I just wonder, if everyone had enough food, enough water, enough space...could go to the doctor when they were sick, if everyone had basic resources. What would the world be like.
I don't know that I agree or disagree with the health care plan. I know I cannot afford any kind of insurance payment. Hubby gets Medicare, the kids get Sooner Care. I have nothing.
My thoughts:
More money needs to go to funding more low income clinics, more free clinics in low income areas, more low income housing and more industries staying in America to give our fellow human beings getting jobs that will support a family. A person cannot make minimum wage and pay even a house payment and utilities. It is only $1256 per month before taxes. Our electric bill can easily be $500 in the summer time due to living in mobile home (think solar oven if that helps you get the picture).
I think we need to face the facts that change has to happen. I don't know if this change is even a step in the right direction. It doesn't feel right but I have not read the bill. I have heard a lot of gossip and innuendo.
What would a health care plan do? In my mind it would help everyone have the ability to stay healthy longer and therefore maybe not have to be disabled at an earlier age. Better able to work, provide for their families, able to stay working longer and off medicare and Social Security. Seems like everyone could benefit from this.
I think that cutting more and more programs for the sick and needy only makes my country worse off. There are children going hungry because mom and dad can't find work, there are more and more people turning to drug and alcohol because they can't cope, there are more people trying to cheat the government because they are starving.
That's not the way anyone should live. More should be done to provide free medical care and low income medical care, more should be done to provide food and housing to the homeless and hungry.
Who's job is it?
The Bible says:
Isaiah 58:10
[If] you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness, And your darkness shall [be] as the noonday.
Wow, my dark times would be like the middle of the day instead of the darkest night. That would be nice wouldn't it?
Proverbs 28:27
He who gives to the poor will not lack, But he who hides his eyes will have many curses.
Well, are you blessed or cursed?
Luke 3:11
He answered and said to them, “He who has two tunics, let him give to him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise.”
I try to give the food I get that we don't need or like to someone who does. Any time the missionaries drop by they leave with at least one Walmart sack of food if we have it.
James 2:14-18
14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your[d] works, and I will show you my faith by my[e] works.
Is your faith dead or alive and growing?
*************************************************
Who has to take up the gauntlet when people fail?
The government and agencies/organizations that get their funding from who? We the people.
So it still falls to us to care for each other. Whether by taxation or by charity.
If a person has good health care they are able to get up and work. To take care of themselves and provide for themselves. That takes more strain off everyone.
What would your plan be like to fix our country, what would you change?
I think making drugs legally grown crops would put our farmers back to work, it would also put the drug cartels/drug lords out of business for a while.
Make prostitution legal, hey, they're going to do it anyway, why not make them have a monthly medical check up and report their income??? Their taxes alone might save the national budget.
What would you do to fix the issues in America that need to be changed? And please show your work....lol.
What wonderful points each of you have made. My point with the scriptures was that we have been taught to take care of our neighbors but we aren't doing that anymore, not in the way it was intended. We send off our tax dollars and let the government do it for us but they aren't.
Enough food. Enough food to me means that each person in the family has enough healthy food to eat where they each get proper servings and there is enough for some seconds if they want some.
Define healthy food. Today healthy food is considered to be lots of veggies and little meat. A few years ago it was considered to be something from all 4 food groups with the fat/oils section being the most limited. A few years before that it was considered anything that was low fat. Tomorrow it will be something else.
I can't afford to buy healthy food. We are only able to spend about $30 - $50 per week to feed a family or 2 adults and 2 kids. We (the kids eat free, we don't eat) eat at the free lunch program each weekday. We go to a local church each evening mon-thurs for a free meal for everyone who wants to come. The groceries I buy have to make us meals for Friday evening through Sunday evening. We eat a lot of the $.88 Rodeo brand wieners for Walmart. Talk about disgusting...and lots of cheap store brand mac and cheese. We get cereal from the food bank and we use about 1/2 - 3/4 of a gallon of milk per day for drinking and cooking/meals.
I often wait until the kids have finished and are full until I eat to make sure they get what they want.
Poor people can't afford healthy food so they buy cheap unhealthy food that makes them fat. Healthy food does not make you fat.
The reason we don't qualify for food stamps is that our SSDI is unearned. The formula for getting food stamps in Oklahoma goes something like this. I am using round numbers because that makes the math easier. The actual figures are something like 21.?% or 23.?%.
Let's say we make $1000 per month unearned income. That means not from a job where it was earned. SSDI is social security disability income. That means my hubby is totally disabled and can't work to subsidize this income. He is physically disabled.
