- Section 8 housing takes forever.
- Work programs are for menial jobs that don't pay anywhere close to livable wages.
- Cash assistance amounts to $5 per day.
- Food assistance amounts to $7 per day (without a means of refrigeration).
- Medic-aid is barely accepted by any doctors except random ones. Medicare with SSDI takes years to get.
- Make just enough to try to get ahead, then you can't afford medications. Working severely penalizes the destitute into even more impossible situations.
- Everything takes longer and is more difficult and more expensive: laundry, showering, and transportation.
- Social workers don't go outdoors in most of America. They sit at desks, fill out paperwork, and randomly stop benefits based on errors, assumptions, and their lack of communication.
It's probably more cynical than the reality warrants, but it's visibly closer to the truth than the current "let's poll the money and hire some people to help the ones in need".
UBI switches the question : "we think the people themselves would do a much better job if they just had the money". It's gonna be true in some cases. And completely wrong in many others.
2. the other possibility is that for the very mentally ill, they actually do need 2x the median income to survive, eg. because of mental illness counseling costs.
What makes you think any sort of government intervention will solve this? If you implement universal healthcare these doctors will still have revenue streams from rich people and won't need to take poor patients. You can't force doctors to treat people they don't want to.
There used to be some "abuse" (according to the national health insurance administration) where people would, supposedly, try to see specialists for no reason. So they figured that everyone should have a "family doctor" and, with a few exceptions (dentist, eyes, maybe others) you always have to go through this doctor first.
Now most of these doctors are "full" and won't take any new clients. You don't need to be poor, they don't even ask your situation. If you call them up, they'll ask you if the doc knows you. If not, they hang up. And even if they're your family doctor, you better hope your cough isn't anything too urgent, 'cause they're in no hurry to see you.
Of course, there are doctors who will see you, but usually they charge extra, so they're not fully covered by the "free" healthcare, if at all.
Every private insurer I've ever had in the US has the exact same requirement.
The scenario you're described had the opportunity to be borne out in dozens of countries and generally didn't.
Most actual universal healthcare does not ban private insurance.
>Basically, every single country with universal coverage also has private insurance,” says Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies international health systems. “I don’t think there is a model in the world that allows you to go without it.”
https://www.vox.com/health-care/2019/2/12/18215430/single-pa...
You're conflating private insurance and duplicate private insurance, and ending up on a very mistaken conclusion because of it.
There are other countries with a system between complementary and duplicate where private insurance may also pay for duplicate care, but you still aren't allowed to not subscribe to the public healthcare plan.
Duplicate healthcare insurance is deeply toxic and
Wanting better coverage - lower wait times, higher quality doctors - is deeply toxic? Getting higher quality doctors who don't want to get paid pennies by the public system is toxic? (for example Medicare pays substantially less than most private insurance in the US today to care providers, which is one of the biggest reasons why many doctors don't take Medicare patients)
I don't see how being able to have a private plan isn't a win-win for doctors and patients. Doctors get paid more by private insurance, and patients get better care. If you want to use the public system you have the option of doing that.
What happens in the long run if you force doctors to exclusively get paid public system rates? Doctors make less and less smart people want to become doctors. Why do you think the federal government can't hire top tier software talent? It's because they pay pennies on the dollar compared to private companies. You can't regulate your way out of a market. The Soviet Union found that out the hard way.
You left out Germany and Switzerland, probably others. Hardly "developing countries".
So you agree that universal healthcare systems do not almost always ban duplicate coverage, and you agree that there is no "worldwide standard" of banning duplicate coverage though private insurance.
You're just in favor of banning private insurance and are willing to engage in sweeping hyperbole toward that end.
The only way it would get struck down is if there were activist judges and if there was no political will to repair the Supreme Court. I would assume that in a world where the US political system manages to fix itself enough to pass universal healthcare that would be dealt with or fixable, because those are more urgent issues.
The Democrats could have done this of their own volition in Obama's first term, during periods where the Senate had a filibuster-proof majority. Instead, they came up with the ACA.
