[hartford_renter]

Originally Posted by MrGompers

The fact over 50% of medicaid goes to kids, elderly, disabled doesn't matter to people like this. Even if you could prove without a doubt that without medicaid these people would die they don't care. They believe in the "free market" for every one but themselves.

The parents of those kids and the relatives of the disabled should work and pay for their kids insurance.

Its that simple. Look at America before 1960

Why is this so hard for you to understand?

[hvexpatinct]

Originally Posted by hartford_renter

The parents of those kids and the relatives of the disabled should work and pay for their kids insurance.

Its that simple. Look at America before 1960

Why is this so hard for you to understand?

You mean post war, pre automation America?

[MrGompers]

Originally Posted by hartford_renter

The parents of those kids and the relatives of the disabled should work and pay for their kids insurance.

Its that simple. Look at America before 1960

Why is this so hard for you to understand?

You know its 2017 right ?

I did come up with a way you and others who think the same can help with this situation.

Since all of you are so concerned with how much money is going to medicaid you guys can camp out in all of CT's hospitals and check insurance cards and/or cash savings BEFORE any one gets medical help.

You guys are also responsible for delivering the news personally to the relatives of all the people who get turned away due to lack of cash or insurance. This way you can see the results of cutting funds directly with your own eyes.

I love anarcho capitalists

[East of the River]

Originally Posted by hartford_renter

I bring up Medicaid in a discussion about CT economics because the state spends 23% of the budget on it. It is important to the discussion on CT economics because it is why we have high taxes and debt.
Please see the link: https://ballotpedia.org/Connecticut_...t_and_finances

Note the expenditure does not include the earned income tax credit which is another form of welfare given to the poor. Also note that the K-12 education spending 14% mostly is redistributed to the inner cities. We should cut this as well.

I already answered your questions but here is a summary:

• I think we should cut medicaid by a lot like 85%
• cut food stamps and welfare programs by 85%
• the poor can get jobs and pay for their own health care, just like they did before 1960
• the poor are worse off with free handouts because it breeds dependency & obesity
• CT is going broke because of overspending

Pre 1960 the percentage of people under the poverty line in the US was around 24% after 1970 it was around 12-15% and has held there ever since. This is before wellfare is taken into account which drops it even lower. So no welfare is not causing people to be poor.

[HeadedWest]

Here is a graph of how welfare and income are related (done a few years ago by the office of the PA Secretary of Public Welfare).

[RunD1987]

Wouldn't mind if Medicaid was done away. Hold on before I start getting whacked with bamboo sticks.

Be awesome if CT created their own heakth care policy similar to the HAA with a few tweaks.

First would be CT bussineses are no longer mandated to provide insurance to their employees.
The State with assistance from a minimal tax collected offer their own insurance pool. So have 1 to 4 various insurances options. One having a low deductible, extensive coverage, high monthly payment, and so forth. Where on the end it's just basic insurance with a high deductible but low monthly payment. A few other insurances in the middle. Have the option of adding certain things to the insurance plan to best fit your needs. Would be a 2% tax on CT residents and 4% tax on businesses in CT with 100 or more employees. CT State employees receive a discount in monthly cost. CT National Guard and Reserve Members in CT receive a discount as well in cost.

2% tax on taxpayers to cover Catastrophic Healthcare for CT resident's and Universal Healthcare for CT residents over 70.

Medicaid would be replaced with adjusted health insurance based off income. Insurance would based off of average liveable income in the State based off your family size. State have to figure the calculations out. Something of one child equals 5%. Up to 4 children would be counted in the calculations. Then parent's 10%. Add up the total percentage multiply it into yearky income and divide the number by 12 would be monthly payment. The insurance is extensive coverage of care ranges from 85% to 95% of all health related cost covered. Funded by Federal Medicaid grants.

Emergency Medicaid for individuals who have no assets & income or are homeless. Insurance is universal 100% care covered and no monthly payments needed. Only stipulation must stay clean for 36 month's on the insurance. Have one strike the individual has the option to go to rehab for 60 day's to continue to stay on this insurance. Also must attend weekly job training program's offered by the State.

Clean up disability fraud and make those on disability receive universal healthcare.

Universal Healthcare treatment for cancer services and HIV/AIDS treatment at public or Non-Profit facilities.

Universal Mental and Substance Abuse Care in CT. Funded by excess tax on alcohol, marijuana, and cigarettes. Also increase fees on permits of firearms in the State to help fund this program as well, but do away with firearm regulation in CT.

All these services are available for any tax paying CT residebts outside of individuals working for the State. Also to receive Emergency Universal Care must be involvedwith State Social Services or CT 211.

Also for CT residents making $100,000 or less at State approved or employer daycare services would assist in paying the cost. Say you make $60,000 and daycare cost $20,000, 33% of your annual income. Multiply the 33% into yearly daycare cost the State would pay the individuals back $6,600.

Put EZ Pass tolls on 95, exit 2, going into NY, 91, Exit 49, into Mass and 95, exit 93, going into Rhode Island in 5 year's. 5 year's do away with CT income tax. Keep a .5% income tax on those making $500,000 or more in the State.

Flat business tax of 6% in the State.

