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Edited on Tue Mar-01-05 05:10 PM by Bouncy Ball
I've created a flowchart of sorts in which I've listed factors I feel contribute to healthy and productive citizens, thus a healthy and productive nation.
Every factor is intertwined with the others--none of these items exist in a vacuum. The correlations I've illustrated here are backed by years of sociological and educational research. We can either ensure these factors are available to Americans, or we can pay more, both in dollars and in human costs, to continue to suffer the consequences of not making such things available to all Americans.
(I have not addressed such specific issues as minimum wage here, preferring instead to focus on more general societal/economic factors.)
I think this is simple and common sense. I can't imagine that many DUers will find anything surprising here. However, constructive criticism is welcome, as I am trying to illustrate to more people that an ounce of prevention really is far cheaper and better than a pound of cure. You cannot force people to be educated, employed, productive citizens, nor would it be moral to simply allow them to die in the gutter, but we can, as a country, a society, a government do everything we can, in the most cost-effective way possible, to ensure the success of the highest number of citizens, which benefits us all.
(Please excuse the lack of sophistication of this flowchart. I did it here on this screen on DU. I'm not very good at these. The one I drew out on paper looked much better, LOL!)
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1. Access to health/medical care for child?
YES--Higher school attendance-->more likely to graduate--->more likely to be employed--->less likely to use taxpayer-funded services
NO--Lower school attendance-->less likely to graduate-->more likely to be unemployed/underemployed--->more likely to use taxpayer-funded services (including prison everywhere I mention taxpayer-funded services)
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2. Access to health/medical care for parent?
YES--More likely to be employed/stay employed-->less likely to use taxpayer-funded services
NO--More likely to be unemployed/underemployed-->more likely to use taxpayer-funded services
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3. Access to high quality education (pre K-12)?
YES--More likely to graduate--->more likely to pursue post-secondary education--->more likely to be employed/stay employed--->less likely to use taxpayer-funded services
NO--Less likely to graduate-->more likely to be unemployed/underemployed--->more likely to use taxpayer-funded services
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4. If a child, is the parent employed (access to jobs)?
YES--More likely to have stable housing, more likely to have adequate nutrition (thus less likely to have health/medical problems attributed to poor nutrition, see health care factor), more likely to graduate, less likely to use taxpayer-funded services
NO--Less likely to have stable housing, less likely to have adequate nutrition (thus more likely to suffer health/medical problems attributed to poor nutrition, see health care factor), less likely to graduate, more likely to use taxpayer-funded services
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5. Access to and Education on Birth Control and Human Sexuality?
(NOTE: This is NOT mutually exclusive to abstinence encouragement.)
YES--Less likely to become a teen parent->more likely to graduate--> more likely to be employed/stay employed-->less likely to use taxpayer-funded services
NO--More likely to become a teen parent->less likely to graduate--> more likely to be unemployed/underemployed-->more likely to use taxpayer-funded services
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6. Access to Vocational/Job Training?
YES--More likely to be employed/stay employed-->less likely to use taxpayer-funded services
NO--More likely to be unemployed/underemployed-->more likely to use taxpayer-funded services
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7. Access to Mental Health Services (to include drug abuse prevention and treatment, etc.)?
YES--More likely to be employed/stay employed-->less likely to use taxpayer-funded services (and if this is a parent, more likely to successfully raise their children).
NO--More likely to be unemployed/underemployed-->more likely to use taxpayer-funded services
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8. Access to Higher Education (Post-Secondary)?
YES--More likely to be employed/stay employed-->less likely to use taxpayer-funded services
NO--More likely to be unemployed/underemployed-->more likely to use taxpayer-funded services
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Note: For all of this faith-based initiatives talk bushco has made noise about since 2000, I don't see any of them providing healthcare to kids or adults, improving the quality of education, providing vocational/jobs training, providing access to and education about birth control (quite the opposite there!), access to mental health services (they might do a bit of that, in the name of increasing church membership/proselytizing) or access to higher education for Americans.
So, um, basically that's a sham.
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