> Lieberman, 67, used his deciding vote in Congress to help strip out a provision for government-run medical insurance, intended to set up competition to the abuses of private companies, by threatening to filibuster the legislation.
> Senate leaders agreed to drop the public option for all in favour of allowing people over 55 to buy into an existing government-run scheme for the elderly. In September, Lieberman supported the measure, as he had when he was Al Gore's running mate. But just as it seemed that a deal was done, Lieberman scuppered it by announcing that he had changed his mind and would block any bill that expanded government insurance coverage. Obama gave way.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/16/joe-lieberman-...
How much more than the ACA (a campaign promise) and stimulus did you expect them to get done in the 4 months of the first term that they had a filibuster-proof majority?
https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2012/09/09/when-oba...
They could have done universal healthcare instead of ACA and with much simpler legislation and less regulatory authoring burden.
India has slums, and Brazil has favelas. They aren't good but they are better than the street. US used to have rooming houses. Now, if you cant afford an apartment, and can't get an expensive one gifted from the state, you have to live in the street. (Not in your car; that's usually illegal too.)
also the load time is wack, and the stats aren't backed up, im confused
A minimum wage job will get you at least $900 a month.
You can get an apartment for $500. Health Insurance is $30, utilities $200. You can get a minimum of $50 per week in food stamps. You will get about $1000 in EITC each year.
That is with bare-bones, $7.25 an hour minimum wage and the lowest level of assistance.
With a tiny bit of advancement you can afford much more.
I grew up poor in Eastern Europe. When I came to the US in one of those work&travel programs, I was shocked people were sooo bad with their finances. I had a lot of financial responsibility because I grew up poor but most people did not have such a thing over there.
Example 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/nyregion/overcrowding-wor...
Example 2: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/23/nyregion/base...
>>You can get an apartment for $500. Health Insurance is $30, utilities $200
Right off the bat, you're not "getting an apartment for $500." MAYBE you can find someone trustworthy who can rent you a bedroom for $500/month in some cities but:
As of 2020, monthly rent averaged $1,164 nationwide; median rent is $1,104.
-- https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/renting-statistics
Only 7% of US counties have 1-bedroom apartments affordable on the prevailing minimum wage.
-- https://reports.nlihc.org/oor
Also, you need first month's rent ($500), security deposit ($500-$1000), utility deposit ($50 - $500), and sometimes last month's rent ($500).
So now we're talking a few grand. Better hope you spent the past three months working that guaranteed-40-hours/week minimum wage job without spending a single penny of your wages!
I also hope that your job is very close to your new apartment because you're going to need to spend a LOT of time chasing all the benefits that you seem to think are easily handed out and you don't have money for transit. Nope, you can't afford to take a whole day off work to wait in line for a free transit pass -- after all, you're going to spend $700 of this month's $900 income on housing and utilities!
At least make up numbers from this century if you're going to pull this Horatio Alger stuff :-)
For what it's worth, I'd be completely incapable of handling a minimum wage job.
(Genuine Q) if someone were to provide a home, would they be able to keep that?
I'm struggling to find an article I read years ago (feel sure it was somewhere at theguardian.com) in which it was proposed that just providing houses wouldn't all by itself "fix" homelessness.
>Check Zillow
There's literally zero matches for rents under $500 in LA County.
But...don't live in LA county... Or even California, the options are not either be homeless or live in the most expensive place in the US.
In New York City: Example 1: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/01/nyregion/overcrowding-wor... Example 2: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/23/nyregion/base...
Probably possible with a roommate. Still possible without, but rarer. I’ve seen dirt cheap one rooms available (think like $350/m) in middle of nowhere Utah. In certain cities, you can even live in the city, for maybe a little more than $500. I’ve seen them for example, in Des Moines.
I wouldn’t necessarily blanket any region, as as you drill down, you find that some places where’s you’d expect cheaper housing don’t have it because of whatever local bureaucracy is preventing it.
In the Bay Area or L.A.; not the other 90% of CA.
Why? I thought charitable work/donations were a libertarian talking point against social welfare and related programs