Universal Healthcare could be a fantastic jobs and growth engine

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

Think about it. We would need more clinics, more hospitals, more medical and support personnel , more new construction of facilities and remodelling work of old, more training schools, more HR people, more drivers of medical supplies, and on and on and on.

I don't know if the old manufacturing jobs will ever come back, but caring for each other could be a perfectly fine way to put the nation back to work.

These jobs all need to pay a decent, living wage, naturally.

[ColbertWatcher]

1. Especially if none of the jobs are outsourced.

We will always need manufacturing jobs and those workers will need healthcare.

I like your idea.

Kicked and recommended.

[kestrel91316]

2. We can retrain all the former medical insurance claim deniers

to work as janitors in the hospitals.

[Idealism]

3. I think you are overestimating the opportunity here

The reason why medical care costs so much in this country is because we have a beauracy inside health care companies that do paperwork and medical billing and lawyers that seek to deny you benefit claims. By hiring more people to do this, its not going to lower the cost to us, nor help the system become more efficient.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. Everything you mention is what most people believe a Universal access

is designed to get rid of or at the very least streamline and make more, not less, efficient.

If more people have more access to healthcare than more providers and facilities will be needed.

[Idealism]

7. Where will the money come to build these things

if Obama doesn't create another WPA-like entity? What about the money spent retraining people that used to work in the private insurance claims field? Universal health care will put companies out of work, like the idea or not, that means layoffs of thousands and thousands of employees. I would love healthcare, and do believe its a right-especially if the government doesnt regulate the insurance companies- because the cost to consumers is rediculous, in part due to the government not stepping in and drawing a line, but I am not sure how realistic the idea is unless we completely revamp the system

[backscatter712]

4. Very true. Building necessary infrastructure is how FDR pulled us through the Great Depression.

We need to retool the automakers to build green cars, rebuild our railways to make passenger travel and commuter travel viable again, implement UHC and build more hospitals, train more doctors, nurses, technicians, etc., rebuild our schools, start building green power generation infrastructure such as windmills, solar panels, geothermal equipment, etc.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

6. That's a very plausible picture of a future world that I think is attainable.

It will take bold thinking and large plans to do successfully.

I hope we get ris of the self-defeating "incrementalists" who always want to do everything in itty bitty baby steps because change is so scary to them.

[StreetKnowledge]

8. Responses

"We need to retool the automakers to build green cars"

That's coming. It's going to take time to make green cars be viable (and development into technologies takes time), but that day will come.

"rebuild our railways to make passenger travel and commuter travel viable again"

Already is in some places. California's HSR project is the wave of the future. I expect the next couple decades to see high-speed-rail projects to come across the US, up both coasts and across much of the Midwest, and the gap between to be filled by Amtrak's trains, which have far more comfort and amenities. Land-borne liners, perhaps.

"implement UHC and build more hospitals, train more doctors, nurses, technicians, etc."

The United States has not got this problem. It has the problem of having hundreds of thousands of people who make their living by messing with the healthcare system. How about we have lawyers work on questions of criminal law instead of litigation from healthcare systems? Would make the justice system a lost swifter, that's for sure.

And yes, America should make train far more technicians for health care jobs. Canada and Western Europe will need a bunch of them soon, too. Wouldn't that be nice, to be exporting skilled personnel in stuff other than weaponry?

"rebuild our schools,"

That will start when the Department of Education mandates far higher standards of building maintenance, teacher education, new textbooks, better libraries and better support systems for the system. I haven't forgotten that Washington DC delayed the opening of its schools in 1997 because a third of there were structurally unsafe. That needs to be fixed.

"start building green power generation infrastructure such as windmills, solar panels, geothermal equipment, etc."

Problem here is viability. Those systems do not work all of the time, which means they need fossil fuel backups. Better but far from ideal. I believe the better idea for that is to work with the Canadians and build hundreds of hydroelectric projects across the Canadian North and parts of the Rockies and Great Plains. Hell, if there is a place to do it safely, try damming the Mississippi. That would make sure it never flooded again, wouldn't it?

[backscatter712]

10. On top of the windmills and solar panels...

Power grid infrastructure is important. Specifically, we need that smart power grid that can divert power from halfway across the country, so windmills that are turning in a windy area could be providing power to other areas. Build a certain amount of energy storage as well, so when the windmills and solar panels are generating a surplus, that surplus energy can be stored - that will make it so we don't have to burn so much coal to keep the lights on.

[StreetKnowledge]

11. I agree fully

And especially considering how a screwup in Ohio in 2003 tossed 50 million people in eight states and Ontario into darkness, I would wholeheartedly agree.

Eisenhower said it as well. National Security is not just people with guns, it is also infrastructure and systems that can support any eventuality in an emergency. Too bad the Republicans never thought of that. :eyes:

[Fovea]

9. with domestic content requirements

universal healthcare would be one important Keynesian tool.