I remember when, so it can't be that long ago, that similar arguments were used to provide lunch for school kids that could not afford it. Now the majority of students in the Houston Independent School District get free or discounted lunch and breakfast.
If you want to give them free lunches be my guest! Hey, but make sure you include breakfast, and while you are at it what are they going to do for dinner. And, don't forget the popcorn at the movie! Heavens, don't expect their parents to feed them, heck, that's what government is for.
We could always feed them by cutting military pensions.
Nah, that's okay. We'll get it back when "everyone else's kids" are working to pay for our Social Security checks and Medicare coverage.Or cut the school taxes for those without children in the home so those with children at home could educate and feed them with their own money!
Free lunches.
I'm all in favor of providing free meals to kids in need. The problem I see is, if you do that in isolation, you won't solve the underlying problem - why the parent is not providing meals for that kid.
If it is to get over a short term bump in the road, fine, that problem will take care of itself. If it is because the parent can't provide, something long term needs to be done, there are deeper problems. And if the govt just provides regardless of the reason, some people are going to use that as a crutch, why earn the money for lunch if someone else will pay for it?
It is frustrating for me. We live in a fairly well off community, but like most there are some needy people. Because of privacy issues and the source of my info (someone who sees this first hand), I can't really say anything, but lets just say I am aware of some families that have plenty of money, take fancy vacations etc, but still are on the free lunch program in our district, which also waives the fees for most activities.
I know Martha doesn't like to hear this, she claims that it is too hard for people to qualify for this stuff, but it just isn't so, in my experience. I got curious about it, so I looked at the forms you need to fill out to apply for free lunch programs. They are very vague, they don't ask for any hard numbers like what is on Line such-and-such of your 1040 or W2, they just ask you to enter a monthly income. Now, is that earned income, investment income, pension, SS? Doesn't say. I suppose I could qualify by filling out the form, our earned income is pretty low. If questioned, I could (honestly) claim that I thought they meant wages/salary. I really don't know. But I don't think that someone with $1M/year in dividends should be able to get free lunches for their kids on my dime.
I am not aware of any efforts to validate these numbers. This is what gets some of us upset when we see govt handouts. Fine, do 'em where needed, but be responsible with *our* money.
-ERD50
Though the lunch program is designed to provide food to low-income students who might otherwise go hungry, its guidelines do not require schools to verify the parental income of students who enroll. The process to qualify for a free lunch comes down to parents self-reporting their income on a form that is turned in to their local school.
Federal free-lunch program administrators argue that the program has little potential for abuse because "the worst that happens is a kid gets a free lunch."
Federal free-lunch data, however, are used as one of the main poverty indicators for school districts and are linked to many other local, state, and federal funding streams. So any fraud in the free-lunch program is quickly multiplied.
... the Clifton school board in Bergen, New Jersey, voted 5-4 to report that exactly 20.16 percent of public school students were poor enough to qualify for free lunches, instead of the actual number, which was 19.19 percent. The difference was significant: If the number dropped below 20 percent the district would lose $4 million in aid.
.... board president Wayne Demikoff said, "I cannot, in good conscience, vote for something that is going to devastate the budget."
Strangely, the board did not necessarily break the law by reporting the higher number.
For starters, we can watch Massachusetts.Why do we need Universal Health Care? We are 50 States. If UHC is so desirable, why not start it at the state level?
For starters, we can watch Massachusetts.
To almost no one's surprise, they were more successful at getting the lower-income people to sign up for little or no cost to them, while non-compliance from people with higher incomes (who paid full price) was quite a lot higher.
Who'da thunk it?
True. One point I intended to make above -- but forgot -- is that as states work on their own solutions, we can observe what works reasonably well and what's a disaster. Without more strict enforcement mechanisms to make sure there is true universal participation, the Massachusetts model is unworkable. Maybe they can tweak it and make it better, and all other states (and the feds) should be watching the results in terms of costs and quality of care.But, is this really an argument against state-centric (as opposed federal) taxpayer-funded medical care? The same thing could happen at the federal level if it were structured the same way.
To me, the three prime arguments against state-centric solutions are:
-- Complexity/cost of 50 different plans
-- Reduced ability to relocate. E.g. A person receiving taxpayer-funded treatment for cancer in Massachusetts would not be able to relocate to a state that did not cover this care/
-- Higher taxes leading to an exodus of people/companies. The same potential problem we'll have if we do this nationally.
So should we have truly Universal Health Care? Let's see you get all the countries of the world to agree. I'll just hide and watch.
In the EU countries I'm aware of, you can opt of public though and go with private insurance if you're well off.
No reason the 50 different states couldn't do something similar.