Immigration, Education and Health Care - Essential Ingredients for the Continued Longevity of the United States

 Immigration

My immediate ancestors emigrated from Italy during the early part of the twentieth century.  They came only with what they could carry onboard the ship that provided them with passage.  They came with their families driven by the hope and desire to find a new life in a totally alien environment.  They came to America to better themselves; to carve out a more propitious future for their offspring and for their descendants.  They arrived at Ellis Island in the shadow of the Great Lady of the Harbor ready to work, ready to learn, and ready to contribute whatever was required to live and to prosper.  They were few among millions who made this remarkable journey – of the ten million Italians who chose this path, for example, they left approximately thirty million descendants who all helped navigate America through the twentieth century and beyond.

This is my own personal story; a story that is amplified millions of times by the very armies of immigrants from around the world that have set upon the shores of these United States.  That collective energy; that communal desire for a better life; that infusion of different and differing perspectives helped to shape the character and future of this country.  Our capacity to embrace immigration to our shores is what has helped maintain our vitality and prosperity as a nation. 

It is a monumental tragedy to deny or ignore this truth and proceed, as we seem to be doing, to demonize immigrants, to expel those who have come here illegally with callous indifference and with vehemence, to incarcerate and separate families and to undermine the intrinsic value and benefit that immigration provides to all of us.  To continue to behave in this manner is to do irreparable harm to our relationship with the rest of the world, for it puts us at odds with the very concept of a civilized society.  In fact, all of these outrageous and destructive behaviors are completely avoidable.  We have had many opportunities in the past to craft appropriate laws and reasonable procedures to correct the overweening issue of illegal immigration.  It would be a tragedy of remarkable proportions to apply fallacious and dangerous fascistic principles embodied in white supremacy in dealing with immigration, for it will guarantee a horrific and chaotic future for us and our descendants.  

 

Education

The United States is a constitutionally based democratic republic.  As such, the leadership of the country is chosen and retained by its citizens through the voting process and not through the arbitrary and essentially non-democratic decisions coming from a well established and entrenched autocracy.  Ideally, this democratic process should yield a government dedicated to serving all the people.

However, for a democratically conceived government to produce laws and policies that reflect the national interest, the general population should be well educated so as to make decisions based upon a reasoned and thoughtful consideration of reliable information and data.  An educated people would be well-versed in matters of science, history, mathematics, art and government.  An educated electorate would be capable of discerning what is true and conversely, what is patently false.   An educated population would not be swayed by transparent and self-serving propaganda.  An educated populace would be appropriately skeptical and always ready to ask questions and demand explanation whenever required.  An educated people would not be satisfied with simplistic answers to complex questions.

In reality, a substantial segment of the population of the United States believes that the reality of climate change, overwhelming supported by a substantial weight of scientific evidence, is a hoax.  Also, a sizeable proportion of the population believe that vaccines designed to prevent the spread of serious infectious diseases are not reliable and should be shunned in spite of the evidence to the contrary.   The entire premise of white supremacy that so many support is based upon a belief that flies in the face of the biological reality of the species, Home sapiens – that includes all of humanity.

In my estimation, the evidence that is shown above reinforces the idea that the education of our people has failed and this failure has serious implications for both the present and the future.   This failure is evident in the early grades where the teaching of science and mathematics is inadequate at best and wholly lacking in some regions of the country.  Also, higher education has become so prohibitively expensive that it is effectively out of reach to a considerable portion of the population.  This translates to the reality that so many young people are prevented from discovering and developing their inner talents and abilities and have become relegated to a subsistent standard of living.

It is therefore imperative that federal and local governments subsidize public higher education so that it can become accessible to all regardless of income.  Although this may seem costly, the payback will be enormous in the long run - thoroughly educated people will enrich not only their individual lives but help the entire nation become more prosperous.  They will necessarily make political decisions based upon thoughtful and deliberate considerations that in the long run will benefit everyone.

 

Health Care

The United States apparently is a prosperous nation and ranks very high in regard to its gross domestic product (GDP).  However, this perspective is quite misleading, because its wealth is skewed disproportionately to an extreme minority of its population.  In fact, 10% of its people collectively possess 85% of the nation’s wealth.  This overall statistic does not incorporate the accumulated wealth sequestered in so-called “hidden assets” estimated to be in the trillions of dollars.

This reality shows itself in many aspects of the quality of life for the majority of its citizens.  One of the most revealing of these is access to meaningful health care.  The following table reveals this reality from varied and important perspectives.

 

Perspective	Statistics
Global Standing in Providing Adequate Healthcare to the General Population	Ranks last among high income nations.
Lack of Adequate Healthcare Coverage	Thirty-five percent of the population experience inadequate care – approximately ninety-one million.
Estimated Yearly Deaths Due to Inadequate Health Coverage	35,000 to 68,000 with the most conservative estimate – 26,000 provided by the government (NIH).
Life Expectancy Related to Wealth	Life expectancy of the wealthiest 1% is ten -fifteen years longer than the poorest 1%.
Infant Mortality	33rd out of the thirty-six countries reported by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCED).

 

These statistics come from a variety of sources and are very revealing.  Collectively they illustrate a disturbing reality for the vast majority of the nation’s population.  They demonstrate that a substantial number of individuals and families suffer unnecessarily from the lack of adequate healthcare.  Additionally, this imbalance negatively impacts the health and well-being of the entire country.   

 

Conclusion

Immigration, Education and Healthcare are important and essential areas of our communal life as a nation and require our serious and devoted attention.  Our failure, as a people, to pay appropriate attention to them, or exacerbate the problems surrounding them is, in my estimation, to do great and substantial harm to not only the present but more importantly to the future of the nation.