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Warning: Low Battery
Volt’s charge account. Bunion care in New Zealand. Pulling grandma’s plug. End of life costs. Not mean enough. Plus more.
CAN’T FIGURE US OUT
Re: Ben Stein’s We’ve
Figured Him Out:
I was a student in the USA some years ago, grew to love your country and have followed the news ever since,
I grieved and raved with you over 9/11.
Now I am puzzled, confused and sometimes downright disgusted at some of the falsehoods that are being published about how health services with government involvement function.
In New Zealand we have public, universal coverage, paid from taxes as well as private insurance. This public service is brilliant at times — such as when I had cancer and was offered treatment completely free within 24 hours of my diagnosis. I chose to wait a week until I had finished a course I was doing — that was fine too.
At times it is annoying for minor ailments — such as if you want a bunion fixed and you have to wait for 6 months, but it will be done, even if not this week. Nobody ever goes untreated. Some people who can afford it have private health insurance (I do) in addition to the public system, so that minor ailments can be attended to where and when you wish and by your doctor of choice.
So, in effect, we have both public and private functioning side by side and there is virtually no confusion or conflict.
Can you please explain exactly why Americans are so violently and maliciously against providing care for those who can’t afford insurance? I have tried hard to understand, but it is completely beyond me.
I have always understood that a mark of a civilised country shows in how we treat the underprivileged.
Thank you.
— Loretta Austin
Red Beach, New Zealand
FLINSTONE REVIVAL
Re: Eric Peters’ Volt
Sticker Shock:
Just a bit of additional information to add to Mr. Peters’ pertinent comments on the Volt. While the price of the vehicle is a serious impediment to individual car buyers, it’s also a serious impediment to making the Volt line profitable. And here I’m taking at face value GM’s estimate of 230 MPG. It’s likely it won’t be half that, and you haven’t factored in the increased electric costs of charging a vehicle that GM will reportedly recommend be charged daily—for eight or so hours. Also keep in mind that GM hopes—hopes—that the Volt will have an initial electric range of 40 miles and a generator charged range—at greatly reduced speed—of some 250 miles. After that, it’s park it and charge it, no exceptions. This means that the Volt will lack sufficient utility to be used as anyone’s sole car. Road trip to Grandma’s? Forget that. Take the Volt on vacation? Only if you tow it with a useful vehicle.
But the biggest problem, outstripping even the cost factor, is basic physics. Batteries don’t work in cold. Cold drains them quickly, and I mean quickly. What this means is that the Volt will be, in much of the United States and virtually all of Canada, useless for most of the year. Even in warmer climates in the Southern U.S., it will be a very expensive paperweight for part of every year. And for this GM is investing hundreds of millions in development costs? Boy it’s a good thing the taxpayers are footing the bill for this. No private company could afford it.
Footing? Say, that might be the answer. Maybe Fred Flintstone had
the right idea all along…
— Mike McDaniel
Joshua, Texas
Mr. Peters offers an effective economic analysis of the cost of
ownership of the Volt.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (22) | Leave a comment
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frost| 8.19.09 @ 7:01AM
That Groucho Marx comment has also been attributed to a gentleman named Ernest Benn.
How appropriate!
Michael L. Hauschild| 8.19.09 @ 8:41AM
Until fuel cells are perfected and the distribution and storage issues of separating and storing hydrogen and oxygen are resolved all this hoopla about “green” transportation is unrealistic. Fossil hydrocarbon fuels are incredibly efficient within the context of some established frameworks (the efficiency of trains and barges for instance will boggle your mind). Progress does not flourish under the government stipulation to politically correct scenarios.
Wars, depressions, and recessions are the motivators for innovative solutions. Scientists and freedom loving individuals do best in times of stress and you will soon witness the vehement rejection of the socialist principal of “abandonment,” be it proven technologies, proven economic principles, or proven democratic political systems.
The Red Editor| 8.19.09 @ 9:58AM
To the wonderfully confused Loretta Austin of New Zealand: Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the US population exceeds that of your native country by a mere 300,000,000 people. Or maybe it has to do with the belief in individual liberties this country was founded upon, as opposed to individual entitlements. This is not a Socialist nation, nor is it a Democracy...it's a Representative Republic. You also mentioned the ol' cliche about "a mark of a civilised country shows in how we treat the underprivileged." Needless to say, US citizens donate more to charity and social causes around the world than any other country, and most if not all combined. FORCED CHARITY IS NOT CHARITY. No US citizen wants to see their fellow man/woman without adequate services, some of us are just smart enough to recognize when those services are administered improperly or to the fault of those receiving said aid. Please, you can come here and get an education, but stay out of political arenas you admittedly don't understand.
2Anglico| 8.19.09 @ 10:18AM
Loretta: People who cannot afford/choose not to buy insurance, GET CARE IF THEY NEED IT. There is a little law duly passed by our congress that makes it so.
As to "violently" opposing .... obviously you know NOTHING about violence.
The house bill being discussed DOES NOT ALLOW a dual plan as in NZ. We are opposed to our government trying to GRAB POWER they are not allowed to have!
