[Victoribus Spolia]

@Rancid, Do the poor people you know, QUALIFY for free coverage given their income? Yes or No?

https://www.policygenius.com/blog/a-sta ... -medicaid/

How to qualify for Medicaid
Almost every state has multiple Medicaid programs. But, as a good rule of thumb, if you make less than 100% to 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL) and are pregnant, elderly, disabled, a parent/caretaker or a child, there’s likely a program for you. And if you make less than 133% of the FPL, there’s possibly a program for you, depending on whether your state expanded under Obamacare. In 2018, the FPLs (in all states except Alaska and Hawaii, which have higher guidelines) are:

Federal poverty levels in 2018
People in household Poverty guideline
1 $12,140
2 $16,460
3 $20,780
4 $25,100
5 $29,420
6 $33,740
7 $38,060
8 $42,380
Over 8 people Add $4,320 per extra person
Income eligibility is determined by your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), which is your taxable income, plus certain deductions. Those deductions include non-taxable Social Security benefits, individual retirement contributions and tax-exempt interest. For most people, MAGI is identical or very close to your adjusted taxable income, which you can find on your tax return. Specific income requirements in dollars rise alongside the size of your household.

Our guide focuses on each state’s major programs for adults. Most are only available to state residents, U.S. citizens, permanent residents or legal immigrants (we’ve noted the exceptions).

If you’re eligible, you can apply all year round through your state or HealthCare.gov. States also generally let you print out paper applications you can mail, fax or return directly to your local government office.

If you're not eligible and you need health insurance, you have to wait for Obamacare open enrollment 2018 or qualify for a special enrollment period to get a plan through the federal marketplace. We've got a guide to the state Obamacare exchanges here. If you can't get health care through your state, we've got a few backup options listed at the end of this article.

Technically I am probably on the edge for qualifying for medicaid.

But that does not mean I will get it.

I think that is a factor too, some poor people don't get welfare even if they qualify for it. That is not necessarily a bad thing if they can keep healthy and its not like they will be turned away if they need emergency care. I know this from experience, If I need emergency care, I go get it and then pay the hospital bill on monthly installments.

Fortunately, most of my serious injuries were at work and were covered by my company.

[One Degree]

Correct, working poor. I give money to my family when I can, but it's not enough for everyone.

I took a look at my Aunt's tax returns from 2017. She only earned just over $12,000. The only reason she has a (rented) home (in the ghetto) is because the rest of us are supporting her and giving her money regularly.

Yes, these are the people who suffer most under the current system. Many of them could possibly improve their financial situation, and relieve the burden on you, by getting a lawyer and inventing a reason why they can’t work. This is what I see is wrong with the system as it punishes those who try. There are efforts to correct it, but there is still too much ‘liberal pressure’ to give more to non workers than workers.
At $12,000 per year, your aunt should qualify for some programs such as help with her rent and utilities. Moving to subsidized housing for one, but some states offer assistance without doing this. I don’t know what Florida offers, but most states keep a lot of help a secret until you actually apply.
I receive $13,000 in Social Security, so I am familiar with what is available in Indiana, but not Florida. I do not need family help.

[One Degree]

The guidelines VS posted are very helpful, but they don’t tell all the benefits available either. I don’t qualify for full Medicaid but I do qualify for many Medicaid benefits. It is not an all or nothing program. Anyone in need should apply and see what happens.

[Rancid]

@Victoribus Spolia, @One Degree,

I've never asked if she's on any assistance programs. She probably is, not sure to what degree those help. I'm not sure what her citizen status is as well. I assume she's a citizen, but I don't know for sure.

[One Degree]

@Victoribus Spolia, @One Degree,

I've never asked if she's on any assistance programs. She probably is, not sure to what degree those help. I'm not sure what her citizen status is as well. I assume she's a citizen, but I don't know for sure.

That brings up a problem with the arguments being offered that government benefits improve your ability to improve yourself. This is basically a lie. The programs are offsetting which means you can seldom actually improve your condition beyond a predetermined level. Any new benefits result in a corresponding reduction in current benefits. My Social Security cost of living increase will be immediately offset by my rent going up because it is determined by income as are all other programs. The programs themselves are often viewed as income. So, they are not intended to improve you but to maintain you at a set level.

Citizenship would definitely be a problem, but some benefits would still be available. You should ask her what she has applied for. She may be like me and just never cared to ask. I received $800 in energy assistance this year because the lady who talks to all of us about such things filled out the forms and said ‘don’t be silly, sign it’.

[Victoribus Spolia]

That brings up a problem with the arguments being offered that government benefits improve your ability to improve yourself. This is basically a lie. The programs are offsetting which means you can seldom actually improve your condition beyond a predetermined level. Any new benefits result in a corresponding reduction in current benefits. My Social Security cost of living increase will be immediately offset by my rent going up because it is determined by income as are all other programs. The programs themselves are often viewed as income. So, they are not intended to improve you but to maintain you at a set level.

