New York City is edging toward financial disaster, experts warn

[Blimey]

I used to have this same hardline approach, so I understand where you’re coming from. As I got older however, I ended up inadvertently becoming deeply involved with people with some pretty serious health issues. Not the “my third baby daddy left and I need welfare to buy cigarettes” “health issues”, but genuine, horrific illnesses. Many of them were children diagnosed with brain tumors who needed multiple high risk surgeries, followed by life long expensive medical treatment. Their quality of life is unimaginably terrible, but they fight everyday to keep on living.

They didn’t have a say in what happened, and many of their parents are hard working, contributing members of society but the sheer cost of medical treatment was unsustainable. We’re talking 150k/yr in medicine and doctors without insurance. That or their children would have to die. Insurance premiums and OOP max are about 10k/yr so unless they are making a ton of money, it’s impossible to care for their children without Medicaid.

They should “perish”, at least in nature. But as a moral society that’s evolved significantly from nature, I think we have an obligation to help out our fellow citizens. I mean what if you were sick? What if your kids were sick? Would you be OK with them dying? Not everyone is fortunate to be born with good health, and meeting these people has really helped me recognize how lucky I am and how lucky a lot of people (unknowingly) are.

Believe it or not, we live in a country of excess, and could help take care of the people with genuine needs if we only reined in the spending on bullshit foreign aid, abused programs, government officials, etc. It’s really sad the amount of goods and money the government wastes. We could have paid vacation like Germany and take care of our sick and needy without touching our GDP or taxes if only the government was less inept.

I want to be clear that I’m not at all in favor with the way the current welfare state is run. I’ve had intimate experience with that too, so I know the kinds of people that are usually collecting welfare and abusing the system. It’s true that people who collect and have no motivation are unlikely to ever get off the programs. It’s true that a lot of people are abusing it, or end up having a bunch of children and then expect everyone else to pay for them. I don’t agree with that, and I’d even go so far as to support chemical castration of drug addicts and people who have kids knowing they can’t afford them.

I guess what I’m trying to say is it’s not that black and white. I don’t want to pay for some drug addict to sit at home and shoot up, but I also think it’s important to not lose our humanity by letting people who truly can’t help themselves die in the streets. Reforming the system so it works is the real issue.

Totally agree. Problem is we take good intentions and meaningful programs and just keep extending them.

I have no problem paying taxes toward somebody on disability who at 40 gets into some awful accident and literally cannot work ever again. No problem at all.

I really have a problem paying taxes to alleviate tuition costs so C- student can go to a state school and fuck around for 5-6 years and come out the other end with a degree in gender studies or theology. And I'm absolutely positive some people on stuff like WIC play the lotto as well. There are so many people who live like shit and that's all they aspire to do.

 

[seezur]

Totally agree. Problem is we take good intentions and meaningful programs and just keep extending them.

I have no problem paying taxes toward somebody on disability who at 40 gets into some awful accident and literally cannot work ever again. No problem at all.

I really have a problem paying taxes to alleviate tuition costs so C- student can go to a state school and fuck around for 5-6 years and come out the other end with a degree in gender studies or theology. And I'm absolutely positive some people on stuff like WIC play the lotto as well. There are so many people who live like shit and that's all they aspire to do.

Yeah it’s sad that a bunch of assholes have to ruin it for the people who really need help and for the taxpayers. I’d say send them to jail but we’d only pay for that too.

What’s really staggering to me was the realization that people on full blown disability in NY get like ~800 cash, ~225 food, full medical coverage and ~400 heating and energy. The heating and energy is yearly or maybe biyearly (I forget) while the others are monthly. It’s actually not much to live off if you think about it.

Say you had no family and had to rent an apartment at 600/mo (pretty cheap). That’d leave 200/mo for every other necessity outside food. That’s a life without a car, without iPhones, without vacations or cable TV etc.

The people who are on these programs that have any life style outside of just barely surviving are cheating the system, be it working under the table or selling drugs. It pisses me off to see some lady checkout at Walmart with her EBT card in one hand and a thousand dollar phone in the other.

 

[jeepyj]