U.S. State Health Systems Performance

We have been told how our health care system needs to be overhauled. Here are the rankings for the state of Minnesota. You can view the complete stats here, http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/state_health_performance/?campaign_id=yhoo
Here is how we rank,

As a state we rank 11th out of fifty states and the District of Columbia.

For access to health care we rank 9th.

For quality we rank 12th.

For avoidable hospital use and costs we rank 10th.

Our equity ranking is 38th. This could use some improvement.

And our healthy lives ranking is 7th.

Kind of makes me think that things are not nearly as bad as we are being told.

History repeats itself

By Bill Jungbauer

Karl Marx once said that "history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

I recently picked up the book Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris. I have only read just over thirty pages and I am quite amazed at what I have read so far. On the hot topic of the day, immigration, President Roosevelt had quite a bit to say. Here I will relay to you some of what I have read.

"The United States, with seventy-seven million citizens, was still uncrowded and healthily competitive. But its social balance would be threatened if poverty spread in proportion to immigration. (Hundreds of Japanese coolies and thousands of dirt-poor Chinese peasants were arriving every month, boxed in barrels, buried under potatoes, sandwiched between bales of hay.)

Today, we do not have the room to expand as we did then. It boggles the mind at what the future may bring with our open borders and immigration left unchecked.

"Even more wretched than these migrants were the immigrants from unsalubriuos parts of Europe further crowding American cities. Since January, nearly half a million had poured in. With their greasy kerchiefs and swollen cheekbones, they seemed content to live in any slum and do any work, for pigs wages. Not surprisingly, the native-born Americans they supplanted felt rage and ethnic contempt."

It is even mentioned that the middle class is threatened by the wave of new immigrants. Much like today, the over twelve million illegal immigrants within our borders are causing today. They will work for less. It is fact that three to four thousand people move to Minnesota every year and within thirty days get on the welfare roles. I cannot believe that the great majority of these people are incapable of a days pay for a days labor. Yet we allow this to happen. We are told by our leadership that the jobs these illegals are taking are jobs Americans do not want to do. I believe that it is true that it is easier to get free health care and get your rent paid by the taxpayer than to get up and do a hard days work. But what honor does that provide? How does that build integrity and self worth in a person?

I am totally convinced that we do need immigration reform, just not what is proposed. First off, build the fence and secure our borders. This will stop illegals from pouring across our borders as well as drugs. It will do away with the evil business of the coyotes. Secondly, reform the application process that is available in other countries to assist those who wish to come here legally.

My neighborhood is a very ethnically diverse one. Let me tell you a little bit about a couple of my neighbors.

A couple of years back, my next door neighbor, Yosef, picked up the newspaper in my work van. On the front page was a story about a family of four illegals who were in the process of being deported. Yosef, a Christian Lebanese immigrant said "good." I mentioned to him that I thought that he would be pro-immigration. He said " It took me eleven years to get here legally. Am I supposed to call my family back in Lebanon and tell them to fly to Mexico so they can walk right on in?" Good point. Amnesty to illegals would be an insult to those immigrants who did it legally.

My neighbor Jose is from Honduras. He is here legally. He spent five years traveling to and from Honduras with boxes of forms. Dealing with two different bureaucracies and their complicated requirements before he could have his two teenage daughters join him here in America.

I am a carpenter. I do work for many different people. One of these is an immigrant from Nigeria. He is a home builder in Minneapolis. His business provides jobs for many different people. It is an asset to the community. He told me that the United States allows only two hundred people from Nigeria to come to America annually.

Many good, hard working people wish to come to America to better themselves and to prosper. It is only fair that we do not reward the illegals and penalize those who did it legally. President Roosevelt was the first president to be born in a large city; he welcomed the clash of alien cultures, as long as it did not degenerate into mass collision. He was an opponent of the American Protective Association, but a supporter of the Immigration Restriction League. He felt that America's first responsibility was to it's literate, native-born, working poor. Lets take a lesson from the past. From a great president, and avoid creating a farce of our present history.