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Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

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Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#301

Post by hestipod »

jamisteven wrote: post #250
hestipod wrote: post #33

I was disabled by bad surgery and lost my career. No system that ostensibly should have helped, did. Denied. Denied. Denied. YEARS of adversarial, not default helpful, meetings and challenges and interviews. I saw people worse than me refused help. I saw real time as people who knew me for years or life, who respected me and my career choice helping others, decided I was a lazy mooch who wasn't trying hard enough, wa…

You left out many important details in this story: 1. Did you have health insurance? If not, why? 2. What was your job previously? 3. Who signed the paper relinquishing the hospital of all responsibility of botching the surgery?

Important details to someone looking to twist things to blame me for the outcome. But I will answer even though I know your questions aren't meant with any good intent AND they display victim blaming from the outset. But I have a small hope you can learn empathy. Frankly responses like this, which are the bulk I have experienced IRL...are why I am so depressed and have no hope...and reinforce my view of the empathy problem.

1. Yes I had health insurance, lost it when I lost my career as a result of the surgeries. This wasn't some case of someone refusing to get it and then getting burned so this THEIR fault as you infer.

2. Public safety helping others...I don't want to get more specific due to privacy...but this is also irrelevant. Whether unemployed, with a respected job, or with a high paying job...nobody deserves to be left behind by society.

3. I signed the paper. The paper you HAVE to sign to get the surgery you are up for. I know what you are trying to say with that and I find it cruel and lacking in the smallest compassion. You have no choice. Sign or leave. It's another part of the problem.

I won't go back and forth with you. Probably shouldn't even have answered these. But there it is. Now you can tell me why I am wrong and what I NEED to do now to fix it. It's a script I've heard 1000 times. But it's never true.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#302

Post by hestipod »

raverbashing wrote: post #87
ThJ wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Norway. The backside of the medal when it comes to welfare services of that kind is the rather humiliating process you have to go through to actually get them. I've heard many stories about this. Yes, you'll get help if you do as they say, but it can feel very invasive at times. Some clueless bureaucrat will need to know about your finances and all your medical issues, and if it's not a clear-cut case, these…

"Backside" All of this sounds like just regular checks to prevent abuse of the system "Humiliating"? Maybe, but that's their job. No I don't think it could be much different. Of course it's not an utopia, but I've heard much worse from countries much less well off than the US. I don't think any country does that much better than Norway tbh

OP here...I would happily go through checks and balance and accept sometimes I would have to appeal in a system where the goal is to help. In the US system its adversarial from the outset and the goal is to deny. I cannot even read some of the reports from various offices because they enrage me so much. Lies and excuses. You hear story after story of people in even more dramatic and urgent need being denied, terminal illnesses with boss legs missing and just obvious stuff. Denied. It's a terrible system and a shameful blight. But it's working as intended according to half the nation...and not good enough in their view as their first stories on the topic will always be dramatic tales of abuse and cheating.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#303

Post by fuzz4lyfe »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #291
fuzz4lyfe wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Readers will see my point, I don't need to get into the weeds with you like this over minor details.

Please clarify: What is your point? You asked for any evidence, and when provided, denied it as evidence, reiterated that you had always asked for specific evidence.

Nobody can seem to find a specific person who died due to lack of healthcare with anything more than a tweet to back it up. Lots of "almost" cases but no definitive deaths. Why do you think that is given you claim this is happening all day every day.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#304

Post by hestipod »

majidazimi wrote: post #115
DanBC wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were poor in the US you'd have had the same result, but with a doctor's bill on top.

I wasn't rich either. I saved enough to survive the incident. save people, save!

I did save. I had a significant savings beyond what most Americans do. My life was still ruined. I am sorry for your experience and deeply understand how pain and medical issues can affect you, but what you are doing in my case is victim blaming. None of this was in any way my fault. It wasn't because I didn't prepare. I was more prepared than most. You cannot reasonably prepare fully for this. The costs are immense and you have less means and more needs. I didn't ever say Europe was a utopia. I said the system in most places it far better than the US. Even paying the private system in most places is FAR cheaper. You are rightly upset you suffered...suffering sucks. That suffering would have been worse in the USA and it's not fair to say "just prepare".

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#305

Post by hcurtiss »

michaelmrose wrote: post #281
hcurtiss wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I’d do the math the same way. First, it seems to me that the median household income is a better number, as most people share expenses and many households have two incomes. That seems to me to better inform ability to get by. In Washington, that’s $70k.[1] Half that is $35k, or just shy of $3k/month. With ACA subsidies, a person in that situation won’t likely be paying $400/month in health insurance. The…

I will in fact make nearly the figure you started with for half of the median household for in my case for a household of 2. Despite your links I'm not sure how you figured the rest of your numbers despite citations. The ACA subsidies turned out to be a joke for me. A) Cheap options like high deductible plans or plans with very high co-pays for drugs make no sense if you know your medical expenses will be quite high.…

Your household makes $36k and you pay $10k for drugs on a private plan and that’s somehow a better deal than an ACA plan? Yeah, that’s not making any sense to me at all.

