On Monday, May 11, Indy’s public TV station, WFYI will stream live two virtual town halls of the 14 (total) GOP candidates - seven in each due to the size of the field - for Indiana’s 5th Congressional District in June 2's primary.
GOP candidates will be webcast (go to WFYI’s website) in two sessions on Monday, May 11. Town Hall #2 will begin at 8:00 PM. Participants:Matt Hook, Matt Hullinger, Kelly Mitchell, Danny Niederberger, Mark Small, Victoria Spartz, and Russell Stwalley.
No one - as in zip, zilch, zero, nada - has replied to my point that USA is ranked #37 in the World in health care, and, despite my opponents’ excoriation of “socialized medicine” a feature of nearly all of the 36 countries ahead of USA.
None of my opponents replied either to my acceptance of their invitation to debate (Beckwith and Abernathy) or my challenge to debate (the rest). Since they are absent from the field of intellectual battle, let me arrange straw men on that field.
First, the rankings were produced by the World Health Organization (“WHO”). Response: that’s an ad hominem argument - an attack on the source and not a response to the substance of the argument - and is considered a fallacy in formal logic.
Second, factors chosen are not accurate gauges. Response: WHO used 5 indicators: overall level of pop’n health; health inequalities; overall health sys responsiveness; distribution w/in pop’n; & distribution of sys financial burden (who pays the costs).
1: WHO states: on overall level of population health: good health system contributes to good health. WHO uses measure of disability- adjusted life expectancy (DALE). It is directly comparable to life expectancy and readily compared across populations.
2: Health inequalities: (1) not sufficient to protect or improve average health of the population, if - at the same time - inequality worsens or remains high because the gain accrues disproportionately to those already enjoying better health.
Health inequalities: (2) system also has the responsibility to try to reduce inequalities by prioritizing actions to improve the health of the worse-off, wherever these inequalities are caused by conditions amenable to intervention.
Health inequalities: (3) objective of good health is really twofold: the best attainable average level – goodness – and the smallest feasible differences among individuals and groups – fairness. A gain in either one of these, with no change in the other, constitutes an improvement.
3: Responsiveness: includes two major components. (a) respect for persons (including dignity, confidentiality and autonomy of individuals and families to decide about their own health); and (b) client orientation (including prompt attention, access to social support networks during care, quality of basic amenities and choice of provider).
4: Distribution of Financing: objectives of the health system do not include any particular level of total spending because, at all levels of spending there are other possible uses for the resources devoted to health with no correct answer.
Distribution of financing: report suggests that countries spending less than around 60 dollars per person per year on health find that their populations are unable to access health services from an adequately performing health system.
5) Distribution of financial burden: based on fraction of a household's capacity to spend (income minus food expenditure) that goes on health care (including tax payments, social insurance, private insurance and out of pocket payments).
I am interested to see if any of my opponents will address the fairness of these factors as means to measure quality of health care. My opponents probably will not.
That my opponents extol the virtues of the current occupant of the Oval Office appals me, as it should anyone with more than a brain stem. This administration is responsible - so far - for tens of thousands of deaths.
Here are how some stand. Mitchell: “My thanks to President Trump, Vice President Pence, and the countless healthcare professionals and scientists working around the clock for their dedication to mitigating the risk to public health posed by the coronavirus pandemic.”
Niederberger: Medicare for all means the government (i.e. taxpayers) now guarantee to cover the remaining costs of the insurance companies. I did not find a quote from Danny on COVID-19 and trump, but it is reasonable to infer Danny thinks trump is spiffy since Danny kisses trump’s butt on just about everything else.
Beckwith and Hullinger promote a conspiracy-driven view of COVID-19 that blames the Chinese, and overlooks the incompetence of trump.
None addresses how trump cut the apparatus set up to address a pandemic. The most important duty of Congress is to question acts of the executive branch - especially when it is headed by a member of one’s own party. My opponents will not question trump’s authority.
Ten years ago the GOP was the target of a hostile takeover by a minority. Neither they, the leadership of today’s GOP nor any of my 15 opponents in the June 2 GOP primary for INCD5 is a “conservative”: one who believes in traditional values.
If you live in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District and are disgusted with the GOP or both major
political parties, on June 2, or in early voting, ask for a GOP ballot and vote for me. If elected, I might only last one term, but it’ll be two years everyone remembers.
My name is Mark Small. I am a GOP candidate for Indiana’s 5th. I am pro-environment, pro-choice, anti-war and anti-dt. I believe in the traditional values of the GOP, not the bastardized values of dt and his minions. I approve of this blog. Hell, I wrote it.