Just an example, not the actual figures......an example only
Let's say you work at a job and make exactly $1000 per month too. You get taxes withheld, ss held, state income tax held, you have work related expenses such as having to clean the clothes you wear, if you are a woman you probably wear makeup, use hair products, etc...
The take my income and it stands as it is.
They take your income and take of a percentage for your taxes and work related expenses, let's say it's 20% since I can do that math in my head. Your income suddenly becomes $600 and mine is still $1000. You get $300 in food stamps and I don't qualify even though the cap for food stamps for a family of 4 is $1200 which we would sort of think our income is under. Take that 20% off of $1200 and you get the actual cap which would be $960. Under our income.
So we don't get food stamps anymore. When only one of the parents was paying child support before we could go and apply then receive about $80-$100 a month. We applied recently and only got $11. Obama has cut the amount of food stamps a poor family can get. He is making it harder for the poor people. That is not building our country, making poor people do without is not going to do anything but make it worse.
For them to certify us for that amount we had to go to the office and fill out the paperwork, had 2 appointments, had to get a new card issued, and then got a letter stating we had been approved for food stamps for a year but due to our income our case had been closed. Confused? I was too. They said we had to go in after each month was over and reapply for the previous month. Well, when the month is over you can't go apply for that month, it's over, you are applying for the current month. So it was even more confusing then.
As for medical for myself. To get an adult Sooner Care Card to receive state assistance the person's/families income has to be less than $600 per month. We make more than that. So I can't go to the free clinic at the hospital either, theirs is even lower for the whole family. I can go to the clinic in a nearby town and pay only $20 for the office visit. That sounds wonderful huh? Well, if the do a pap smear that is $20 more, if the do a Blood test that is $20 more, then someone has to do something else and that is $20 more. To just walk in and sit in the chairs I have to hand the $20. Then before I leave I have to pay the rest. If I don't have it I can't go back. Hubby goes to the same clinic with his medicare card and sometimes pays nearly $100 when he leaves. He is a heart patient, his health care costs come first. I can't save up enough to go to this doc but maybe once per year. The cuts have been so hard they have to do the care like this.
I went to an urgent care place here a while back and it was $54. Straight up, no extra charges. That was more than a weeks groceries for us. Just for me to see a doc for a breathing treatment and prescription for Albuterol.
Sorry this has been such a long post. I think too much!
I have several friends who were born in Canada, went off to college at BYU and married guys for America. Each and every one of them has told me if they, or their children, get seriously ill they will go to Canada to be treated because they have health care that is free to them. Their husbands are Fire Chiefs, Chemical Engineers, Electrical Engineers, operators in a tank farm at a refinery, all make close or over $100 per year whether both spouses work or not. But they would go home to Canada to get good quality health care. Says something to me.
I guess that's all for me. Thanks for listening to my thoughts. I have really wondered about this health care thing. In the field of Sociology I am almost totally a Functionalist. Each and every drug addict puts a lot of people in jobs, each prisoner provides a job for several guards, parole officers, judges, court reporters, attorneys, clerks, etc...each poor person applying for benefits is putting office staff, social workers, and supervisors to work and making it possible for them to support their families.
How many of our careers depend on someone being poor or needy to earn us an income? I worked in child care as one career and then with developmentally disabled people most of my life.
I know how many people it takes to put in a light bulb in a group home. A bunch of people. One to see it is needed, one to write up the request, one to copy the request in triplicate, one to turn it in to the accountant, an accountant to decide if this light bulb is needed, one to make a note in the house files to show Quality Assurance that the person's living in the group home wanted the light bulb changed and it was not forced on them, one to put the approval form in the house managers box to get the funds to buy the light bulb, one to take money out of petty cash to go buy the light bulb, one to put the money and approval in the house managers mailbox, the house manager to pick it up, then go to Walmart to buy the light bulb, then one to check her out, then a maintenance guy to come put the light bulb in the socket. All the while noticing that there is a case of said light bulbs on the top shelf of the walk in pantry.
Without that light bulb burning out several people would be out of a job and then need welfare to feed and get medical treatment for their family. So it circles around, we have jobs or no jobs, without the homeless and poor many many many people would not have jobs.
My last thought. I don't care who they do drug testing on. It has been proven over and over that less than 1-2% of those being tested are showing any drugs in their systems. This disproves their theories that all welfare people are low life's using the system to have it easy so they can buy more drugs, etc....
