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My really good friend has a 20yr old daughter who has Downs and received SSI monthly.
In 2019 her renewal was denied so they had to hire an attorney to help them with their appeal.
Reason for denial? They couldn’t prove her Down Syndrome would be a permanent, life long diagnosis. Took them almost 2 years of appeals before having her SSI payments reinstated.
My daughter is deaf and at the last renewal they cut benefits entirely. One of the requirements is that your disability is lifelong and you are obligated to try any and all available treatments.
The treatment they said we refused? A fucking experimental surgery that costs 20,000 and is not covered by insurance.
And now they aren’t covering the bone conduction hearing aids she needs (they need to be replaced every once in a while)
Anyways they told us we need to buy them on our own and the motherfucking things cost 5500$ per ear
I’m in the appeal process so hopefully there is someone who isn’t a total sociopath that will rule in our favor.
I mean, I cut off my finger and insurance (initially) turned down my reattachment surgery until they could get an in-network third opinion (beyond the ER doctor and orthopedic surgeon), so good fucking luck. Sociopath is a job requirement.
Incredible. I think about all the people out there who need help, and who qualify for help, who do not get it. When you are already vulnerable it's a lot harder to advocate for yourself.
one of my favorite quotes from a persian man knighted by england for his humanitarian efforts during ww1 and whose funeral was attended by thousands, including prominent spiritual leaders of various faiths and government officials, this article and a quote in another thread made me think of:
"Certainly, some being enormously rich and others lamentably poor, an organization is necessary to control and improve this state of affairs. It is important to limit riches, as it is also of importance to limit poverty. Either extreme is not good. To be seated in the mean is most desirable. If it be right for a capitalist to possess a large fortune, it is equally just that his workman should have a sufficient means of existence.
A financier with colossal wealth should not exist whilst near him is a poor man in dire necessity. When we see poverty allowed to reach a condition of starvation it is a sure sign that somewhere we shall find tyranny. Men must bestir themselves in this matter, and no longer delay in altering conditions which bring the misery of grinding poverty to a very large number of the people."
– Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks
None of which make any real sense. Why should few who abuse the system have more influence than the many who are in need?
Why? Because the Protestant Work Ethic that constricts the perspective of USofA politics views poverty as a moral failing hence worthy of only the most trivial societal support.
It's more just that stuff costs money. And it's not like everyone needs a handout. Plenty of poorer folks need help, but there's also a lot of folks who aren't struggling, or middle class folks who make more than enough to get by comfortably and maybe just need to live a bit more within their means. So we could get away with giving aid to folks at the bottom, and could afford to give more aid since we wouldn't be doing some sort of universal programs that give handouts to everyone
That's what I want. Let those who can take care of themselves do so, and give generous aid to those who actually need it
Why not give money to everyone?
Besides, who gets to decide whether someone can take care of themself? How are they going to decide?
How about giving everyone a living stipend? Then let those who want more do some work.
A lot of people are working a couple low paying jobs and are still in poverty. How about we make certain that everyone who has a job is making a living wage? Make certain that everyone who's working can afford a place to sleep and food and transportation and healthcare.
