91–100 of 234 posts
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I think the article is a good example of why universal healthcare would have to remain in place when UBI is implemented. UBI is unlikely to be enough to afford quality healthcare.
Agreed. There are two types of healthcare expenses that insurance is important for: 1) massive, unexpected ones, which $1000 a month would be useless towards, and where the word "insurance" actually makes sense 2) recurring costs like doctor appointments, prescriptions, and teeth cleaning, which could arguably (but still probably shouldn't) be lumped in with UBI #2 can still wreck someone who's truly poor, to be clea…
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Wow, maybe this is a New York thing? We answered at the same instant.
I definitely think it's an NYC thing too, the COL is pretty crazy here. Rent/Metro definitely cuts into my discretionary spending. All of my friends are in the same boat, we're just all young 20 somethings who are all cash poor paying student loans.
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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…
Very much indeed. We largely get the world we collectively bargain for.
> 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?
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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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…
Colombia, right?
I have noticed there's been some progress on reducing the stigma when you're poor and are surrounded by those that aren't. When I was young, free and/or reduced school lunch paper punch cards were a different color than normal paid ones. Similar for food stamps, WIC, etc. Now they are all plastic cards that don't look obviously different from the cards the people with money use.
It's obvious when people are paying with it-- the conveyor belt is lined with bunched groceries and paper slips while the line behind the customer backs up into the aisles.
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If you are poor in the US your healthcare costs will mostly or entirely be covered. This includes major surgery.
Which I never understood. USA provides free healthcare for people who are poor because they don't work and healthcare for people who are retired and don't work. But the USA does not provide healthcare for people who work and keep machine turning. Hmm... I wonder if it's a political lobbying by healthcare industry to get more money for people who wouldn't provide it on their own by extracting it from the tax payers wh…