Killing the Welfare State
Posted by CaptainKirk 5 years, 10 months ago to Government
Stefan Makes an interesting Argument as usual. I for one would rather support my father in his old age than have him rely on Social Security. Furthermore, I think his analysis is rock solid about how we got here... Curious what others think...
SOURCE URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xsYWO-DkNc
Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, asks us "Please Do Not Feed the Animals." Their stated reason for the policy is because, "The animals will grow dependent on handouts and will not learn to take care of themselves."
Thus ends today's lesson in irony.
It is amazing how dumb smart people can be!
My wife's father outlived his wife by about 5 years with a combination of final stage Parkinson's and advanced dementia. She has 5 siblings, and the statistical model could not have been better. My wife did everything for her father and we paid for all of his care with a combination of our savings, income, and managing his fixed income and selling his real estate and investing his assets for more monthly revenue. On the other side, two of the "gimme everything" siblings fought selling his home (to help pay for his $73,000+ annual assisted living and care costs), one of the babies disappeared for 2 years so she didn't have to help, and the other "baby" has been in rehab.
Regular financial contributions from the others... a hamburger every now and then on a Sunday when they would visit him. That's it. Now that he has passed, of course everyone has their hand out and calling the attorney wanting to know when the estate will be distributed. My wife and I had a great idea, the trust calls for settlement of all debts and payment for all labor, assistance, etc., before any remainder is distributed. So we had the attorney send them all a weekly time sheet (for 5 years back - or about 250 pages of them) to fill out, with a cover letter that as soon as all of the time sheets are received and labor paid, remainder will be released.
In my dad's family, with 6 kids, one of his sisters did most of the care, the other 5 did next to nothing (including my dad). Same fight, the one that does "something" or "everything" would like to get compensated for their time and lost sick leave/vacation time before paying the others that did "nothing".
Smaller families are probably easier and get along a little better... but unfortunately, like I said, if we had to rely on people to take care of their elders - overall, that isn't going to work very well. They do that in Mexico there is a lot of impoverished old people there.
As an FYI, I am the baby of 4 boys. My oldest brother lives at home still. He was spoiled and troubled his whole life. He never once went to visit my mom who was 1hr from him... I saw her more, and I lived out of state. But I did not do enough. My Second oldest brother took care of her, but I offered money, and gave money (again, being out of state, I could not do much). Giving money was easier than giving time for me.
Moving on... I like to look back 200 years. the way it worked was that DAD divided his large land among the kids who would work it. It was not taxed as income. And the grandparents kept an eye on the kids. Medicine did not help them live 30 years beyond their minds. (My mom barely knew herself for the last 15 years). But they could keep an eye on the kids, stir the soup, etc.
Our society has forgotten how to BE a family, and how to BE a community. My mom babysat for a young mother, because my mom was a young mother.
The way to do it, is to phase it out. Keep skyrocketing the year you can start collecting. It should be at an age that 95% of the people cannot live to be. And why is social security paying out for disability, etc. We bankrupted it by expanding coverage to so many things it was never intended to do.
We will have a few hard generations... BUT, the money I pay in income taxes (excluding my other brother who is a CPA) could be cut in 1/2 and still give my father double what he gets today! If the two of us chipped in, the windfall would be amazing...
And then there are dumb people. Our father will not make more than a couple of years with cancer... So, we asked our brother about the house. BOTH me and the CPA are willing to LET HIM LIVE THERE, if he maintains the place. We don't need the money from the asset, but we will NOT GIVE IT to him, so he can sell it and do something stupid. He is afraid that his stocking job at walmart won't allow him to pay the bills. The house is paid off. It's literally just utilities and insurance... We told him he might want to find a renter for one of the rooms or the basement... Because we would NOT be supplementing his living there... Clearly we would help if something popped up... But he is thinking government housing might be cheaper. In a worse neighborhood, of course...
The point being that most people will find a way. And LIMITS are required so people can make good decisions. If you constantly save someone from themselves... You are CREATING DEPENDENCE!
Our economy is way to complex for that. Sorry. Can't support the suggestion you make.
But eliminate the taxation on income... And we'd have the money to help. And better yet, we KNOW if the people in our family are worthy of the help. The govt doesnt know. They don't care. They more they help, the BETTER they think they are doing... When it is really the opposite!
It's impractical to assume "families" will take care of their own - as in many cases, there may not be any family. If I hadn't produced a son 25 years ago, after my mom passes it would be my brother and I alone in the world.
We have a constitutional requirement to take care of the people that needed, it's stated as "Provide for the Common Welfare" - literally in black and white.
While I have total agreement that it is in need of being reformed, I've also traveled throughout the world 6 continents actually one of which was a C-5 quickturn in Antarctica, so South America is actually the one I'm missing. Countries that don't take care of their own people have one thing in common - wars and shit-hole poverty.
Everyone goes through a total tax rebellious phase, but the truth is, you wouldn't have an economy in which to have your income to protect if we didn't do the basics for society. To me, that is police services, a functioning medium of exchange, basic social support, and a national defense. After that, it gets pretty negotiable in my opinion.. and there are many places to cut expenses before kicking grandma out of the wheelchair.
Speaking of which... you seem to be confused by thinking that Medicare pays for long-term care. It DOES NOT. That is explicitly prohibited by CMS, "Medicaid" will pick up the tab and pay for long term care for completely indigent people, but it will also attach all of that person's assets when doing so - in other words, the kids don't get a check until CMS is paid back completely. The only long-term care Medicaid will pay for is either short-term rehab after a surgery/etc., or long-term skilled care (nursing home), and even then only for facilities that have a contract with Medicaid (lowest-bidder).
In my experience, there really isn't an unlimited Medicare expense either with terminal patients. I don't know the exact cut-off, but I've had several family members that reach a hospice stage after a year or two. It seems like if there hasn't been a marked improvement in the quality of life, it does turn into hospice or palliative care (only) - in other words, drug them up and keep them comfortable, but let nature take its course. People have an urban legend of non-stop heroic measures like they are watching ER or Grey's Anatomy & whatever and think that is the case in real life... it really isn't... 14,000 people die every day in this country.
However, we could implement a suite publicly-funded, privately managed approaches to take people off Welfare, where incentives are paid to the institutions for demonstrated self-sufficiency (e.g. 5 consecutive years independence). Let a few companies/agencies try different approaches and see if we really can reduce public dependence. I bet it works great, and socialists do every thing in their power to not allow the results to be demonstrated.
OBESE Poor People...
let that sink in. And yet, somehow it's all the fault of capitalism... LMAO