Comments on: The Safety Net, Health Care, and Work Supports

By: Misaki

Misaki — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 23:20:14 +0000

>audiences in America who will literally applaud when someone suggests letting uninsured, sick people fend for themselves (watch it here),

That example was someone in a coma, and it does make sense to bill them for it instead of having the government pay for the uninsured.

A better example would be someone who gets some other disease and doesn’t have insurance. And since it is hard to pay for health care without an income, you could say that not just isolated audiences, but 52% of the population is in favour of these people “fending for themselves”.

http://jobcreationplan.blogspot.com/2012/06/nonviolent-solution-to-political.html

By: DHFabian

DHFabian — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 13:48:30 +0000

I should note that people assume that supports exist which don’t exist, and that existing programs do the job we would assume. Even Mitt Romney showed his ignorance about the “safety net,” assuming it meets the needs of the public. Most commonly, in exchange for food stamps, one will be required to provide proof that he applied for X number of jobs during the month. That’s it. No supports, no skills training. If you don’t have a telephone (many don’t), good luck getting a job. You might temporarily be provided with pt. time/min. wage work assignments, such as picking up litter.You might get a rent voucher, but good luck finding housing that accepts them. No cash assistance, so you might have to give up such luxuries as soap and transportation. We don’t have enough jobs for everyone, due to years of outsourcing. The jobs are gone. Period. And we no longer provide welfare aid. A point that many can’t seem to grasp: When you’re living on the streets, going to college for job skills training is not an option. When public need for any remaining scraps of aid is great, the odds of getting any help whatsoever shrink. I can’t stress this enough: There is no entitlement to poverty relief. People can and do die as a result of US poverty. We are no longer like the modern nations that regard poverty as an economic issue rather than a consequence of “bad behavior.” Please try to grasp the difference between being very poor and utterly destitute, since the number of destitute continues to grow. Our policies concerning our poor do directly violate that celebrated Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and this generation is OK with that. America wanted to “get tough on the poor,” and it’s time to let them know just how successful they are.

By: Bob Walling

Bob Walling — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 22:37:13 +0000

Mike ….. Today people who do not have insurance and get sick/hurt go to the emergency room. If they have no assets they will still be taken care of. The cost of this is paid by all who have insurance or like Romney just pay cash. SOOOOOO How about this . Lets change the rule that you must have health insurance or cash before you receive medical care. Don’t have anything … fine. just stay home. There are millions of white americans that don’t have cash or insurance besides people of color. Now we have one more problem …. someone has to pick up all the dead, bury them, and general cleanup! Who pays for that? YOU?

By: mike

mike — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:31:01 +0000

How is it SCOTUS is highly politicized again? because you disagree with their decisions? The issue at hand is the individual mandate. This has nothing to do with healthcare. It is about the last stop-gap between the concept of constitutional limits on government and government doing whatever the current majority wants to do to you. If govt can force you to buy healthcare just for breathing on U.S. soil what’s to stop them on future issues? The road to serfdom looms!

By: DHFabian

DHFabian — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 16:28:50 +0000

I hope we can begin discussing this issue, because there is so much ignorance about it. Safety net programs — legitimate poverty relief — saved lives and enabled people to have the economic security vital to moving forward out of poverty. At its highest (1970s), AFDC (primary program) used a mere 6% of the fed. budget. Some 80% of AFDC recipients were able to quit welfare by the time their children started school. Through their own taxes, they then repaid the aid they had received over time. I would consider this a wild success! Welfare programs are the norm in the modern nations precisely because they serve the common good on so many levels, from saving lives to saving taxpayer costs for health care, prisons, etc. We need to overcome some 40 yrs of anti-poor propaganda, learning the role welfare played in America’s former success, and the role that ending it has had in our current economic deterioration.