Putting that aside, I’m not saying that’s a good life. But in the context of the article, where it’s comparing the absolute number of poor to crime rates, I’m skeptical that it’s an apples to apples comparison when defining poor in the way they do. Half the median in Japan is a very different thing than half the median in the US nationwide.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#306

Post by hestipod »

praptak wrote: post #133
CalRobert wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"get out of you don't like it" Nobody saying this has actually researched it. Too many people in the states are under the impression you can just up and move to a European country, no problem. One friendly-but-clueless acquaintance got flown back from Heathrow for asking the immigration officer about where to find jobs when she landed. If you don't/can't: * work in tech or medicine * go to university in Europe in a h…

Dunno about UK. Settling in Poland is not that hard, although no piece of cake either. I believe you can get a job with the associated temporary residence permit, extend this as many times as necessary to meet the uninterrupted legal stay requirements, then apply for the permanent residence. Getting citizenship is probably a bit harder but not impossible - about a thousand people get it in Poland each year by the dec…

Cześć...Warsaw is where I spent the majority of my time living abroad. I love the city, people, my closest relationships are there along with the best doctors I ever had, and I'd love to return but since my health is so frustrating I was never able to have stability in work or life long enough to legitimize. The years spent trying were always derailed by something outside of my control. I was unable to renew my Karta Pobytu the final time and had to return here. Even knowing the cons there, as Poland is certainly not as robust in the social arena as the West, and the populism is sadly growing like in the USA, I still long to return. Even if I only had access to the private system my care in it was always superb and affordable.

Had I been healthy or had some consistent support I'd have long since legitimized and possibly had citizenship if it were granted. But I'd have settled for permanent residency. Not really going to change anything to mention all of this, and things are far worse for me now all around than even then so it's possibly wishful thinking to imagine I could even have THAT life again, but it was just relevant to your comment.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#307

Post by AstralStorm »

refurb wrote: post #275
mr_overalls wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t have nearly open borders and free everything. The point of the article is precisely that the US _doesn't_ have free everything, much less adequate support for the poor. > it is interesting that Republicans give to charity at a vastly higher rates than Democrats This is because churches are are automatically considered 501c3 charities in the US. Another way to look at the issue is that Democrats generally…

The point of the article is precisely that the US _doesn't_ have free everything, much less adequate support for the poor. Huh? The chart at the bottom says US safety net spending is higher than Australia and Canada.

And it still does not work for all the expense. The money does not reach the poor and special needs or the service prices are way too high.

Either problem is a policy problem which poor cannot solve.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#308

Post by chiefalchemist »

RankingMember wrote: post #295
chiefalchemist wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know of the book "Evicted" by Matthew Desmond? It was for me both enlightening (in what it revealed) and depressing (in what it revealed). Yeah, some people make bad decisions. We. All. Do. The difference is, some are more unlucky than others. Life is hard. I'm not sure why we go out of our way to make it hard for others (who need our help). http://evictedbook.com/

I personally think that the reason that some people act callous towards those who are poor/experiencing misfortune is ultimately because they're afraid. If you tell yourself that people end up poor because of a moral failing, you make poverty seem like something that won't and can't ever happen to you, because the very fact that you're not currently in poverty proves that you must have a better moral constitution som…

Yes. Fear drives a lot, if not all, negative human behavior. What makes matters worse is it's difficult to self-identity that we are acting out of fear.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#309

Post by EdSharkey »

foldr wrote: post #224
EdSharkey wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Democrats (or Republicans when they take power) are clever/smart/kind/honest enough to offer universal single-payer healthcare without rationing. Is there an intent to take my health care choices away, and is that intent benevolent or malicious? You paint a very abstractly wonderful picture, so let's assume yes and benevolent if rationing is to be expected given the finite tax base. I still need more de…

Health care is always "rationed". In the US it's rationed by ability to pay. This is far worse both ethically and practically than any means of rationing it via a cost/benefit calculation. As far as I know, no presidential candidate is proposing to stop people from buying private medical insurance, so your worries seem entirely unfounded in fact. Even in the UK, you can get private medical insurance if you want to.

There is a lot of abstraction in your statements culminating in an attempt to paint me as unethical. I wish we could just talk like friends who happen to disagree on policy.

I don't believe a functional health care market where providers must compete on price and quality is as static as the system we have now. The "rationing" you describe that we have today is because we don't have a functional market or insurance system.

> As far as I know, no presidential candidate is proposing to stop people from buying private medical insurance, so your worries seem entirely unfounded in fact.

Rewatch the debates and listen to the policy statements and their implications, I don't think you're correct.

Re: Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty

#310

Post by chiefalchemist »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #40
throwaway3627 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a van in the Valley, have an engineering degree from a top school, bankruptcy, student loan debt over me I can never hope to repay but cannot hold a job. No drugs, no smoking, no drinking, no sanitation issues, and no hanging out in the daytime with the locals. As the learning experience of life, I realize that much of what Americans believe is a lie and that they cling to ideas and beliefs that aren't help…

> As the learning experience of life, I realize that much of what Americans believe is a lie Wait til you realize all of those things are also true. Then you’ll be really lost. Eventually you have to accept that we either make our own truth, or defer to an authority. Reality isn’t consistent from person to person. We are in a mutuality with the world that both observes and constructs itself. We can find other people…

Reality is not absolute. It's more of a consensus.
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