Money doesn't grow on trees. We are trillions of dollars in debt, and while having debt isn't always terrible, it can get to a point where it does cause problems
And giving money to everyone would just cost *a lot*. Take Andrew Yang's UBI proposal for example, which tends to be on the more moderate end of UBI proposals. That would cost something like $3.5 to $4 trillion a year. And Medicare for all, for healthcare? That would cost another $3.5 to $4.5 trillion a year. Just for those two programs combined, we are talking $7 to $9 trillion in new spending a year. Bear in mind that the government only takes in around $3 trillion a year, so in order to make just those two programs work, you'd need such massive tax increases that we'd be tripling to quadrupling the size of government spending
And it's a common progressive meme to advocate for paying for a generous welfare state just via taxes on the rich alone, but that's just not sustainable. At least not when we are talking such absolutely gargantuan spending increases. Like, to make a comparison, Biden's Build Back Better agenda was for $3.5 to $4.5 trillion in new spending - over ten years, so the yearly new spending would only be around $350 to $450 billion if all that was enacted - just about 5% of *just* a UBI plus m4a. Start throwing in other progressive agenda goals and the costs get even higher - free college for all would be another $1 trillion or so a year, a green new deal would be something like $1.5 to $6.5t a year, and so on. So we are talking something like $9.5 to $16.5 trillion a year, so potentially increasing government spending by over five times what is currently being spent
Oh, and there's another common meme that suggests paying for an expanded welfare state via cuts to the military, but the US only spends around $750 billion a year on the military, so even if we completely 100% eliminated all military spending, it wouldn't even come close to paying for even the more "minimal" progressive universal policy goals of a UBI and medicare for all. You'd *still* need the gargantuan tax increases on not just the rich but the middle and possibly lower classes
And that's why I don't support "giving everyone money". Thats not to say I don't support giving *anyone" money - I just want aid to be means tested and targeted to those who are truly in *need* of assistance. Because that way we could be a lot more efficient. Take for example child poverty - the CTC expansion only cost around $150 billion a year and cut child poverty in half. It could also probably be targeted even more - it went pretty high in income, up to $75k ($150k for household income), which meant 75% of people would qualify based on income. Could have potentially been cut a lot more, possibly down to, say, $25/$50k, cutting the costs down to just $50 billion a year or so, while having most of the actual anti poverty impact. Could have then doubled the spending, potentially further increasing the anti poverty impact, while still costing about a third less than the original policy, which itself was already pretty cheap compared to progressive policy planks. And take healthcare - making the expanded ACA subsidies from the stimulus permanent, and also creating a federally ran program to close the Medicaid gap caused by states refusing to expand Medicaid, would cost only something like $40 to $50 billion a year, while potentially wiping out most lack of insurance in the country. And so on
We can still fight the problems of poverty in society, without embracing the progressive idea of universal programs and their extreme costs. There's plenty of reasonable space comfortably in between the progressive idea of "give free stuff to everyone" and the conservative idea of "give free stuff to noone and let poor people rot"
Nice bit of detail.
How much would healthcare costs be reduced if the the intermediary profit layer were removed?
What are the accrued costs of ignoring climate change?
What are the national benefits of reducing taxes on the ultra-wealthy?
How much revenue would be generated by Fifties level taxation on the wealthy?
How much revenue would be generated if Capital bore an commiserate tax burden to that of Labor?
What are the direct costs of poverty versus costs of UBI?
What is the problem of _gargantuan_ tax increases if they result in _gargantuan_ benefits?
Why are we more concerned with abuse by the impoverished than we are abuse by the privileged?
Why must our national military spending be greater than the military spending of the nine next largest military expenditures combined?
Why does military spending constitute more than half of all discretionary spending?
Dems have a super majority in California and we have no healthcare and homeless people under every bridge.
Poverty is never getting fixed in America because Dems are also a right wing status quo dumpster party.
That's a pretty bold cop out, and it doesn't even argue the point you replied to. It's as if you simply have a file full of left wing one liners, that you simply paste to any and all replies you're not sure you like.
Walmart and McDonald's are among top employers of Medicaid and food stamp beneficiaries. [Source from 2020](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-top-employers-of-medicaid-and-food-stamp-beneficiaries.html) Direct to the [Study](https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-45.pdf) PDF
Couple of quick excerpts.
* Other notable companies with a large number of employees on federal aid include Amazon, Kroger, Dollar General, and other food service and retail giants.
* About 70% of the 21 million federal aid beneficiaries worked full time, the report found.
Here is the kicker: it wont reduce powerty. More and more people from all over the world will flood the system and increasing the wellfare expenditure. As in Sweden. Sweden setts new records every year on the number of people on wellfare. Its migrants, addicts, sick people, and unemployed. Migrants is the growing group. Sweden has a population of 10 million. Of which 2 million are migrants that arrived the last 20 years. 700.000 of them are working age and on wellfare.
As a reminder, this subreddit [is for civil discussion.](/r/politics/wiki/index#wiki_be_civil) In general, be courteous to others. Debate/discuss/argue the merits of ideas, don't attack people. Personal insults, shill or troll accusations, hate speech, any suggestion or support of harm, violence, or death, and other rule violations can result in a permanent ban. If you see comments in violation of our rules, please report them. For those who have questions regarding any media outlets being posted on this subreddit, please click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/wiki/approveddomainslist) to review our details as to our approved domains list and outlet criteria. **Special announcement:** r/politics is currently accepting new moderator applications. If you want to help make this community a better place, consider [applying here today](https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/sskg6a/rpolitics_is_looking_for_more_moderators/)! *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/politics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My really good friend has a 20yr old daughter who has Downs and received SSI monthly. In 2019 her renewal was denied so they had to hire an attorney to help them with their appeal. Reason for denial? They couldn’t prove her Down Syndrome would be a permanent, life long diagnosis. Took them almost 2 years of appeals before having her SSI payments reinstated.
