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ESSAY TOPIC:
The essay requirement for 2010 involves the applicant assuming opposite points of view in two essays and presenting persuasive arguments based on these two perspectives.

Assume you are an engineer that has been working in a small high tech electronics manufacturing business for over five years. Prior to 2008 the business owner was optimistic about the economy and the future, and there were several projects planned for expansion and growth of the company. Raises and end of the year bonuses were good. In the financial crisis of 2008, the company lost over 40% of the investments backing its defined benefit retirement plan, business dropped off dramatically, and plans for expansion were put on hold. After your employer learned that the company’s main customers were implementing a 30% reduction in force, there was a 30% layoff which you survived. Pay scales were frozen and end of the year bonuses were cut back significantly in 2008 and 2009.

You feel reasonably secure in your position, and your company seems to have sufficient business for no further cutbacks. Nonetheless, the atmosphere of prosperity and growth prior to 2008 created a better work environment.

Since you work in a small company, business decisions are not made by some remote corporate office with nameless and faceless managers. Business decisions are made by a person who you can talk to, understand, and influence. Also, you are not a nameless and faceless subject in a large system where individual contributions are insignificant and go unnoticed. Your productivity can make a difference for your company and your future.

In talking to the owner of your company, you gain a sense of his pessimism. The owner believes that big financial companies, General Motors, and state governments such as California seem no longer viable, and politicians from areas of the country known for corruption are making deals that determine which companies survive and which fail. When businesses fail, the politicians decide who takes the loss. Your employer believes that the burdens and penalties associated with being productive can only increase when failure is supported and rewarded. Since the US dollar is a fiat currency with a value based solely on the productivity of the people and economy behind it, the owner of your company believes it will be necessary for millions of productive people to lose a significant fraction of their life’s savings before the numbers add up for the system. The greatest source of pessimism for your employer is the prospect of Government healthcare. You learn that your employer enlisted in the US Army to qualify for the GI Bill to pay his way through one of the best and most expensive engineering schools in the world. During basic training he became sick and nearly died from dehydration and starvation in an Army hospital when he was too weak to walk to the dining room. When your employer tried crawling to a phone to call his parents for help, a nurse stopped him. The owner of your company was able to meet with the head nurse, and at a time when his fever was over 106 degrees Fahrenheit and he could barely follow or remember a conversation due to fever induced delirium, the head nurse reassured him that the chances of him dying were statistically small. The nurse said that out of 200 young men admitted to an Army hospital in basic training, only 3 actually die. This is for 3 young men who were healthy and had passed a full Army physical only two months before their deaths. Your employer told the head nurse that if he did not get food and water that he was going to be one of those three. The head nurse had food and water brought to the owner of your company, and he survived.

Your employer says that the Army did provide eye exams and eye glasses that worked. The frames were rugged but a style that no one wanted to wear.

The system of dental care in the Army was supposed to be one examination in the month of the soldier’s birthday. The owner of your company received no cleanings or examinations during his two years in the Army because he had conflicting duty. Your employer lost one filling and went to the post dental clinic. The filling was repaired by a dental technician with rank specialist fourth class (SP4) who probably went through a 6 - 12 month dental training program. The dental technician’s hands had the shakes of an alcoholic, but the filling repair seemed fine. The owner of your company fought for a dental checkup in his second year, but his birthday was three months before his discharge date. The dental clinic said that upon discharge, the US Army issues a form that a veteran can take to any dentist and have all needed dental work completed at no cost. Your employer did receive this form at discharge, but when he tried to use it, he discovered that almost no dentists accepted it because the payment schedule was too low. When he found one dentist that would accept the form, the dentist spent about ten minutes giving an exam and cleaning, and said the owner’s dental health was fine. The owner of your company estimates that the Government payment schedule for an exam and cleaning must have been about $20 at the time.

