psychohist wrote:
aghogday wrote:
The medicaid issue is down the road, so it is hard to say at this point what the end result would be, but cuts to programs like the healthcare act, foodstamps, and pell grants makes it more difficult for people to have the opportunity to feed their family and almost impossible to get health care themselves, if they work hard at a minimum wage job.
To the contrary, even McDonalds' minimum wage job provides health care for full time workers. And the individual mandate in Obamacare will force low wage workers to pay for more expensive health care that, frankly, will make it more difficult for them to pay for food.
Of course, it's looking like the individual mandate will be ruled unconstitutional, which means Obamacare won't even significantly improve health care coverage. It will just be an expensive waste of money.
I'm not a big fan of Pell grants, either. Why should some people get a college degree for free when others have to go into debt or take on a four year military commitment to get theirs? The point of a college degree is to increase a person's future earning power; that increased earning power can be used to repay debts. Loans, not grants, are the way to go.
I understand there are some minimum wage jobs that offer healthcare benefits, but it is a small minority of the total minimum wage jobs that people work; a family making under $29,000 will be covered by Medicaid and will pay nothing for healthcare.
For a person that likes their coverage at McDonalds, they will have a choice to keep it. And for those of moderate means that refuse to purchase the insurance, the government cannot either force them to buy the insurance or force them to pay a penalty. If the individual gets a refund the penalty can be taken out of the refund.
There are as many people claiming that the healthcare act will live on after the Supreme Court visit as there are people that claim it won't. Yes, there were state level judgements against constitutionality and state level judgements for constitutionality, but no clear indication of what will happen in the supreme court. There are many potential scenarios that can keep the healthcare act alive after Supreme Court scrutiny, even if the mandate is thrown out.
A pell grant is an incentive to break the cycle of poverty. It doesn't cover nearly everything, though; I received one, had a scholarship, had to take out a loan, and worked three part time jobs to scrape by to go to college. It took me ten years to pay off the loan.
Children of parents that are well off may have to get a loan to go to college, but the parents are in a better position to provide some kind of assistance and they often do. A loan rarely covers the full cost of living and going to college. It is not a perfect system, but one does not get a choice in the resources of their parents, and not all people are suitable canidates for the military.
16 Apr 2011, 6:26 pm