Ned| 8.19.09 @ 10:21AM
In reply to Loretta Austin's letter, "CAN"T FIGURE US OUT", from Red Beach, NZ:
The health care reforms Mr. Obama is tossing about are no more about health care than the global warming scam (Cap & Trade) is about the environment. Both are naked attempts to seize power in the US government in a manner that their supporters believe will be irreversible, and remake the country in ways most Americans oppose.
If there was even the least bit of honesty in these two packages of corruption, Americans - the most generous people on the planet - would not be so outspoken against them. If "health care reform" were the real objective there are a myriad of changes and solutions to issues that heavily effect the overall health care outcome in the country. Tellingly, not one of those changes or solutions is even under discussion in the most dishonest, calculating, manipulative White House in American history.
And, by the way, none of those changes or solutions require 1000 pages of impenetrable jargon to enact.
Were there even a hint of honesty in Obama's schemes, there would be at least grudging admission that most of the problems in American health care costs are caused by the very government that now pretends it can "fix" them. If there were a shadow of truth in the room, proponents would not feel obliged to falsely inflate the numbers of uninsured to the commonly quoted 47 or 50 million, but would address the 9 or so million 'core' uninsured.
But to do that they would also have to admit that even that core group actually gets health care when they need it. It may be inconveniently delivered, but health care is available, even to the millions upon millions of illegal aliens here that you, Loretta, don't have to worry about. And to admit that there are actually fewer uninsured than there are illegal aliens in the system, and they all get care, reduces the scope of the problem to something manageable without a complete make over of the American economy - but then, that's the actual goal, isn't it.
One thing that Americans really do not like is being taken for chumps.
2Anglico| 8.19.09 @ 10:23AM
Also Loretta, millions of Americans have died so that others would not have to live in tyranny. DO NOT PREACH to us about caring for the "underprivleged".
Ned| 8.19.09 @ 10:31AM
And, as the Red Editor points out above, Loretta, having a perfect health care system in an isolated country of 4M is an altogether different question than providing for more than 300M. Hell, we have at least three times as many illegals here than you have citizens!
Appleby| 8.19.09 @ 10:47AM
Loretta, I was in your country in 1991 when it declared bankruptcy. I have a good friend in Wellington who lost his job with Air New Zealand when it was privatized, who has kept me posted over the years on how that worked out. I understand that since the cold shower bath taken by the people of your country (and I heard the public service announcements instructing all the Needy and Underprivileged that the gravy train had ground to a halt and they should report to their Nannies to find out what happens next) and the injection of market capitalism into many areas previously socialized, that things have dramatically improved, to the point where your post office gives everybody one day of free mail per year. I also understand your dollar is now 67 cents to the US Dollar as opposed to 50 cents in 1991.
I very much enjoyed the three weeks I spent in New Zealand and I recommend it to any sports tourist in the world except race car drivers not involved in rally. H owever, living there would give me the creeps because your population is so small and isolated that you pretty much all have the same face.
Ray| 8.19.09 @ 11:57AM
"Can you please explain exactly why Americans are so violently and maliciously against providing care for those who can't afford insurance?"
Loretta. no one is being denied health care in America. Let me repeat that, NO ONE is being denied health care in America. Not even the people who are just visiting America and have no insurance can be denied health care. I don't know where you get your information, but it's false.
David Govett| 8.19.09 @ 12:38PM
Not only does New Zealand pay nothing for the international security system paid for by the overburdened American taxpayer, it won't even let American Navy ships drop anchor there. Freeloaders like NZ often have disposable money to spend on health care, etc., and are particularly happy to proffer advice to the U.S., as long as they don't need to contribute. My disgust with NZ is boundless.
JerseyJ| 8.19.09 @ 1:09PM
A splendid rant by C.D. Lueders. I heartily agree.
PolishKnight| 8.19.09 @ 2:31PM
Has anyone noticed that socialist paradises always seem to work (somewhat) when there's a small population in a large resource area, isolated (on an island or far north), and usually almost entirely lily white?
Crack open your borders, Loretta, and let all the illiterate people with health problems in from near you and then give us a call and see how it's working out for ya.
Smithy| 8.20.09 @ 5:31AM
As an immigrant from Britain to New Zealand of 52 years I can understand some replies to Loretta's letter. PolishKnight touches a good point since large numbers of Pacific Islanders have flooded into NZ causing a blip in health, education, and policing services in some parts. NZ officials would of course deny any problems, but we older types can see the negative differences. David Govet is both right and wrong. NZ has supplied men and material to both world wars, exceptional in relation to it's population. Helped out the US in Vietnam and has an SIS detachment in Afghanistan. Yes, some of us don't like the big anti-nuclear lobby that exists here and so the refusal to have US nuclear ships in NZ ports. It is sad there is an undercurrent of anti-Americanism among many Kiwis. Personally I have helped host American farm visitors to this country and would say they are the best. It is my concern at the moment the way western democratic nations are being undercut by the left, and old tried and true systems are coming under fire, a propaganda war is in progress to force our western cultural inheritance into submission to a foreign miasma.
Pat| 8.20.09 @ 11:07AM
Loretta Austin,
If you were indeed a student in the United States, you would have an adequate understanding of why most Americans are so “violently and maliciously against providing care for those who can't afford insurance”. You are a shill and a fraud…