Focusing on Progress

by Errington C. Thompson, MD –

These days, we have to ask.

With the chaos and confusion, we need to check in with each other frequently. So, how are you doing? Are you taking care of yourself? Are you unplugging from social media? Because howling at the moon 24/7 is not healthy.

Broke

When I was a medical resident, we had an attending surgeon who was a Louisiana caricature. Every now and then, when we would see a patient who was deathly ill, he would look at us and say that the patient was “too broke to fix.” My question to you is, is America too broke to fix?

When you look at the United States, we have a lot of problems. Is anybody trying to solve these problems? Or are we just kicking the can down the road? My problem with this whole system is that nobody wants to step up and solve problems.

Our educational system used to be the envy of the world. Now, because of various factors, our kids are not learning. We can blame Covid-19, the teachers’ union, higher salaries, or integration. The bottom line is our kids are falling behind students in the rest of the world. Yet, for the last twenty years, we have made no strides in improving education in our schools.

Where is the comprehensive proposal to fix our public schools? Why isn’t this being pushed through Congress? And don’t tell me about charter schools. Charter schools are a way to siphon money out of public schools and weaken teacher unions. They will NOT improve the education of America’s youth.

The gap between rich and poor continues to widen. But really, widen is such a weak word. The gap is a chasm. It is as big as the Gulf of Mexico. Everything is more expensive, yet the average American’s wages are stagnant. People like Elon Musk and the rest of Silicon Valley are raking in money by the truckload. Good union jobs have been shipped overseas. For the most part, those good jobs have not come back.

Every five to 10 years, the Republicans pass a massive tax cut. Only the top 1% of earners benefit from those tax cuts. The rest of us see none of the benefits. As a matter of fact, I think one could argue that we are paying for those tax cuts. Our roads are worse. Our schools are falling down. We don’t have as many police officers on the streets. We have fewer benefits so that the rich can have more. The top 2% owns the same amount of wealth as the bottom 50%.

Our healthcare system is entirely dysfunctional. Why aren’t all prescription drugs affordable? Why do we even have co-pays? If I see my doctor and we determine that I need to have my gallbladder out, why do I need an insurance company to approve that? Why can’t we develop a system where doctors, nurses, and X-ray techs get paid fairly? Why can’t we have Medicare for All and completely remove the insurance companies from the equation? Why can’t we fix the Veterans Administration system so that our veterans actually get the best care in the world?

There should be no for-profit healthcare systems. Healthcare should be fixated on improving the health of all patients—not the profits of the corporations. They’re not customers. They are patients.

It should be illegal for private equity firms to buy into healthcare. Private equity is about profit. They are not about taking care of patients. They aren’t about delivering the best healthcare to improve patient outcomes. They aren’t doing research to figure out the best way to get patients better. They are only about money and the bottom line.

Media must work for us, the American people. They need to present us with facts, not spin. Fox News pushed a narrative that the 2020 election was stolen. In a democracy, we can not have a news outlet actively lying to the American people. That can’t happen. There has to be some sort of governmental check on this nonsense.

And before we pat ourselves on the back because we don’t watch Fox News, we have the same problem on the left. Early in Trump’s first presidency, we had daily breathless reporting that there was some meaningful connection between Trump and Russia. MSNBC and others led us to believe that Trump was going to be arrested any minute and marched out of the White House in handcuffs. That was also nonsense.

We need an independent government agency that cannot be fired or shut down by an out-of-control president and that can bring MSNBC, Fox News, and others to court on behalf of the American people.

Currently, we live in a capitalistic society that is subservient to the almighty dollar. Our priorities are screwed up. We need to be devoted to our families. We need to be devoted to our community. We need to be devoted to our God. Not money.

To get our priorities straight, we need to redistribute wealth. I know, redistribution is supposed to be a bad word. It is the third rail of politics. But, if we look back 40 or 50 years, we had a tax system that invested in the American people. We taxed the wealthy, which allowed us to invest in our schools, roads, sewer systems, and electrical grids; in short, we invested in ourselves. And since the Reagan years of the 1980s, our country has had an active policy to redistribute the wealth. The only thing is, it has been redistributed upwards, and upwards, and upwards—with nary a penny trickly down to the rest of us.

No one man or company should be able to build rockets and send Americans into space. We have two billionaires who are doing what NASA should be doing. We must fix this.

Focus

It is critically important that we focus on fixing our broken system. I will support anyone on the Right, Left, or anywhere in the political spectrum with the ideas and drive to change the status quo. This isn’t about Trump. It isn’t about MAGA. This is about America. It is about you and me. It is about our families and community.

So, the question is, how do we move forward? I don’t know. I’m actively looking for someone or a group of someones who are thinking outside the box and don’t want to settle for band-aid fixes. All I know is that I want to move forward. We need to be able to identify problems and figure out solutions.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed here, as well as assertions of facts, are those of the author. They do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of The Urban News.