I don't care if the drug test every person from house to house. What i think is wrong about this and what makes it illegal is this:
When you are working and it comes time for your company to draw names out of the hat for drug testing, let's say your name gets drawn. Do they say okay the test costs $45 hand over the money right now, no you can't go to the bank, pawn shop, blood bank, you have to hand over the money right now or you are fired. Does that happen to you? Do you know anyone who gets randomly drawn in the drug testing pool and has to pay for it up front or get fired? No, I don't think so.
I think that is what is wrong with the whole thing. If they want to drug test people applying for benefits they should pay for it. That is what working people get to do. The poor people can't afford to come up with $45 to pay for a drug test. In my case that is more than a weeks worth of groceries. I cannot afford to pay that, I don't have any money, so even if we had low enough income to qualify I would not be able to make it through the application process due to being poor...think about that.
IF I was working I would get it for free but since I am poor I have to pay for it? That's what is discriminatory.
Plus the states were banking on this saving them tons of money. It's not. They are having to reimburse the 99% who paid to take the drug tests and passed so they are having to pay staff to stand in a bathroom and watch people pee and write on the labels. Then they are having to pay the drug test place, then the person taking the test. It costs them tons more. Some states are saying drug testing is costing them millions more that just letting them qualify and receive the benefits. It is not working. It costs them more because the decided that the poor people were low life drug users.
I don't have an answer. But I was just reading how ONE super pac was going to spend $240 million in 2012. What a colossal waste of money. Think about all the good that money could do.
Cheaper college costs, higher minimum wage, and a welfare system overhaul, for starters. Teaching, or rather, forcing people to be self sufficient would be a start. Most people living on welfare indefinitely are more than capable of bettering themselves.
Gamma - everyone's ideas of basic necessities and living arrangements are different. This is why there will NEVER be a perfect world.
To be sarcastic - you didn't show your work - why should we??? LOL!!
What you PERCEIVE as a perfect world? Is NOT what I perceive as a perfect world.
I believe in TEACHING people to be self-sufficient, self-reliant and being fiscally responsible. You know, the old adage - give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day or TEACH a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime.
I DO NOT believe in ENTITLEMENT. You need to EARN your way. Nothing should be handed to you.
It drives me NUTS that there are schools and scholarships for a certain sect of people. I believe that color, race, religion should NOT matter or be taken into consideration for education.
An adult should NOT rely on another adult to pay their way because they are too lazy to do it themselves. We have a LOT of laziness in this country.
I'm all for making prostitution legal - it works in Europe. And no, their taxes won't save our national deficit. Sorry.
I would ensure that our elected officials can no longer vote themselves raises, benefits, etc. If we took away their FULL PAY RETIREMENT for A LIFETIME - we might make a dent in the national deficit!!! While I believe our elections are term limits - we have too many stupid people who vote party lines and vote the same filth back in office.
If someone wants to succeed in life - they should work for it. It should NOT be handed to them. yes, there will ALWAYS be people who were born into wealth. There will be people who were born into poverty. THEY CAN CHANGE THAT!!! MANY HAVE!!! Look at Oprah Winfrey...I could name others - but you get my point. If you want it bad enough - you WILL find a way to make it happen.
We all need plumbers, electrical workers, trash pick-ups, sewers, etc. so not everyone will be a CEO - but they can still be the best that they can be NO MATTER WHAT THEY CHOOSE!!!
THAT works for me. I'm already working on the welfare. Don't feel like getting beat up again by the lefties on here telling me how wrong I am. So - that's about it.
NEVER will be a perfect world. Don't think I want one. Why? Because how you would you distinguish the good days from the bad? How would you know when you "MADE IT"? If it's a perfect world?
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime.
AMEN Cherly O!!!!! I can only add one more thing, and that is I feel you were quoting the Bible verses as a guideline for the government in taking care of the people. Wrong! People should always help out their fellow man if they can, but that is HELP. People shouldn't rely on anyone but themselves. Do you know how eagles prepare their babies for adulthood? They put thorns in the nest, and as the bird grows bigger, he gets uncomfortable, and soon leaves the nest to be on his own. Even birds get it!!
This is a hard one for me too. I do think that the health care system is broken for sure. I am lucky enough to have a job in which I receive health benefits for myself and my family. However, when I was in college, I had NO health insurance. I waited tables and although health insurance was offered after you were with the company a certain time, it was not affordable for someone making $2.13/hour plus tips. SO, I went without. I treated any sickness with OTC meds and prayed that nothing serious happened...I was lucky. I was of reasonable intelligence and was able to use student loans to help me get through school. I now have a better job.
Not everyone has the same opportunities or the same intelligence level. You can absolutely say that everyone is created equal, but the simple fact is that someone with an IQ of 90 is probably not going to be a rocket scientist. Is it fair that someone that is not as smart cannot get basic healthcare? I don't think so.
