education faces the death panel, why wouldn’t health care?

All this talk about Obama speaking to the *shoochildren* got me thinking about the school system. Can’t one look at the education system when pondering what a government run health care program would look like?

Like health care, the US spends more than any other country on education (except Switzerland). And like health care, we are not ranked anywhere near the top. Out of 21 industrialized countries, U.S. 12th graders ranked 19th in math, 16th in science, and last in advanced physics.

According to a 2005 report from the OECD, the United States is tied for first place with Switzerland when it comes to annual spending per student on its public schools, with each of those two countries spending more than $11,000 (in U.S. currency). Despite this high level of funding, according to the OECD, U.S. public schools lag behind the schools of other developed countries in the areas of reading, math, and science.

According to a 2007 article in The Washington Post, the Washington D.C. public school district spends $12,979 per student per year. This is the third highest level of funding per student out of the 100 biggest school districts in the U.S. Despite this high level of funding, the school district has produced outcomes that are lower than the national average. In reading and math, the district’s students score the lowest among 11 major school districts – even when poor children are compared with other poor children. 33% of poor fourth graders in the U.S. lack basic skills in math, but in Washington D.C., it’s 62%.

The country has a reading literacy rate at 98% of the population over age 15, while ranking below average in science and mathematics understanding compared to other developed countries. In 2008, there was a 77% graduation rate from high school, below that of most developed countries.

With health care, the plan is to tax the top 1% of the country to pay for health care for others. Some people are already paying taxes for schools they don’t use, and the plan is for them to pay taxes for health care they won’t use, either?

Another issue is that many parents of private school and homeschooled children have taken issue with the idea of paying for an education their children are not receiving. However, tax proponents point out that every person pays property taxes for public education, not just parents of school-age children. Indeed, without it schools would not have enough money to remain open. Still, parents of students who go to private schools want to use this money instead to fund their children’s private education. This is the foundation of the school voucher movement. School voucher programs were proposed by free-market advocates seeking competition in education, led by economist Milton Friedman, but have been criticized for damaging public schools, both in funding and diversity.

The US spends $972 billion annually for schools, covering 76.6 M children. The government is proposing a figure roughly equal, over 10 years, to cover how many American, exactly? They were throwing around the 46 million dollar figure, but Obama said health care reform would NOT cover illegal immigrants, who make up about 10 Million. (and by the way, what is their solution to handle those 10 million?) Also, the figure is bound to change when companies drop coverage or people prefer a cheaper option. So, do we know how many will need to be covered under the public option? And if the Dems get their way, and their reform morphs into single payer universal coverage, we would need to cover 200M people.

Anyway, my point is that if we do end up with a government run health care program, a la single payer, which is where the Administration and Democrats want to go, what will it cost per person for care and treatment? England spends roughly $3000 per person annually in health care. (Refer to my other post the impact of universal health care )

After looking at the budget for the education system, $11,000 annually per child, it made me think about how much it would cost to cover Americans with chronic illness.

According to the CDC:

In 2005, 133 million people, almost half of all Americans lived with at least one chronic condition.

Chronic diseases account for 70% of all deaths in the United States.

The medical care costs of people with chronic diseases account for more than 75% of the nation’s $2 trillion medical care costs.

Chronic diseases account for one-third of the years of potential life lost before age 65.

Hospitalizations for pregnancy-related complications occurring before delivery account for more than $1 billion annually.

The direct and indirect costs of diabetes is $174 billion a year.

Each year, arthritis results in estimated medical care costs of nearly $81 billion, and estimated total costs (medical care and lost productivity) of $128 billion.

The estimated direct and indirect costs associated with smoking exceed $193 billion annually.

In 2008, the cost of heart disease and stroke in the U.S. is projected to be $448 billion.

The estimated total costs of obesity was nearly $117 billion in 2000.

Cancer costs the nation an estimated $89 billion annually in direct medical costs.

Nearly $98.6 billion is spent on dental services each year.

And from the Coalition for the Advancement of Health Through Behavioral and Social Science Research, more than 45 percent of adults struggle with a chronic health condition that affects their daily activities. From diabetes to asthma, heart disease, depression, obesity, and AIDS, more and more Americans are living with chronic illnesses. More than 90 million Americans live with one or more chronic illness; at least 22 million live with three chronic illnesses.

Could we even afford that, under a universal health care program? Which led me to think about budgets and cost cutting in the health care industry.

Sarah Palin caused a firestorm with her comments:

“And who will suffer the most when they ration care?” Palin asks. “The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

But, looking at the cuts made in education, for budget reasons, isn’t she right in questioning what would happen with a government run health care program? States budgets are coming up short, and school programs are facing the educational version of death panels.

