four star hotel conditions and have everybody kiss their asses. Here, however, they need to be covered by the same system that covers the rest of us.

It's the only way we can be sure of getting a humane system.