Citizenship would definitely be a problem, but some benefits would still be available. You should ask her what she has applied for. She may be like me and just never cared to ask. I received $800 in energy assistance this year because the lady who talks to all of us about such things filled out the forms and said ‘don’t be silly, sign it’.

Which is the point of criticism from the Libertarian-Right; these benefits deincentivize upward mobility, austerity, and the motivation to work.

You are paying people to be and remain poor.

That has always been the problem with welfare, it teaches people to do what is necessary to get that easy money.

We have seen this with the family, the good-hearted lefties wanted to help single mothers out of poverty by offering them money specifically (thus to qualify you couldn't have a man in the house).

The result of this was though, that it incentivized increased single motherhood, because once people knew that they could get this check so long as they weren't married, they stopped marrying.

If you want a certain characteristic in your populace, throw money at it.

If you want more poor people without jobs, given them money for being poor without a job. If you want more single mothers, give them money for being single mothers, etc, etc.

[Rancid]

That brings up a problem with the arguments being offered that government benefits improve your ability to improve yourself. This is basically a lie. The programs are offsetting which means you can seldom actually improve your condition beyond a predetermined level. Any new benefits result in a corresponding reduction in current benefits. My Social Security cost of living increase will be immediately offset by my rent going up because it is determined by income as are all other programs. The programs themselves are often viewed as income. So, they are not intended to improve you but to maintain you at a set level.

Citizenship would definitely be a problem, but some benefits would still be available. You should ask her what she has applied for. She may be like me and just never cared to ask. I received $800 in energy assistance this year because the lady who talks to all of us about such things filled out the forms and said ‘don’t be silly, sign it’.

I'll ask through my mom when I'm there next week. I'm going to guess they are getting whatever benefits they can get. My mom and cousins (aunt's kid's) usually help her with that kind of stuff. My mom on the other hand is in much better shape financial as she has my Dad (earns well over the US median income) and she herself is retired from the school system.

[Rancid]

You are paying people to be and remain poor.

Fair point, but can we expect a 60 year old to move up?

[Rancid]

More over to the point. What about a poor family that is kept above water by government assistance. Yet their kids get educated and eventually move up the income ladder. Thus, from generation to generation there is upward mobility. How would have they done had their parents not received assistance?

[Victoribus Spolia]

Fair point, but can we expect a 60 year old to move up?

In a pre-welfare world they didn't have to, their children cared for them in old age in exchange for taking over (inheriting) the family assets. This still being a common practice in many other cultures worldwide.

Prior to 1920, it was very common for multiple generations to live under a single roof, usually the oldest son took in his elderly parents and often in a home that had been in the family already for several generations prior.

Social security incentivized older generations to no longer invest in their children as to prepare them to take over the family assets and for themselves (the older generation) upon reaching this old age.

I hate social security probably most of all as it marks the greatest point of demarcation between the older structure of society and the newer one marked by inter-generational conflict.

In fact, prior to social security's advent, the term teenager was basically non-existent. You were either a child or an adult, there was no in-between. Childhood was to prepare one for adulthood (the time where one can work at full physical potential and sexually reproduce).

[Victoribus Spolia]

More over to the point. What about a poor family that is kept above water by government assistance. Yet their kids get educated and eventually move up the income ladder. Thus, from generation to generation there is upward mobility.

Do the statistics bear this out as the common phenomena though?

It appears that if one generation uses welfare, the following is far more likely to be dependent.

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/parents ... tudy-finds

In a new study published recently in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Mogstad and his co-authors at University of California, San Diego, and the University of Bergen in Norway investigated family welfare cultures in the context of Norway’s Disability Insurance System. From 14,722 parent-child observations, they have found strong empirical evidence that reliance on welfare in one generation is likely to cause greater welfare use in the next generation.

The findings also serve to highlight that reforming the welfare review process can have a long-lasting effect on both the current and future generations.

The study specifically targeted children of applicants who had initially been denied disability benefits from 1967 to 2010. The data are derived from Norway’s Social Security Registers that contain complete records for all individuals who entered the disability insurance program, as well as administrative data from the hearing office on all appeals from 1989 to 2011.

“Critical to the analysis—and being able to get at causation and not just correlation—is that these appeals claims are randomly assigned. One simply cannot shop around for a judge. It’s luck of the draw,” said Mogstad. “And some judges are systematically more lenient, allowing up to 25 percent of appeals, while others are systematically more strict, approving as few as 5 percent.”

The results indicate that when parents were granted benefits during the appeal process because they drew a more lenient judge, the probability of one of their adult children applying for disability insurance rose by 6 percentage points over the next five years, and 12 percentage points over the next decade.

[Rancid]

In a pre-welfare world they didn't have to, their children cared for them in old age in exchange for taking over (inheriting) the family assets. This still being a common practice in many other cultures worldwide.

