Gee, Fixing Welfare Seemed Like a Snap

[Chauga]

By Gardiner Harris
New York Times
June 19, 2005


Remember the hot debate over the transformation of the American welfare system? When President Bill Clinton signed the welfare reform act in 1996, which gave states wide latitude in determining benefits, the federal government believed it had changed the way the country thought about antipoverty programs.

But if overhauling welfare as we knew it gave politicians headaches almost a decade ago, fixing Medicaid - the nation's largest antipoverty program - will give them ulcers.

Medicaid has grown so large, providing health care to more than 52 million people, that it is bankrupting state governments. The program now soaks up 22 percent of the average state budget and takes a larger share of state spending than spending on all elementary and secondary education, according to the National Governors Association. Nearly two-thirds of nursing home residents have their care paid for by Medicaid.

-snip-

"The emotional debate that we're eventually going to have to have is the old-versus-the-young debate," said Representative Barton. "Two-thirds of the dollars in Medicaid go to old people when two-thirds of the needs in terms of health care are in children and young people. No politician wants to touch that."


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/19/weekinreview/19harris.html

[Iowa]

1. If Medicaid truly does "soak up" 22%...

of the average state budget - then the budget is probably too damned small because almost everything else has been starved to death. It's time to raise taxes.

We can afford to care for our elderly, our disabled, and our poor (and most of our poor are disabled). Either we do the right thing and care for these people, or we admit that we have gone over to the dark side as a nation.

Our problem isn't a lack of resources; our problem is a pathetic lack of leadership from most of our church leaders (who should be leading the charge to defend the least among us), politicians who lack any sense of the common good, and the unbridled greed of most Republicans (who wouldn't throw a life-jacket to a drowning man unless there was something in it for them).

[WildClarySage]

2. I think the problem is that a lot of people in this country suffer

from suspicious envy that someone somewhere is getting away with something. They loathe welfare and assistance recipients because they are afraid that poor people are getting away with something they secretly want to get away with, and worse, are taking away something from hard working citizens in the process. I call it "Jeannie Bueller Syndrome".

[marbuc]

3. Its interesting

that a disproportionate number of Republicans suffer from this affliction. They just cannot stand that others are "getting away with something."

[Senior citizen]

4. Yeah, they inherited it from their dads

along with a business, lots of contacts, lots of money, heritage admission and a free ride through college, insider stock tips, tax haven advice, and they're pissed that somebody might be getting something they didn't inherit by birth.

[newyawker99]

9. Hi marbuc!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Iowa]

6. Exactly!

A couple of personal anecdotes in support of what you just said:

-- There's a Republican county supervisor in our town who is always talking about ownership society, blah, blah, blah... It got out that she and her siblings finagled a way to get her mother into a nursing home on the taxpayer's dime. This was an elderly women who owned a big farm, but they apparently planned ahead, and by the time she needed the care, she was destitute.

-- I used to work with people who were down and out. Most were on the edge financially all their lives, and when they lost their slave-like $7 an hour factory job and couldn't buy groceries, they'd come to me for help to put it all back together. It never ceased to amaze me that people who lived on the edge like that, the ones who were most vulnerable, were usually the worst when it came to a lack of compassion for others who are in need. They would bend over backwards to assure me that they weren't like all the people they knew who were "ripping off the system". Part of my job required that I register these people to vote. The number of Democrats I registered could be counted on one hand. I'd guess around maybe 90% registered Republican and the rest checked "no party". This includes people who had never worked, were unable to work, and were entirely dependent on SSI and/or SSDI! I used to think, "...you know, we have payees and guardians for people who can't manage their money competently - too bad we don't have something similar for people who can't manage their vote competently". If they blow their money they harm only themselves, and we protect them from that. If they blow their vote, they harm themselves, but they also harm the rest of us - and we just let them do it.

[cap]

7. ideology is that government money spent by Democrats

is for THEMM (ie blacks and Hispanics) not US ...

Unfortunately, the statistics are the beneficiaries are white.

Republican codetalk at work.

[Shallah Kali]

12. I know people like that

They complain about welfare saying the requirements are too lax but then get POed when it turns out those same overly generous rules say they themselves don't qualify.

[ngGale]

5. They have already had the debate and...

are cutting sick children, disabled, blind and the aged. They are doing a great job of deciding who lives and who dies. Every day they are throwing people out in the cold. The state's are still fighting it out with the fed's while at the same time, the job is almost finished. :nuke:

[slor]

8. There was an article that showed how Wal-Mart...

is not the only business that is getting tax-payer subsidized healthcare for their employees. That is the problem, or at least a big part of it.

[Shallah Kali]

13. Wal-Mart *teaches* their employees how to apply for welfare & other aid!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/robert-greenwald/the-walmart-documentary_1940.html

Days later, with my friend's situation still on my mind, I met a new neighbor who was a Wal-Mart sales clerk. He worked there full time but could not afford the health care plan they offered. Wait a minute, I thought. This clerk worked full time for a company whose profit was ten BILLION dollars annually, and they did not provide health care? But it got worse. The clerk said that the company had very kindly advised him how to apply for Medicare, so he could get public aid. So taxpayers were paying for Wal-mart employees to get medical care! { http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript247_full.html } I really found it hard to believe. I assumed that if it was true, it had to be an isolated incident.

So I began some months of research. What I discovered was shocking even to me: Not only were employees of Wal-Mart nationwide routinely directed to apply for Medicare, they were also regularly referred to government programs such as food stamps and Section 8 (subsidized) housing. I was furious and wanted to do something. I knew I had to make a film.

[Igel]

10. He's right, and it's not a new problem.

Before we moved to TX from New York, the county we lived in had been having problems.

All throughout the '90s country-paid medical expenses kept rising, outstripping the increase in income under the Clinton boom. When the boom ended, the increases in outlays continued as medical expenses increased and more people applied under the existing benefit structure.

Country revenues decreased or held steady in 2001-2003, but the state government kept increasing the benefits--how much people could get, and who was covered. The governor and state legislature could say they extended benefits to kids, without any of them saying "but I don't have to pay for it ... the counties do!"

It deserves a serious discussion. I personally don't think it can get one.

[ClinGoreKerrPelo]

11. In the Trenches

I worked in a county welfare office in Georgia for two years. The office handled food stamps, AFDC (aid for families with dependent children), care for the elderly poor, and child protective services.

I started with high ideals and noble intentions and worked very, very hard to see that everybody who deserved help got it.

After two years, however, I had become convinced that this system, originally designed to help the poor, was instead hurting them terribly. And to add insult to injury, this system was promoting lying and cheating on a scale I would have thought impossible. And this was in just one office in one county in one state. In short, the system was broken beyond all hope of repair. Bill Clinton was right to recognize this fact and act on it.

You can say what you will about raising taxes to help the poor, but from what I've seen firsthand, throwing money at the problem is not the solution.

[cap]

14. but not throwing any money at the problem is catastrophic...

Hope you're not advocating just putting the poor on the mercy of the churches... Hope you are planning on pressuring Walmart to take care of the health of their workers.

Maybe, management needs to be cleaned up first.

So what's your plan on fixing Medicaid? Hope it isnt privatization?
How are you planning on controlling public health catastrophes? Remember epidemics have a nasty habit of traipsing over into the better neighborhoods.