And why did the "Welfare Queen" trope work and Bill Clinton continue it's legacy? Because, while poverty is the top line issue, racism within the electorate was manipulated by the powerful and, more importantly, White Supremacy built into the structure of American society to shut out Black and Brown folks from achieving economic and social stability remained obfuscated and hidden from view. Even in this essay, there's a blind spot to how the elite use White Supremacy as a means to deny the masses their due share of an equitable society. If all are to be free and prosper in the promise of this Great American Society, we must confront, make amends and repair the harm inflicted by clinging to the cancerous ideology of White Supremacy.
One thing I think very few people understand is that to some extent the welfare state was put in place as an anti-revolutionary measure. It's very foolish indeed to think about social welfare as being about the deservingness or otherwise of individual people, rather it should be seen as a means of maintaining civil society & preventing unrest. What do they think is going to happen when a large percentage of people have no food? This is a cynical, accelarationist act that is nevertheless in some sense the logical endpoint of decades of neoliberal propaganda, as you so rightly point out J.P.
For decades now, American society has been bombarded by relentless propaganda, mostly paid for by the super wealthy, that Government is always bad and evil, and only an unfettered, deregulated economy will serve Americans best. This had been the wet dream as long as I have been alive, by Libertarians and their think tanks, which (what do you know!) coincidentally aligns with the ambitions of obscenely rich Americans such as Elon Musk or a Warren Buffet, also known as Robber Barons during the 1920s gilded age.
Even now, Americans are meant to believe, that despite record breaking profits by billion dollar corporations across the US for decades, and the extreme wealth that these corporations have brought to a handful of Men; despite the lack of real wage growth for Americans since the 1970s, and despite significant increases of productivity by American workers; and despite the obscene level of wealth inequality, the greatest it has ever been in the history of this country - Americans are still being told that they deserve what they get, which now includes having to go without food if they can't afford it, even while working.
The absurdly wealthy in the US are now telling Americans, much like Marie Antoinette did in France 1793, to "Let Them Eat Cake". One really does wonder how long this is going to go on, how long Libertarianism, given its most despicable, hateful decade upon decade attack upon American government (and Americans themselves) - will continue with its deathly, Ayn Randian immoral and hollow grip upon the American people - before Americans finally wake up to the fact they've been robbed blind with an ideology that turns out to have only benefited a handful of obscenely rich individuals, and left Americans scrambling now to just put food on their table.
YUP. STARTED WITH REAGAN. Joke was on us when he came out and stated THE GOVERNMENT IS THE ENEMY. yup. we are the government. so basically what he was saying was that THE PEOPLE ARE THE ENEMY. It was all right there out in the open.
What gets me is we always here screams of Socialism is Evil. That any kind of sharing of resources or collaboration of Americans makes you a "Commie!" Especially when it comes to our Health Care Industry, which makes record profits every year - while at the same time offering less and less to Americans in terms of real Health Care - to increase corporate profits even more - because that is what greed based corporations do.
But what's even stranger is that Privatized Health Care Insurance in the US is a SOCIALIZED system. Americans pay these extortionist and ruthless Health Care Insurance companies an absurd amount of money each year - but what is paid in goes into a POOL of MONEY - that is then PAID OUT not to each American that has paid into the INSURANCE POOL - but only to those the Private Insurance Companies deem worthy of getting the money for health reasons - that they themselves have criminally proscribed to the detriment and even deaths of millions of Americans (see Sicko by Michael Moore, a classic). Paying into a POOL of money and then sharing it with other people is SOCIALISM. And that's what American Insurance companies do.
The Health Insurance industry is a SOCIALIZED system, perverted by the interests of a handful of unscrupulous rich individuals to make a profit whenever an American needs to see a doctor, and the US is the only advance Industrial nation in the world that still does not have a Universal Health Care system handled by its own government - that would disallow the open robbery of the American people in a health care system run by psychopathic human beings who could care less how much your health insurance actually covers you when you get legitimately ill - and an industry that is the #1 cause for American bankruptcy, unlike any other advanced nation in the world.
And you can chalk this up to the BULLSHIT Libertarianism ideology that has been rammed down the throats of Americans now for the last half century, that serves only the obscenely rich while leaving breadcrumbs for 99% of the rest of ordinary Americans.