Prior to 1920, it was very common for multiple generations to live under a single roof, usually the oldest son took in his elderly parents and often in a home that had been in the family already for several generations prior.

Social security incentivized older generations to no longer invest in their children as to prepare them to take over the family assets and for themselves (the older generation) upon reaching this old age.

I hate social security probably most of all as it marks the greatest point of demarcation between the older structure of society and the newer one marked by inter-generational conflict.

In fact, prior to social security's advent, the term teenager was basically non-existent. You were either a child or an adult, there was no in-between. Childhood was to prepare one for adulthood (the time where one can work at full physical potential and sexually reproduce).

A valid point. However, the modern economy requires that we be mobile and that we move away from our families to move upward. The world has changed a lot in the last 100 years. The old model of taking care of your family and inheriting their property just doesn't work as well as it use to.

So, is it really only social security's fault? or also the fact that the global economy is well.... global. That is, people have to move away from their families to move up the income ladder. Thus, they can't take care of their families.

My personal situation illustrates the point. I had to move away from Miami to be able to earn the income I'm earning now. This means I cannot take care of my parents. Now they don't need government assistance, but still, let's say the were not doing as well as they are now. Without these social safety nets, I would not be willing to move half way across the country to earn six figures. Thus, my personal upward mobility would be totally stifled. Generation upward mobility would simple not happen.

[Rancid]

Do the statistics bear this out as the common phenomena though?

It appears that if one generation uses welfare, the following is far more likely to be dependent.

I'm not going to comb through the study, but I would hope that they actually figured out a way to remove other factors like "just growing up in the ghetto will mean you are less likely to get a good education, and thus, you will stay poor."

Anyway, i don't have enough information to argue with what you are saying outright.

[Rancid]

Sidenote,

I was the recipient of government assistance. I received $5000 per semester from the federal government while I was in college. It allowed me to graduate debt free.

[Rancid]

Side side note.

I'm actually not bought into the idea that all government aid is a good thing. I'm also still not bought into that its a bad thing. What i do know is that the global economy has changed a lot, so old models of how to be financial stable have changed, and are still changing.

[Victoribus Spolia]

The old model of taking care of your family and inheriting their property just doesn't work as well as it use to.....So, is it really only social security's fault? or also the fact that the global economy is well.... global. That is, people have to move away from their families to move up the income ladder. Thus, they can't take care of their families.

It was working for most families though UNTIL social security. So why don't these things work so well now? Its because we have created conditions that don't allow them to work.

I guarantee you, I would bet my first born on it, that if you eliminated ALL welfare, these older models of familial inheritance and multi-generational care would return within 25-50 years, after much suffering in the interim of course.

I believe the that vast majority of social ills would be eliminated as a result as well.

The family would be strong again because IT HAD to be. Families are work, and if welfare is easier than maintaining a stable family, human beings (as depraved as they are), will tend towards that easy check.

As Newton once said, objects follow the path of least resistance.

Sadly, this often applies to people too.

[Rancid]

It was working for most families though UNTIL social security. So why don't these things work so well now? Its because we have created conditions that don't allow them to work.

I guarantee you, I would bet my first born on it, that if you eliminated ALL welfare, these older models of familial inheritance and multi-generational care would return within 25-50 years, after much suffering in the interim of course.

I believe the that vast majority of social ills would be eliminated as a result as well.

The family would be strong again because IT HAD to be. Families are work, and if welfare is easier than maintaining a stable family, human beings (as depraved as they are), will tend towards that easy check.

As Newton once said, objects follow the path of least resistance.

Sadly, this often applies to people too.

Maybe maybe. Let's say you were right. What implications would this mean for the way the current globalized economy is setup? Would you see more innovation or less? Is it a wash?

As Newton once said, objects follow the path of least resistance.

Georg Ohm said "Electrical currents follow the path of least resistance."

[One Degree]

I have mixed feelings. I like the idea of strong family ties and believe strong families are essential for civilized society, but we also know they can stifle those who are different and want a different life. I don’t want to live with my kids because I want them to find their own way and I don’t feel comfortable having them take care of me which often results in being treated with condescension. (We all know the young believe they are superior )
I think it comes down to the ‘evaluation process’ VS brought up. We need a better process rather than whether we should or should not have government assistance. It should be based upon providing work for all who can, and maintaining those who can’t. The idea of ‘social mobility for all’ simply is not applicable to many. As Rancid pointed out, people in their 60’s don’t need a ‘hand up’.

[Rancid]

but we also know they can stifle those who are different and want a different life.

Very true, in fact, in my "anti-china" posts. When I talk about how insular they are and how that will be their ultimate downfall. It's rooted in the fact that the culture is far more family oriented. It's the collective first, and the individual second. This certainly limits innovation. It's why they suck at inventing shit and have to steal so much IP from the west.

[Pants-of-dog]

Why can't you just answer my question?

I did, if you can read carefully.

Do you need me to explain things again?