How much are you worth?

For the sake of discussion, if you are a U.S. citizen do you want public health care and open access to schools? If you needed a doctor you just go. No co-pay, no remainder after the insurance. If you wanted a bachelors degree you just go. There is no tuition and the books don't cost a cent. Open health care and open education would be good things right? But now say it came at the price of a flat 60% tax rate. Are you still on board?

Denmark has such a tax rate and every Danish citizen has access to doctors, clinics, hospitals schools and universities. Every citizen has access to modern health care facilities and doctors. But it comes at a cost. Every citizen pays taxes for this access. In the U.S. we have premiums, co-pays, and co-insurance instead of high taxes. No matter how we turn the picture there is always a price; common sense - right?

The U.S. electorate is demanding Congress to get on with health care reform. If the solution is something like the Danish model, would the U.S. electorate celebrate or reject it? It's easy to celebrate and it's easy to do nothing, but would the electorate have enough gumption to throw it back? There's some satisfaction in imagining the electorate would rise up on its hind legs and spit back. But historicistics, the history of social developments, suggests the electorate is more likely to wake up and go to work. Sustaining the lifestyle comes first; most of us have to get up in the morning and go to work. Civil disobedience in the 21st century is a forgotten trump card. The electorate is justly concerned about compensation. That leaves only celebrating and doing nothing. Is public access to state supported education and health care worth 60% of your earnings?

If the electorate demands health care reform (it should be insurance reform but...), knowing that it will cost something is common sense. Let's be realistic; nothing is free. Open access for all citizens will cost billions. What is the electorate willing to pay?

There's no doubt in my opinion that education and health care should be state supported in the sense that every citizen has free access. The costs of health care and higher education under corporate auspices have inflated to unaffordable and as long as corporations are involved unregulated costs will continue to rise. Corporations have no altruistic intentions regarding open access to doctors and teachers, hence the object of the paper chase is the money; quite different than the objectives of education and health care. Such things can't be left in the hands of corporations without state regulation and enforcement. It's a formula for several tragedies. As collateral, I can only point to the greed that caused the economic recession of 2009-2010.

The dysfunctional state of the U.S. Congress suggests whatever comes from health care reform will be compromised and the consumer will pay full price for it. Congress can't do it and corporations can't be trusted. The most likely reality is that health care will remain the domain of corporations. The compromise will probably be a government regulated health care system. Enforcement comes part and parcel to regulation which will cost something and is by definition subject to bureaucratic paralysis. It appears the electorate is stuck between death and taxes, and thus it boils down to a question of economics. How much are you worth?