71–80 of 234 posts
That's okay. I prefer proportionality to equity, personally. But the ideas that everyone must be given a chance to make it are incompatible with the absence of the welfare state.
Poverty especially sucks when you're all alone like it seems this person was. Where I grew up, most of the people were poor, but we had rich lives for the most part. Lots of family dinners and outings. The people with more would let you take the leftovers home. You can't really train this and we all definitely need a social safety net, but I do think our closed off society prevents us from helping each other too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why the ACA (Obamacare) was extra bad (for me and others in my situation). Not only do I have to subsidize the poor through taxes but now I have to subsidize higher risk individuals through my own increased premiums. I also make enough money to get zero tax breaks on any of it and the "marketplace" has removed all competition and downward price pressure. EDIT: People seem to think I'm being flippant or cruel…
You're so well paid that you don't get tax breaks, and you are forced to help poor people through taxes and insurance premiums? Sounds like a good situation to be in...
In my early 20's I had a girlfriend who was raised in Colombia and immigrated to the US in her teens. I remember one day recounting some bullshit middle-class slogan about how "it's better to be poor and happy, than rich and sad". She slapped me across the face and yelled at me. Passionate as she was she'd never done anything like that before. She told me what it was like growing up so poor you can't afford toothpast…
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are poor in the US your healthcare costs will mostly or entirely be covered. This includes major surgery.
That's way off. While it's true public hospitals can't turn you down for emergencies, they'll still send a bill (which is normally much higher due to not negotiating through an insurance company) that would bankrupt the author. And a lot of things people need to survive don't fall under medical emergencies but rather preventative care. A heart attack is an emergency, but not surgery to stop it from happening / the pa…
I've personally seen a (likely illegal) migrant worker helicoptered to Stanford hospital where they surgically re-attached a severed limb. Best standard of care available, far above what was required, with no possibility of repayment.
> I often hear my friends say, “I’m too poor” when they’re frustrated about what they can’t have. Maybe it’s a trip they can’t afford, a renovation they want to start right now or a pretty pair of shoes they spotted in a shop window. I'm pretty sure I've literally never heard someone describe that as being "poor". Maybe this is some regional language thing?
It's common everywhere I've traveled in USA to use "poor" to mean unable to afford something. That's the dictionary definition of the word.
Cambridge Dictionary:
1. having little money and/or few possessions 2. to have very little of a particular substance or quality
Google:
1. lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society 2. of a low or inferior standard or quality
Dictionary.com:
1.having little or no money, goods, or other means of support: a poor family living on welfare. 2. Law. dependent upon charity or public support. 3.(of a country, institution, etc.) meagerly supplied or endowed with resources or funds. 4. characterized by or showing poverty. 5. deficient or lacking in something specified
Oxford Dictionary:
1. Lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society. 2. Of a low or inferior standard or quality. 3. [attributive] (of a person) deserving of pity or sympathy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are poor in the US your healthcare costs will mostly or entirely be covered. This includes major surgery.
This isn't correct. In states that accepted Medicaid expansion through the ACA, those who make a certain percentage of the federal poverty level[1] would be eligible for coverage under Medicaid. I would argue that the FPL is laughably low, and that an income that is even twice that of the FPL still counts as poverty level income. In states that didn't accept Medicaid expansion through the ACA, people who are poor are…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup, to some degree if you have the money you can buy yourself a safety net. If you neither have money nor the social safety net, the thing left is what government may provide. I grew up with a divorced mother that could provide only a small social safety net through family and an unstable financial situation. Although my financial situation is very stable since I've graduated - with small gaps - I'm extremely carefu…
We all have to do our part to extend safety nets to those in our spheres of influence. I have done very well in life, mostly through what I attribute to luck and being at the right place at the right time. In return, I treat checking in and providing a helping hand (temporary housing, an extra line on my cellphone plan, or in some cases plain old cash) to extended family, friends, and others I encounter as a second j…
You’ve really made me think.
Poverty especially sucks when you're all alone like it seems this person was. Where I grew up, most of the people were poor, but we had rich lives for the most part. Lots of family dinners and outings. The people with more would let you take the leftovers home. You can't really train this and we all definitely need a social safety net, but I do think our closed off society prevents us from helping each other too.
Where did you grow up?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are poor in the US your healthcare costs will mostly or entirely be covered. This includes major surgery.
This isn't correct. In states that accepted Medicaid expansion through the ACA, those who make a certain percentage of the federal poverty level[1] would be eligible for coverage under Medicaid. I would argue that the FPL is laughably low, and that an income that is even twice that of the FPL still counts as poverty level income. In states that didn't accept Medicaid expansion through the ACA, people who are poor are…
For those unclear, the percentage is more than 100. Medicaid has long applied to people well above the federal poverty line, and in most places applies to people even further above it than before.