What cuts are being made? Teachers, healthy lunches, art, music, gym, after school programs, books, supplies, busses, and special education and special needs programs. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find it hard to imagine that when budgets need to be cut in a health care program, certain people may face a type of death panel that Palin was talking about…

California - The Governor has proposed $1.3 billion in cuts to this current school year and another $4 billion in cuts for the next school year. If these cuts are approved in their entirety, they would add to the nearly $12 billion in cuts schools were already forced to sustain with the budget agreement that came about in February….including class-size increases in the South Pasadena Unified School District, which would result in kindergarten through third-grade classes having up to 32 students and fourth and fifth grade classes with as many as 36 children in each class; the cancellation of summer school programs at the Los Angeles Unified School District and the expected laying off of 2,250 teachers; and the recent vote by the Mount Diablo Unified School District board to lay off more than 400 teachers as well as the likely elimination of their sports and most music programs.

The poorest districts will be the hardest hit by the new layoffs, as they have the highest concentration of new teachers. Some school districts in wealthier areas of the state are seeking to compensate declining state funding by increasing local taxes that their residents can afford. About 75 percent of education funding currently comes from the state government.

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) recently voted to lay off over 2,000 teachers and over 1,000 educational personnel, though 500 of these layoffs were subsequently rescinded. As teachers are laid off, class sizes are slated to increase and materials will be scarcer as well.

At the end of last month, LAUSD announced that it was canceling most of its summer school programs, forcing many working parents to find alternative means of childcare. In past years the state has enrolled an average of 225,000 students in summer classes. The cancelled classes come as unemployment for youth is soaring.

The district is also planning $17 million in cuts to its school bus program, forcing many students to walk or take longer bus rides. A program to provide special transport for those facing hazardous walking conditions will also be canceled, potentially endangering thousands of students.

Georgia – teachers, who on average earn $48,300 a year, according to teacherportal.com — are facing the prospect of working several days without pay. That’s a not-insignificant sacrifice for teachers, although such pain has already been felt by thousands of people in other jobs.

Maryland – cut funding for a school breakfast pilot program, professional development for principals and educators, health clinics, gifted and talented summer centers, and math and science initiatives. For the coming fiscal year, Maryland’s governor has proposed cutting direct aid to local school districts by $69 million.

Massachusetts - enacted cuts to Head Start, universal pre-kindergarten programs, and early intervention services to help special-need children develop appropriately and be ready for school. Funding for K-12 has also been reduced, including spending for mentoring, teacher training, reimbursements for special education residential schools, services for disabled students, and programs for gifted and talented students.

Nevada - the governor has ordered various cuts to K-12 education, including delaying an all-day kindergarten expansion, cutting per pupil expenditures by $400 in a pilot program, eliminating funds for gifted and talented programs, eliminating funds for a magnet program for students who are deaf or hard of hearing, and making across-the-board cuts. Additionally, young children with developmental delays will lose more than 15,000 hours of needed services.

New York – the Governor proposes nearly $2 billion in cuts in education funding in FY 2010. Reductions in aid to individual school districts would range between 3 percent and 13 percent. In addition, a number of specific programs are eliminated, including supplemental math/science programs and new-teacher mentoring programs.

South Carolina – the Governor proposes suspending funding for textbook purchases in FY 2010.

Washington – the Governor has proposed reducing by one-third the amount the state spends to supplement education funding in property poor school districts. This proposal is likely to widen the gap in education funding between wealthy and poor districts.

New Haven — Children in more than 110 school districts and schools across Connecticut may soon be eating less nutritious school lunches as Governor Rell proposes to cut funding in half for the Healthy Food Program. The $2 million cut will force cash-strapped schools to find funding for the program or eliminate it, and replace fresh fruits and vegetables with less healthy food.

After school programs, and arts programs also suffer in budget cuts.

School budget cuts are wiping out entire departments, with art classes and programs for at-risk students disappearing fastest, the Daily News has learned. Intermediate School 218 in East New York, Brooklyn, is losing one third of its teachers, which will mean axing its music, art and computer programs, teachers said.

“From top to bottom, the school is going to be gutted,” said Chris Schilling, the school’s computer teacher and basketball coach whose position has been cut, he said.

“There’s no paper, no ink in the printers – we can’t even make copies,” he said.

“We’ve been staying here on Saturdays, working for hours after school and we’ve raised our standards, so why would they make such a big cut. Read more.

In the face of today’s gloomy economy, many school districts are facing the sad reality of budget cuts. In fact, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities predicts that half of all states will face budget shortfalls in fiscal year 2009.

“Every single grade is in desperate need of books,” Jones said, “and we can’t afford it.”

Cuts in teachers, after school programs, art, music, gym, computer classes, lunches, increased class size, supplies and books, busses, sports, special needs and advanced student courses cut, tutoring, counseling, librarians…

What do you think would happen with universal health care? Can we look at the education system, and guess?