Danish Vs. American Tax System
In the United States, we have a tax system which I feel is distorted. We use the income tax as a way to tax every citizen at a flat rate, which depending on the amount they make, can be alot of taxation or lower taxation. The problem, is that the majority of america is not making that much money. So the taxes that an average american pays is a much higher percentage of their annual income in contrast to the upper class. This taxation on a mostly lower class, generates less tax money than heavy taxes on the rich and super- rich. The upper class tend to evade much of their taxation, and cause most of the taxes to come from the lower and middle classes who cannot afford the rate.
I think that the way the Danish have a better tax system than we do, and seems to infact fit more with our society than it does with the social layout in Denmark. What i mean by this, is that in America we have a much higher percentage of the population living in poverty than they do in Denmark. Yet we have a taxation system which seems to favor the rich and punish those at the bottom of the economic ladder by taking what little they have. The Danish have less homeless people, and lower poverty rates. The low poverty rates are helped in part by a system that is geared to meet the financial needs of the different economic groups. For example, the tax brackets that we only have for social "grouping" purpouses (lower, middle, and upper class), in denmark are tax groups where they have different tax rates. The people who came to visit were private school kids, who in Denmark would fit into the top, or upper class of the tax & social brackets. This bracket is subject to about 65% income tax, while the middle and lower tax brackets are significantly lower at 20- 35% taxation.
If I were to chose between America sticking with its current tax system, and adopting the Danish system, I would chose the Danish system over our current one. I feel that a tax system where less than 10% of the people making around 90% of the wealth pay 20% of the taxes, is completely out of sync with the American social system. The Danish system fits with our society because it taxes the highest earning citizens at the highest percentage of what they make, and not everyone equally. I think that the problem at its rout, is that we have an equal tax system, but people do not make equal wages so it isn't very logical.
One thing that can be said for our system is that it is effective. We have been able to support two wars, a bailout of the two largest industries in America all on tax dollars, but the problem is about who is being taxed, not how much we are getting out of it. If we put 65% taxes on the upper class, the amount of tax revenue we would see in America would be immense and take alot of stress off of the middle and lower classes as they could now enjoy lower taxes and higher income (which would eventually be spent and generate sales tax money).
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Business of Being Born: Reflection
After watching this movie in class, I feel that I have been able to reach a full understanding of the natural and home birth process, while on the other hand, I feel like I was misinformed in some way, due to the blatant bias of the film. Before watching this movie, I had thought of hospital birth as the only real option for women giving birth in this day & age. By watching this film, I became informed about what is in reality a world of options for how to, and where, you can give birth other than a hospital bed. While the movie followed a few women (including the filmmaker) in the days and weeks before they gave birth, the film discussed how we got to where we are in America today with birth methods and procedures and the history of this in America. The position of the film was highly in favor of natural and home births, and as a result the majority of the film was about home birth and the advantages of it over a hospital birth. The people interviewed and what was discussed about hospital birth, was almost all negative, and clearly intended to frame it as an evil and inhumane process. Because the film used such a contrast between good and evil; home birth and hospital birth, I feel like I wasn't able to completely accept what the film said as truth. An example of the contrast, was how the history of hospital birth was shown through black and white photo's, and set to creepy music, but the history of home birth was shown through colorful film clips, and rock music. The people interviewed about home birth were happy looking and energetic people, while interviews in favor of hospital births were done with people who seemed much less kind and caring than their home birth counterparts.
For me, I found the evolution of where births took place to be very interesting. According to the film, in 1900, 95% of births were at home, in 1938, 50% were at home, and since 1987 home births have accounted for about 1% of all births in the United States. The historical context that these figures reflect, was the result of a smear campaign on home birth and midwives, by the medical industry which presented hospitals as a "clean alternative" to your home, and medically trained doctors over "dirty, ill-educated" midwives. By the public accepting this propaganda as fact so quickly, it became commonly accepted fact that it was safer and a better choice to have a hospital birth than a home birth. Before watching this movie, and learning what we have about home birth in class, I saw nothing wrong with this idea that hospital birth was preferable over home birth. After watching it, I felt more inclined to suggest a home or natural birth to my wife, over a hospital birth. I think that what seems better about home birth, is the fact that in the movie, all of the women seemed to have quick and semi-painless births, which they were overjoyed about when they had pushed the baby out. What i had always known about, was hospital births, where the norm appeared to be intense pain and being miserable until finally the baby came out and the joy was more from being done with the labor and pain than the child itself.
The real problem that I saw with hospital birth, was that the medical field has become the medical industry, which is run more like a business than anything else. By charging up to $15,000 per birth, as a business, hospitals would want to maximize their profits, which could be done by speeding up the time of each birth. Because of this, the C- section and various medications have gone from being used occasionally, to virtually every birth with the intent of speeding the process up and making birth fit a schedule which suited the doctor and may be detrimental or even dangerous to the health of the patient. When business is introduced to medicine, the interests of the hospital tend to overshadow and surpass that of the patient. As c- sections are used more and more (up 46% from 1996), they are becoming accepted as the norm and what is an improvement from traditional birth, much like hospitals became accepted over homes as a better, cleaner solution for giving birth. The problem with C-sections is that it is a serious surgery which causes a large amount of harm to your body, and for this to become the norm would be dangerous to the health of the mother and child, while benefiting the hospital by cutting down the time of births significantly.
For me, I found the evolution of where births took place to be very interesting. According to the film, in 1900, 95% of births were at home, in 1938, 50% were at home, and since 1987 home births have accounted for about 1% of all births in the United States. The historical context that these figures reflect, was the result of a smear campaign on home birth and midwives, by the medical industry which presented hospitals as a "clean alternative" to your home, and medically trained doctors over "dirty, ill-educated" midwives. By the public accepting this propaganda as fact so quickly, it became commonly accepted fact that it was safer and a better choice to have a hospital birth than a home birth. Before watching this movie, and learning what we have about home birth in class, I saw nothing wrong with this idea that hospital birth was preferable over home birth. After watching it, I felt more inclined to suggest a home or natural birth to my wife, over a hospital birth. I think that what seems better about home birth, is the fact that in the movie, all of the women seemed to have quick and semi-painless births, which they were overjoyed about when they had pushed the baby out. What i had always known about, was hospital births, where the norm appeared to be intense pain and being miserable until finally the baby came out and the joy was more from being done with the labor and pain than the child itself.
The real problem that I saw with hospital birth, was that the medical field has become the medical industry, which is run more like a business than anything else. By charging up to $15,000 per birth, as a business, hospitals would want to maximize their profits, which could be done by speeding up the time of each birth. Because of this, the C- section and various medications have gone from being used occasionally, to virtually every birth with the intent of speeding the process up and making birth fit a schedule which suited the doctor and may be detrimental or even dangerous to the health of the patient. When business is introduced to medicine, the interests of the hospital tend to overshadow and surpass that of the patient. As c- sections are used more and more (up 46% from 1996), they are becoming accepted as the norm and what is an improvement from traditional birth, much like hospitals became accepted over homes as a better, cleaner solution for giving birth. The problem with C-sections is that it is a serious surgery which causes a large amount of harm to your body, and for this to become the norm would be dangerous to the health of the mother and child, while benefiting the hospital by cutting down the time of births significantly.
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