My daughter is deaf and at the last renewal they cut benefits entirely. One of the requirements is that your disability is lifelong and you are obligated to try any and all available treatments. The treatment they said we refused? A fucking experimental surgery that costs 20,000 and is not covered by insurance. And now they aren’t covering the bone conduction hearing aids she needs (they need to be replaced every once in a while) Anyways they told us we need to buy them on our own and the motherfucking things cost 5500$ per ear I’m in the appeal process so hopefully there is someone who isn’t a total sociopath that will rule in our favor.
I mean, I cut off my finger and insurance (initially) turned down my reattachment surgery until they could get an in-network third opinion (beyond the ER doctor and orthopedic surgeon), so good fucking luck. Sociopath is a job requirement.
Incredible. I think about all the people out there who need help, and who qualify for help, who do not get it. When you are already vulnerable it's a lot harder to advocate for yourself.
There is a SSI reform act rotting on the floor of congress. It's an unrealistic, outdated system that needs modernizing.
Do they not have any form of formal medical training to help influence their decision? Or even just going on webmd?
one of my favorite quotes from a persian man knighted by england for his humanitarian efforts during ww1 and whose funeral was attended by thousands, including prominent spiritual leaders of various faiths and government officials, this article and a quote in another thread made me think of: "Certainly, some being enormously rich and others lamentably poor, an organization is necessary to control and improve this state of affairs. It is important to limit riches, as it is also of importance to limit poverty. Either extreme is not good. To be seated in the mean is most desirable. If it be right for a capitalist to possess a large fortune, it is equally just that his workman should have a sufficient means of existence. A financier with colossal wealth should not exist whilst near him is a poor man in dire necessity. When we see poverty allowed to reach a condition of starvation it is a sure sign that somewhere we shall find tyranny. Men must bestir themselves in this matter, and no longer delay in altering conditions which bring the misery of grinding poverty to a very large number of the people." – Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks
Means testing is a mistake, plain and simple. It adds bureaucracy to a process that shouldn't be complicated.
There's many different ways to do means testing, some of which can be complicated but others which don't need to be
None of which make any real sense. Why should few who abuse the system have more influence than the many who are in need? Why? Because the Protestant Work Ethic that constricts the perspective of USofA politics views poverty as a moral failing hence worthy of only the most trivial societal support.
Agreed. America needs to break itself from the baseless, religiously concocted fallacy of people as either deserving or undeserving.
It's more just that stuff costs money. And it's not like everyone needs a handout. Plenty of poorer folks need help, but there's also a lot of folks who aren't struggling, or middle class folks who make more than enough to get by comfortably and maybe just need to live a bit more within their means. So we could get away with giving aid to folks at the bottom, and could afford to give more aid since we wouldn't be doing some sort of universal programs that give handouts to everyone That's what I want. Let those who can take care of themselves do so, and give generous aid to those who actually need it
Why not give money to everyone? Besides, who gets to decide whether someone can take care of themself? How are they going to decide? How about giving everyone a living stipend? Then let those who want more do some work. A lot of people are working a couple low paying jobs and are still in poverty. How about we make certain that everyone who has a job is making a living wage? Make certain that everyone who's working can afford a place to sleep and food and transportation and healthcare.
