The trouble with well-designed programs is that they just work, they don't allow politicians to grandstand. The fact that politicians can and will use "welfare-grifting barmaids" to score points is designed into the program, proof is that they passed the democratic process!

True but republicans will just straight up lie about social programs.

"Subsidy Cliffs" are a real problem. I implore everyone to help get rid of the insane situations they create.

Plug in some numbers for yourself with this Obamacare calculator. If you are, for example, a married couple, both 55 years old, you lose many of thousands of dollars of benefits from an additional $1 of income when your income crosses 400% of the poverty line.

To put some real numbers on the table: if this couple made $65800 of income, they get a $1098 per month subsidy. If they made $65900 of income, they get a $0 subsidy.

https://www.kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/

The problem is that social programs in the US are extremely [fragmented](https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/i...), and a well designed program has to work in aggregate.

Any solution to this has to be cooperative between federal/state/local authorities, but given that welfare programs are one of the most politically charged topics in the US, there's little chance that this cooperation will happen.

These programs have been designed this way for many decades. Given that track record, why would anyone trust politicians to implement single-payer healthcare or other "socialist" policies?

Well, distrust in the political system has been that way in the U.S. for decades. Single payer systems have been implemented auccesfully in many countries, all it would take is to copy from any one of those countries wholesale. For example, with the current money going into medicare and medicaid it would be possible to fund a universal healthcare system that was a copy of canada’s. They’re nice people, I’m sure they’d be willing to help set it up.

Yeah this is outrageous! I only trust them to design "capitalist" tax policies for large companies and billionaires.