I think that the cost of care should be standardized. Why is it that you can go to different hospitals for the same procedure and the cost is different at each one? Why are people with NO insurance charged more at ERs than those that have insurance...these are often the folks with the least ability to pay for healthcare.
Stop people from having children they cannot provide for!!!
Drug test every recipient on welfare!!!!!
Completely revamp the foster care system!!! Meaning stop allowing drug addicted women to keep popping out babies, and then ripping them from their loving foster homes to give them back to a life of drugs, poverty, and god only knows what, so they can collect their welfare checks!!!
Sorry I am tainted right now, dealing with a foster care situation, so I am pretty much blaming the welfare system, and the foster care system for our countries problems. In my opinion we make it too easy. Many many years ago when immigrants came into our country they worked hard, and did not expect, or accept handouts!!! There is a sense of entitlement in this country, and some people do not want to work for what they have, they just take and take and expect. I think this is a great question, and so many great answers. I think our country is too far gone, and I don't see anything changing unless we force the changes. Don't think there are too many politicians out there willing to make the tough calls that need to be made to fix things, that would make them very unpopular!!
Amomof2. There is a huge difference between falling on hard times,having to depend on welfare or unemployment, verses having baby after baby that you cannot take care of, or having them to get more money from the system. That is what I am speaking of. There are many hard working families out there that are one paycheck away from being homeless, they are not the people I am speaking of. Welfare was supposed to help people until they could get on their feet, not for people to grow their families on it. That is irresponsible. I only had two children because that was all I could afford. That is what I am speaking of. Being responsible
I can't believe how cruel and out of touch some people are.
Of course everyone should support themselves.
But people get sick, spouses and parents die, people get laid off. S**t happens, and as Americans we owe it to our fellow citizens and neighbors to provide a safety net.
How would I do it? I would look at other prosperous, successful nations and follow their lead.
Some people call this socialism.
I'd rather be a living, thriving socialist than a sickly, ignorant so called "patriot."
The world is changing and America either needs to get on board or be left behind.
The southern US learned this lesson during the civil war. Deep seeded values and traditions very are dangerous when they get in the way of real progress.
I would do everything you suggested! Did you get in my head before you wrote this down?
You are a blessing, I am so enlightened by reading your post. Thank you!
It's not fixable.
Since America is sue happy, it drove all the services up to such levels that a normal, working American can't afford normal visits to the doc.
Frivolous suing should be outlawed.
People should always know, with common sense, if you are putting your life into someone elses hands, something could go wrong. Physicians shouldnt be having to spend zillions of dollars to protect their practice from stupid, time consuming lawsuits.
When I was a kid, you could go get a broken leg fixed in a day, and parents could actually afford it. Now, you need several appointments and have to pay several different entities for the service. It's all gotten too complicated and needs to go back in time, back to basics.
It will most likely end up that way one day. The computer age will blow up on us, nothing will be accessible, we will be fending for ourselves... kinda like a MadMax movie.
The hungry? Who are they? I run a low income based apartment complex, none of my tenants are starving. They run around and hit all the free food pantries several times a week. Taxpayers donate that food. I dont have very many THIN tenants, they don't look starved.... and they even bring me their excess that they get at the food pantry. I dont think America has a hunger problem.
A lot of our problem is the fact that mentally ill people are free to move about, and they (some, depending on their disorder) cannot take care of themselves. This is a HUGE problem. They don't even know where to go get the free food, dont drive, dont have anyone helping them but Social Services that is already swamped... and TRY their best to keep up with the demand and allow the mentally ill to have their own place to live. I'm sorry, but with the experience I have in the business for the last 7 years, mentally ill people should be in a more nurturing environment rather than the real world.
Stop the imports! The pens that have the United States State Department name and logo on them also say "made in China". The pens that the President signs laws with are made in China. The official magnets and souvenirs sold at our most sacred national cemetery (Arlington), the new Martin Luther King Jr Memorial and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC are all made in Mexico and China. Look at the frozen vegetable bags in the grocery store, the brand names like Green Giant and Birds Eye, and you will find many of the vegetables are imported from Guatemala and Peru and other countries. Do we have no one in this country that can make a good pen, that can make a nice magnet, that can grow a carrot? I think we do.
Could you perhaps define basic needs? You are saying enough food, enough space, enough water and access to health care. If that is given to everyone exactly why should anyone work?
If no one works who pays for everyone's basic needs?
There is a huge difference between helping those that fail and making failure a choice for a perceived better life. When you give something beyond what someone feels they can earn they do not try, that is not failure that is learned helplessness or what most refer to as our welfare system.
