This is going out to all of my friends, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, Yankee or “good ole boy”, Texan or anyone else. (If I left out a group you think you belong in I am sure you will tell me.) I have been doing something dangerous in the past several days - contemplating some of society’s problems. One that keeps popping its head up is the broken welfare system in our country.In the past few days I have seen the saying “Welfare was never meant to be a career opportunity.”, or its equvilent. Even for an old bleeding heart liberal like me, the utter abuse of programs that were meant to be safety nets is unbelievable. Today my partner and I had a young woman patient who had several very colorful tattoos, smoked, and lived in a trailor that had at least one dog, one rabbit and too many cats to count. The two cars that I knew belonged to other people in the residence were nicer than cars some of my co-workers drive. On the way to the hospital I overhead my partner asking the usual demographic information and then, “Do you have insurance?” Of course she did, medical assistance. Now we all know that people work all kinds of different shifts, but I found it to be an incredible coincidence that all 6 of the family members gathered in that trailer, as well as the one outside, just happened to work second or third shifts. The easy answer to the welfare system? Just cut the benefits. The “humane” answer? You have 1, 2 3 (or insert your own number) of months to find a job because the checks are going to stop at that point. Got a job for minimum wage? Oops, you’re a dollar over the limit, no food stamps, medical assistance, etc this month. The problem with the slash and cut method of getting people off the welfare rolls is that there are these little creatures running around – and I do not mean the cats and dogs – who need food, clothing, and shelter. Stop the payments to the parents and the kids suffer. However, unlike the real world where people actually work for a living, the more kids you have the more money you get. For those of us living in the real world, more kids means less to go around. Just how do people who are supposed to be living at or below the poverty level manage to have multiple tattoos, smoke, consume various beverages made from grain, malt, grapes (and other delights from Mother Nature) and have plasma TVs that sometimes I wonder how they fit through the door? So my friends, please give me your thoughts on how we got this way and how we can get back on the right path. Please do not hesitate to express your opinions, but I am posting this in a sincere gesture of looking for rational thoughts so please no unecessary hateful comments. Thanks
Posted on: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 04:16:40 +0000
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