John Kerry, throughout his campaign has complained how George W. Bush has let 43 million Americans go without health insurance. He also promises to provide the same health insurance plan to all Americans that members of Congress are offered. Why would he do this though? If health care was such a big problem in the United States, wouldn’t you expect to see stories on the news of people dying outside of hospitals, because they couldn’t afford treatment? I know I haven’t seen any of these stories, and trust me if there were stories like this, the media would jump all over it to give Kerry whatever boost they could. (Sorry Mr. Rather, you can’t forge this story).Now it may be true that 43 million Americans are without health insurance, but that doesn’t mean that they are without the ability to get health care. Sure, they may need to pay a little more should the unexpected happen, and they may not always get the best care, but there always will be a place for them to get care if they need it. They may not be able to make an appointment with a regular physician, but there’s always a walk in clinic for them to go to. I agree with Kerry that every American should have health insurance for the unexpected, but I don’t think that it’s necessary to spend tax dollars on it.
Kerry also moans about Bush letting companies export jobs overseas, forcing many Americans into the unemployment line. Kerry says that he’ll offer a tax benefit to companies who don’t export jobs overseas, as an incentive to keep jobs in the U.S. because we’re losing too many jobs to companies that outsource. Again, this is another made up problem.
According to Bruce Bartlett of the National Center for Policy Analysis, in his article “How Outsourcing Creates Jobs for Americans” over the past 15 years, outsourcing of jobs have increased by 23% (chalk one up for Kerry’s argument). On the other hand, in sourced jobs have increased 82% over the same time period (sorry Sen. Kerry, we’ll be taking that point back). In addition, the jobs that have been in sourced from other countries pay 16.5% more than regular domestic jobs.
Bartlett continues by mentioning the business climate in European countries, where many employers are forced to keep obsolete jobs, because of the lengthy and costly job protection laws in those countries. Laws like these have been proposed in the United States, but not necessarily enacted, which do nothing but provide an incentive for companies to export their jobs to countries with fewer restrictions. The reason, therefore that the United States has seen such an increase in the number of in sourced jobs is because we have far fewer labor restrictions than European countries.
And if Kerry thinks he’ll be able to solve our unemployment “problems” then answer me this: why is the United States’ unemployment rate lower than it’s average unemployment rate over the past 50 years? (Average unemployment since 1955 is 5.83% and current unemployment is 5.4%1). And which country should Kerry model his job creation plan after? France? Well their unemployment rate is at 9.9%2, so maybe Germany? Well, no theirs is at 10.3%3. How about Canada’s 7.1% unemployment rate?4.
Senator Kerry, when you finally come up with a real problem with a real solution, let the American people know about it. We’re waiting.
Resources:
1 – Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics
2 – National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies-About.com
3 – German Federal Statistics Office-About.com
4 – Statistics Canada-About.com
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