Stop exporting jobs and importing cheap labor would be one thing that would help a great deal.
I'm not interested in any Biblical aspects but my solution would be to stop sending so much money in aid to other countries. People tend to view the USA as a wealthy nation but we have a huge population of impoverished citizens and our priority as a nation should be to help them before helping others.
Create funded education sites for pregnant women in the low economic areas that teach about care of self and unborn baby; those kids graduate to preschool, and the program expands as the kids get older (Jeffery Canada's idea). So much learning happens ages 0-3. Teach people proper nutrition; teach them how to communicate with their children; teach them how to raise a child to be curious about the world; teach them to be a positive influence on their children and to expose their children to only positive influences.
We in the US have difficulty taking care of our community because of our strong individualistic perspective. Other countries are more community-focused. Thus, other countries more readily are willing to fund health care and women's leave from work and all the rest. Our diversity also plays a role in this, I am convinced. Some want to take care of people "like them" and want the others who are "not like us" to care for themselves. We give labels to folks rather than calling them folks.
So, how do we encourage people to help the community when we are raised in a culture that glorifies the individual? I do not know.
We need a major overhaul on our FREE program. I know of two people that get free healthcare, food stamps, and WIC. Both of these families have smartphones (mom & dad), 2011 cars or newer, eat out regularly, go to the movies all.the.time, get pedicures regularly, and buy alcohol regularly. So, the gov't is providing $$ for them to buy milk and bread so they can buy beer and cigarettes. Oh, and they continue to have children (both families currently have 3 each). Oh, and they have lots of tattoos.
I know there are people that need free hand-outs, but there are thousands working the system! We need to weed these people out somehow!
Hi Gamma
Very interesting post and some very valid points.
I like your two suggestions on legalising both drugs and prostitution.
I live in Ireland so I am unsure how your health system works but I have heard that one can go into major debt if sick without the proper insurance.
Here ,anyone on social welfare gets a medical card which is free health care.#
People with disability or long term illness also qualify.
People that earn less than 30,000 euro per year get a doctor only card which entitles them to free doctor service and they pay for medicine.
Workers can opt for insurance which averages 50 euro per month.
Those without cover can pay 40 euro for doctors visits.
A stay in public hospital is 75 euro per night,this includes all treatment while there.
Private hospital are more expensive.
I work and I have no health insurance .Since we have a recession here I cannot afford the payments.
I don't worry about it though as we could negotiate a payment scheme if we ever got ill.
I would put government money,tax concessions etc. in small and medium sized business to generate employment.
B. k
How is it that every industrialized country in the world has a basic form of government health insurance but we can not? Why can't the government offer a very basic form of insurance that will not let anyone go bankrupt because of medical expenses and call it a tax? So yeah, that needs to get fixed. Food and water is available to everyone. Now, the food is often not nutritious (no supermarkets or gardens in ghettos) but often it is the parents making poor food choices for their kids using food stamps. I think it should be illegal to use food stamps for soda and chips but ok for diapers (which currently you can't use food stamps for, as I understand). If you want soda, pull 1 dollar out of somewhere and go buy it. Prostitution and especially minor drug offenses should be decriminalized. A small stupid offense could stay on your record for a long time and impact your job prospects forcing you back into crime. Also, people need to take a greater role in family planning. Lots of babies are a surprise but they are well loved and taken care of. Lots of them are not. The parents are not equiped to handles the difficulties of raising a emotionally healthy child and thus they perpetuate a dangerous cycle. Another issue is the redistribution of wealth. I don't want to take anyone's money or success away from them. But when CEO's and the other higher ups make millions if not billions and you have products made in foreign countries and Americans getting laid off to cut costs, I see a BIG problem with that.
If your husband is on Medicare and your children are getting Sooner Care, why are you not any kind of government insurance program? It seems as though you would be eligible? It would be a wonderful world, if everyone had everything they needed.
I agree that pre-existing limits need to be gone and children should be able to stay on their parents insurance until age 26, if needed.
You do understand, that under the Affordable Insurance Act, you will have to PAY for an insurance policy. Lower income families will recieve a tax credit, which should result in more of a refund. Hopefully, have an "insurance exchange" available will offer lower prices and not drive prices up on the premiums of those who already have insurance.
The best and only way to bring our deficit down is to get Congress to bring their spending down to a mangagable level. It is a dangerous idea to think that making drugs and prostitution legal could actually solve anything. There are both the cause of many of our problems now.
"We the People" need to expect our elected officials to bring their spending down. They need to be more concerned with the "People" and not getting re-elected.