One to two months after the dental exam, your employer developed an abscess in the tooth with the repaired filling. Since it was less than 90 days after discharge, your employer was eligible to go to the main Veterans Administration center in the area. The VA center had civilian dentists with full degrees, and they fixed the abscess. The alcoholic dental technician who had repaired the filling had left a large shelf of filling material that trapped food and caused the abscess. Your employer does not use the word “soldier” to describe members in the Army. He speaks of soldiers/subjects. He does acknowledge that any member of a system is subject to rules and standards, but the Government controls in the Army made its members more soldiers/subjects than only soldiers.

The owner of your company says that Government food was similar to Government healthcare in the Army. Some of the people in the owner’s platoon stated that their stomach could not withstand the bacteria from the mess hall, and the food tasted bad. Your employer felt the food was good and nutritious if you were wary of the worst bacteria cultures. However, the mess hall was successful in periodically slipping in unexpected variations in bacteria. The dairy products were top quality and meat was good, but the owner of your company said this was not because anyone cared about an individual soldier/subject. It was only because dairy and beef lobbyists had worked Congress successfully.

Your employer says a Government bed in the Army was similar to Government healthcare. There was major drug and alcohol abuse in the US Army at the end of the Vietnam War, and a number of soldiers/subjects would pass out in bed when under the influence of a mixture of alcohol and barbituates. They would then urinate in their sleep. Therefore, most mattresses were urine stained. When transferred to a different sleeping location, a soldier/subject could only flip up the cleanest side of his assigned mattress and use sheets.

The owner of your company says Government equipment in the Army was similar to Government healthcare. For equipment inspections, using a $5 paint brush and a $20 can of paint to cover dirt was easier and looked better than washing off the dirt. Afterwards some soldiers/subjects used $10 worth of cleaning solvent to clean the $5 brush and then dumped everything on the ground to cause $100 worth of environmental damage. Your employer was assigned a tactical truck that blew a rebuilt engine after 6 months because the maintenance crew did not use a functioning oil pump.

The owner of your company says the worst part of any Government system is the impossibility for an individual to do anything to make things better. This is what makes a person a subject. When your employer was sick from Government food and went to a Government toilet only to find it covered with vomit, and then went to double up on his urine stained mattress, he vowed that he would get away from being a subject and build up his own productivity and functionality. The owner of your company feels the opportunity for an individual to extract himself from a Government system is now being destroyed by politicians from areas noted for corruption, and the economy of America is on track to resemble Detroit and the South Side of Chicago. In an attempt to counteract and reduce the pessimism of your employer, you have cited the positive examples of healthcare in Canada and Europe. You also have cited Medicare. As it turns out, the wife of the owner of your company grew up in Great Britain and Canada, and she has relatives with extensive experience in those healthcare systems. Also, your employer minored in German in undergraduate school and worked one summer at the Technical University of Berlin in a student exchange program.

Your employer has explained how his wife’s father had a mild stroke in Canada. He states that the situation for an old person in a Canadian hospital after a mild stroke is very similar to that for a young man in an Army hospital with a fever of 106 degrees F. The father was not given water or food that he could eat, he lost his voice due to dehydration and starvation, and the hospital removed his hearing aids so he could not hear or respond to questions and conversation. When the father started panicking about dying, the hospital began to administer sedatives for him to pass away peacefully. Your employer’s wife argued with the doctor who was from a third world country, but she was dismissed as an emotional daughter who was not accepting the cycle of life. It was impossible for your employer’s wife to get her father reassigned to a different doctor, so she had to take him out of the Government hospital and put him in a private home. The father wolfed down food and recovered reasonably well with care from people in a private system that receives payment for keeping him alive.

Your employer’s wife says that it takes an honest, altruist, and hardworking person to put in a full week of work while being a Government subject. In Canada, many ambitious doctors with material self interest have moved to greater opportunity in the United States. A fraction of the doctors who have stayed in Canada began to scale back their efforts, and this has evolved into setting the standard for work performance among most doctors. This has created a huge doctor shortage which the Canadian Government has addressed by bringing in doctors from third world countries. Your employer’s wife has also spoken about the Canadian Government addressing a doctor shortage by training technicians (the Army equivalent of a specialist fourth class) to do the work of a doctor.