2% tax on individuals and businesses to pay for tuition free community college for full time students and 25% discount for part time students. Full time students must agree to stay in the State for 2 year's after completion of their program. If they don't complete the program or move out of the State before 2 year's have to pay back the State.

Sales tax of 8% in 5 year's with no income tax. Towns and cities fund their own school systems.

All mill rates in CT cap at 55 in five year's.

CT State employees pay into their pensions with State only matching on the 403B's.

Then CT will be back on the map!

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by East of the River

Pre 1960 the percentage of people under the poverty line in the US was around 24% after 1970 it was around 12-15% and has held there ever since. This is before wellfare is taken into account which drops it even lower. So no welfare is not causing people to be poor.

Thank you. These posters seem to or choose to forget that there was a REAL reason that this system was created. Poverty was a very serious problem before Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program which addressed it. People in our country were going hungry and/or dying because there were no programs for them to at least have some form of decent life. Though I was young when the programs were implemented, I heard the horror stories from family members. Not everyone can get a job or maintain steady employment. There are those that truly need help and we can't punish the majority for the abuses made by what is really a very small minority. Jay

[MrGompers]

Originally Posted by HeadedWest

Here is a graph of how welfare and income are related (done a few years ago by the office of the PA Secretary of Public Welfare).

The issue with these reports is that they represent a "theoretical maximum" which no one even in CT ever qualifies for.

Nearly all of the Federal programs that are traditionally called "welfare" are given to the states in the form of block grants. The states are free to allocate that money the way they see fit and set up qualification requirements such as cash/asset limits. I do think in the case of medicaid the cash/asset limits were removed after Obamacare became law.

To extrapolate, a rich state like CT is sending more tax (cash) to the Federal coffers than it receives back. I don't remember the exact number, but it's something like .69-.75 cents for each dollar we send. This money goes into the Federal Govt's "general fund" and is disbursed from there.

One could infer from this that CT's "federal block grants" are underfunded by 25%-31%. In actuality that excess is going to other states to prop up their "low tax" mantras and in most cases that extra cash is not even going to help their citizens. i.e. they didn't expand medicaid under Obamacare.

You can call 211 and get all the welfare and medicaid applications sent to your house. The application is about 9 pages long. If you can fill it all out correctly, you then have to go in person for an interview at the DSS office. Once you go thru all that you can come back here and tell us that you qualified for 30k+ a year in welfare benefits.

I will give you the cliff notes version though. If you are single or married without kids no cash benefits. As a matter of fact, if you are considered an "able bodied adult" you can only receive food stamps for 3 months every 36 months. This requirement can be waived based on the state's and/or counties unemployment rate.

If you own a house, you give the state permission to place a lien on it if you accrue large medical expenses that are paid for by medicaid.

Wait list for Section 8 housing is closed in CT. I think the only exceptions are for battered women and disabled people. If you are single or married without kids you will die before getting an apartment thru section 8.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by East of the River

65-70% of medicaid is federal dollars. Having lots of sick poor people (mostly kids elderly and disabled) doesn't really help making a state a nice place to be.

Connecticut is one of the wealthy states that pays 50% of the pre-Obamacare Medicaid expansion bill. Connecticut in Q1 2016 had 856,100 enrolled on Medicaid. About 1/4 of those were Obamacare Medicaid expansion with the Feds paying 100% until 2020 and then dropping to the Feds paying 90%. Those are Kaiser Foundation numbers. There's no telling what the Senate will do but I think it's unlikely they'll change this.

Blue state Medicaid is quite different from red state Medicaid. Alabama, for example, caps hospitalization spending at $3,500 per recipient per year. That's less than a day in an ICU. You don't want to be poor and sick in a red state. You simply don't have access to much in the way of health care.

The concerning thing about Medicaid is that about 30% of the money is paying for elderly poor parked in nursing homes. With Boomer demographics, the lousy savings rate, and the reality that late-Boomers mostly didn't get pensions, that spending on the elderly poor is going to spike in the next 20 years. It could easily be half of Medicaid spending and Connecticut will be paying half the bill. ...and you think unfunded state/local pension liability is an issue. This one is going to dwarf that.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by JayCT

Thank you. These posters seem to or choose to forget that there was a REAL reason that this system was created. Poverty was a very serious problem before Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program which addressed it. People in our country were going hungry and/or dying because there were no programs for them to at least have some form of decent life. Though I was young when the programs were implemented, I heard the horror stories from family members. Not everyone can get a job or maintain steady employment. There are those that truly need help and we can't punish the majority for the abuses made by what is really a very small minority. Jay

The problem with the LBJ Great Society programs is that they created a perverse incentive to be a single parent. The economic outlook for a kid in a poverty level single parent household is really lousy. We've created a cycle of permanent underclass where single mothers have daughters who become single mothers and have sons who land in prison until their testosterone level drops. Every failed city has this same problem. I don't have the answer but that particular "solution" didn't work. Bill Clinton reformed the program so cash benefits have a 5 year lifetime cap (the "Temporary" in TANF) and eliminated extra cash benefits for extra children from single mothers already on welfare. That didn't fix anything. Health care costs are now so high that there's a big disincentive to get married because a pregnant low income woman automatically qualifies for Medicaid. I think we need to have very strong disincentives for anyone becoming a single mother. It's been a disaster.