Here we are, once again, dancing to the progressive media’s narrative tune. What are we tapping our toes to this time? We’re supposed to believe the best states in 2017 are based on a metric heavily weighted in healthcare and education.
Whatever you do, don’t base your results on migratory stats such as United Van Line’s annual report, which is a tangible indication of people voting with their feet. No, we have to suspend all rational thought by believing Massachusetts is the nation’s utopian destination.
But let’s play along. Here is the metric consideration for healthcare. See if you notice what is not being said:
Health care access is worth one-third of the weight in ranking the Best States for health care. Six metrics contributed to the rankings: child wellness visits, health insurance enrollment, adult wellness visits, adult dental visits, child dental visits and health care affordability. While many Americans have access to quality health care, others face barriers, such as lack of insurance, that prevent them from receiving basic health services. The lack of access to quality health care increases the financial and public health burden on state residents as individuals and as a population.
The Best State for health care access is Massachusetts, which also ranks second for health care and is the No. 1 overall state. Hawaii, the No. 1 state for the healthcare category, places second in the health care access subcategory. Four other New England states also make the top 10: Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. The worst state for health care access, Alaska, ranks first for healthcare quality. Six of the bottom-10 states for health care access are in the Southeast or Southwest: Florida, Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia and Alabama.
This report is actually an indictment against states that didn’t expand Medicaid and are vociferous critics of Obamacare. Massachusetts has unashamedly expanded its welfare programs and therefore has been designated the number one slot in this dubious report.
Another category that weighs heavily in utopian ideology is education, especially pre-K thru 12th grade. Here is an excerpt on the importance of early education:
The early start that children gain from pre-K education also is a factor. With nearly a quarter of children enrolled in preschool nationally, the Best States ranking shows New Jersey with the greatest, almost one-third. The metrics involved in the education ranking also reveal disparities in educational achievement between boys and girls and whites and Asians and and minorities – and among states, with No. 1-ranked Massachusetts attaining the highest scores in national math testing for eighth graders.
What’s amazing is that this very report concedes there is no advantage to pre-K education:
The standards for measuring the quality of any state’s pre-K programs are extensive. They include measures of the numbers of teachers with bachelor’s degrees of specialized training in pre-K education, class sizes of 20 students or smaller and teacher-student ratios of 1 to 10 or better, supplemental services such as health and vision care and meals provided. The states were graded on a range of 1 to 10 on all these measures by the National Institute for Early Education Research. Notably, only one of the top-10 states in education ranked among the top 10 in this metric – seventh-ranked Washington. No. 21 North Carolina scored highest in this measure. Southeastern states had the highest grades, 8.3 on average, the Southwest lowest, at. 5.8.
So, North Carolina has invested all this money in pre-K education and ranks a dismal #21 while states that have little investment in same programs are doing better. I wrote about this years ago. This pre-K program is nothing more than a glorified, taxpayer subsidized day care centers. What a scam.
Talking about scams, we have to take into consideration the two categories that the citizens of this country are worried most about and that is healthcare and education. What do they have in common? Could it be the Obama administration’s hostile takeover? Healthcare cost have skyrocketed since the Affordable Care Act. The cost of a college education has become a millstone around a graduate’s neck. Even the U.S. News, the very paper that published this report, recognized the federal government’s role in the hyperinflation of a college education. Here is an excerpt from an op-ed published in November 2011:
It all goes back to two well-intentioned federal goals: first, that a college education should be within the reach of every American, and second, that if students borrow money from the federal government, they should repay it. Most of us would agree that both are noble goals. But the consequences of both have been stunning.
As a result of the first, the money began to flow; over the last 30 years, inflation-adjusted federal financial aid has quadrupled. Total student debt has now reached the $1 trillion mark, more than the credit card debt of every American combined. The federal deficit in the recently ended fiscal year totaled $1.3 trillion; the debt load carried by college grads now stands at more than two thirds of our nation's massive budget shortfall. According to the College Board, over half of all full-time undergrads at public colleges and universities are now full-time borrowers. At private nonprofit schools, a whopping two thirds have loans.
The more money the federal government pumps into financial aid, the more money the colleges charge for tuition. Inflation-adjusted tuition and fees have tripled over those same 30 years while aid quadrupled; the aid is going up faster than the tuition. Thanks to the federal government, massive sums of money are available to pay for massive tuitions.
So there you have it, the federal government caused all these concerns and problems and a state with the moniker, “taxachusetts” is lauded as an American utopia. Is it any wonder the media has lost credibility?
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