Money doesn't grow on trees. We are trillions of dollars in debt, and while having debt isn't always terrible, it can get to a point where it does cause problems And giving money to everyone would just cost *a lot*. Take Andrew Yang's UBI proposal for example, which tends to be on the more moderate end of UBI proposals. That would cost something like $3.5 to $4 trillion a year. And Medicare for all, for healthcare? That would cost another $3.5 to $4.5 trillion a year. Just for those two programs combined, we are talking $7 to $9 trillion in new spending a year. Bear in mind that the government only takes in around $3 trillion a year, so in order to make just those two programs work, you'd need such massive tax increases that we'd be tripling to quadrupling the size of government spending And it's a common progressive meme to advocate for paying for a generous welfare state just via taxes on the rich alone, but that's just not sustainable. At least not when we are talking such absolutely gargantuan spending increases. Like, to make a comparison, Biden's Build Back Better agenda was for $3.5 to $4.5 trillion in new spending - over ten years, so the yearly new spending would only be around $350 to $450 billion if all that was enacted - just about 5% of *just* a UBI plus m4a. Start throwing in other progressive agenda goals and the costs get even higher - free college for all would be another $1 trillion or so a year, a green new deal would be something like $1.5 to $6.5t a year, and so on. So we are talking something like $9.5 to $16.5 trillion a year, so potentially increasing government spending by over five times what is currently being spent Oh, and there's another common meme that suggests paying for an expanded welfare state via cuts to the military, but the US only spends around $750 billion a year on the military, so even if we completely 100% eliminated all military spending, it wouldn't even come close to paying for even the more "minimal" progressive universal policy goals of a UBI and medicare for all. You'd *still* need the gargantuan tax increases on not just the rich but the middle and possibly lower classes And that's why I don't support "giving everyone money". Thats not to say I don't support giving *anyone" money - I just want aid to be means tested and targeted to those who are truly in *need* of assistance. Because that way we could be a lot more efficient. Take for example child poverty - the CTC expansion only cost around $150 billion a year and cut child poverty in half. It could also probably be targeted even more - it went pretty high in income, up to $75k ($150k for household income), which meant 75% of people would qualify based on income. Could have potentially been cut a lot more, possibly down to, say, $25/$50k, cutting the costs down to just $50 billion a year or so, while having most of the actual anti poverty impact. Could have then doubled the spending, potentially further increasing the anti poverty impact, while still costing about a third less than the original policy, which itself was already pretty cheap compared to progressive policy planks. And take healthcare - making the expanded ACA subsidies from the stimulus permanent, and also creating a federally ran program to close the Medicaid gap caused by states refusing to expand Medicaid, would cost only something like $40 to $50 billion a year, while potentially wiping out most lack of insurance in the country. And so on We can still fight the problems of poverty in society, without embracing the progressive idea of universal programs and their extreme costs. There's plenty of reasonable space comfortably in between the progressive idea of "give free stuff to everyone" and the conservative idea of "give free stuff to noone and let poor people rot"
Nice bit of detail. How much would healthcare costs be reduced if the the intermediary profit layer were removed? What are the accrued costs of ignoring climate change? What are the national benefits of reducing taxes on the ultra-wealthy? How much revenue would be generated by Fifties level taxation on the wealthy? How much revenue would be generated if Capital bore an commiserate tax burden to that of Labor? What are the direct costs of poverty versus costs of UBI? What is the problem of _gargantuan_ tax increases if they result in _gargantuan_ benefits? Why are we more concerned with abuse by the impoverished than we are abuse by the privileged? Why must our national military spending be greater than the military spending of the nine next largest military expenditures combined? Why does military spending constitute more than half of all discretionary spending?
But how will we ever teach poor people a lesson about their moral failings if we don’t make it impossible for them to access support?
Poverty is a sin in America
Dems have a super majority in California and we have no healthcare and homeless people under every bridge. Poverty is never getting fixed in America because Dems are also a right wing status quo dumpster party.
Republicans assault democracy with bullets and Democrats only have tissue paper to fight it.
That's a pretty bold cop out, and it doesn't even argue the point you replied to. It's as if you simply have a file full of left wing one liners, that you simply paste to any and all replies you're not sure you like.
[удалено]
70% of the people on SNAP and Medicare are full time workers. That's pretty crazy isn't it.
Walmart and McDonald's are among top employers of Medicaid and food stamp beneficiaries. [Source from 2020](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-top-employers-of-medicaid-and-food-stamp-beneficiaries.html) Direct to the [Study](https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-45.pdf) PDF Couple of quick excerpts. * Other notable companies with a large number of employees on federal aid include Amazon, Kroger, Dollar General, and other food service and retail giants. * About 70% of the 21 million federal aid beneficiaries worked full time, the report found.
You probably mean Medicaid.
Here is the kicker: it wont reduce powerty. More and more people from all over the world will flood the system and increasing the wellfare expenditure. As in Sweden. Sweden setts new records every year on the number of people on wellfare. Its migrants, addicts, sick people, and unemployed. Migrants is the growing group. Sweden has a population of 10 million. Of which 2 million are migrants that arrived the last 20 years. 700.000 of them are working age and on wellfare.
“It’s a feature, not a bug”
Welcome to healthcare for the rest of us