Your employer has said that during his summer in a student exchange program at the Technical University of Berlin, he noted the dental health of some college educated East Europeans of high social standing. The owner of your company had experienced two years of Government dental care in the Army, and he estimated that receiving Government dental care while growing up in Poland was the equivalent of experiencing ten years of Government dental care in the US Army. Your employer has talked about a conversation with a German medical school graduate traveling in America. Medical school is Government supported in Germany, but the medical school graduate spoke as if it is tiresome servitude to be a young doctor in Germany. Despite moral criticism from the graduate’s teachers and medical supervisors, the graduate definitely felt that traveling in America is much more enjoyable than attending to people’s medical needs in a Government hospital in Germany.

You learn that your employer’s brother is a doctor in Washington. This brother talks about the difficulty of maintaining a viable business model for a practice that includes a mix of Medicare and Medicaid patients because of the Government payment schedules. Establishing a medical practice involves working for a bank to pay for equipment loans, working for an insurance company to pay for medical malpractice insurance, working for the Government for Medicare and Medicaid patients, working for the Internal Revenue Service if you make any money, and always facing the possibility of becoming the source of a luxurious retirement for a trial lawyer. Your employer’s brother says the demands of a private practice greatly exceed the rewards. Ironically, your employer’s brother has chosen a mix of the Canadian and the Army business model. That is, he works part time for the Army for a salary. Therefore the Government pays for all the equipment, the Army assigns him patients, the Government covers medical liability, and your employer’s brother works part time and leads a good life with ample time for his family. Your employer admits that this may be an intelligent business model with the optimum rate of return now, but too many doctors choosing to work part time for a Government salary creates a huge doctor shortage.

Your employer is very pessimistic about the economic impact of Government healthcare. Your employer says that the healthcare sector is 16% of the US economy, and with “fat cat” doctors (working full time, of course), profitable medical insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies charging high prices, your employer estimates the healthcare sector generates at least 20% of the profits in the US economy. With a graduated income tax, the healthcare sector may pay over 30% of the taxes in this country. If this tax base is lost and revenue requirements are transferred to a shrinking private sector after politicians have bailed out General Motors, Citibank, AIG, etc., any productive and profitable small business will be crushed. Your employer also believes that providing coverage to 40 million people who do not currently have health insurance including over 15 million illegal aliens will create a huge doctor shortage by itself. However, if doctors on a Government salary are not perfectly altruistic, scale back their efforts, and start working half time, there will be a catastrophic doctor shortage which will affect everyone, especially those on Medicare. Ambitious doctors with material self interest will move out of the United States and establish expatriate medical treatment centers in the Cayman Islands, India, and elsewhere. This will only compound the catastrophic doctor shortage, so that only people with the finances to fly out of the country will receive quality medical care. Your employer believes that the only solution will be for the Government to train technicians to do the work normally performed by doctors. If these technicians unionize, politicians will need to address the conflicting interests of a well organized union with the interests of less organized taxpayers and individuals needing medical attention. The Government could also bring in second tier doctors from third world countries. Sedating patients who panic when they know they are dying may also provide some relief from the doctor shortage.

First essay
Adopt the point of view of an engineer who does not understand your employer’s pessimism or agree with his negative assessments about universal healthcare. Present persuasive arguments that help your employer see how universal healthcare will transform the economy in positive ways and help people lead a better life. The goal is to convert your employer into an optimistic proponent of universal healthcare, so that the possibility of a universal health care bill passing Congress does not undermine his confidence to restore an atmosphere of prosperity and growth in your company.

Second essay
Adopt the point of view of an engineer who understands your employers pessimism and considers his experiences and assessments about Government healthcare reasonable. However, present positive solutions, information and experiences that have been overlooked, or any other thoughts or ideas that should be considered to help dispel the pessimism of the owner of your company. The goal is to convince your employer to restore an atmosphere of prosperity and growth in your company.

Essay length
One essay should be 2 - 3 pages minimum and 4 - 5 pages maximum. The other essay should be 1 - 2 pages. In one paragraph at the end of the longer essay, explain why you chose to spend the most time on this point of view. In one paragraph at the end of the shorter essay, explain why you chose to spend the least time on this point of view.