Individualism will kill us, and as a disabled person, I can't help wondering if that's the aim - anyone unable to be exploited for the billionaires is considered worthless, undeserving of life.
I'm in the UK, and we have the same problem here - currently the Labour government are trying to 'encourage' disabled people into work by cutting our benefits, ignoring the fact that those who can work are rarely able to find accessible work places that will actually employ them.
It wasn't too long ago that the Conservative government tried to make food banks illegal, totally ignoring the fact that it was their policies that make food banks needed in the first place.
Exactly, both needlessly cruel & they don't do anything to encourage companies to hire disabled workers. Here in the U.S. we have Vocational Rehabilitation, a largely useless bureaucracy that gatekeeps training and services meant to help you find work. And it's almost impossible to get disability benefits & even if you do they are barely enough to live on. The Americans with Disabilities Act is pretty useless if you can't afford a good lawyer. Meanwhile there is loads of technology being developed or that could be developed to help disabled people but no they'd rather make it easy to steal disabled artists' work.
Calling SNAP a corporate subsidy is exactly the reframing we need. When Walmart workers require food stamps to survive, taxpayers are essentially subsidizing Walmart's labor costs. The real question is why should the public be paying for Walmart's deliberate decision to keep wages below subsistance levels while their profit margins soar?
In an urbanised world where responsibility for providing for each other has been taken away and the working poor fall into deeper precarity; when the backstop of welfare infrastructure fails; when people have to feed themselves, as Andrew Wilkow and others suggest, then desperately hungry people with starving children will relearn hunting skills very quickly. I wonder what a rich person tastes like.
Your essay captures with clarity why reform, however necessary, can never reach the root of the problem. The failure of systems like SNAP isn’t just a flaw in policy or law, it’s the consequence of the boundless desire of those in charge to take more than their share. Drawing on Aristotle’s critique of Phaleas, you show that the gravest wrongs are born not of need but of excess. Even if we were to level wealth or rewrite the rules, those bent on acquisition would still find the angles, subvert enforcement, and twist good systems into instruments of profit—SNAP’s drift toward corporate subsidy being a case in point. The only lasting cure, then, lies not in better mechanisms but in better people: a renewal of character, moderation, and the moral habits that make just structures possible in the first place.
When the USDA sends memos to grocery stores telling them to NOT HELP customers on SNAP in any way or said businesses will be cut out of SNAP $ permanently-& my congresswoman decries government run grocery stores that Mamdani proposes I scream into the void. I can’t believe America burned food rather than feed people via USAID then again I just re-read The Grapes of Wrath where they sprayed kerosene on oranges, slaughtered pigs & spread quick lime on them, dumped potatoes in the river & put guards on the banks so people could not retrieve them. I feel we are there. Again. Not even 100 years later. The people who remember this are long gone. I read that SNAP will be only partially funded & may take months bcuz, as Barbie said, “Math is hard.” Unreal.
I guess you have never been to the government run grocery stores in Cuba 🇨🇺 and SOS Venezuela 🇻🇪.. why don’t you talk to a Cuban or a Venezuelan person about it.
And I find it sad that people actually fall for his lies.. nonsense .. because they left countries that told them that they would have Free everything and we know that nothing is Free in life.. it’s just like when Ortega was campaigning in the campo in Nicaragua 🇳🇮 .. he told the people in the campo if you vote for me I’ll give you Free Cooking Oil for your lifetime.. well once Ortega was elected EL Presidente he had his henchmen travel to the campo and pull all of the cooking oil off of the grocery store shelves.. and look at the folks who voted for a bus driver and look where they are now.. dirt poor and scrambling for their next meal.. I was taught that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day but if you teach a man to fish 🎣 he eats for a lifetime.. novel concept.
And if you all want to listen to what is going on in Austria 🇦🇹 and Europe and England 🏴 then you need to go and listen to Survival Lilly’s YouTube videos.. listen to parts one .. two and three how the governments are failing in those countries and there’s no public healthcare.. it’s a 2 year wait for surgery but you if you sell your vehicle you can pay CASH for your surgery (9,800 euros) and then there are the companies that are laying off and shutting down.. and inflation is insane and folks are having a hard time paying for food and rent and the government is out of $$$$…. Let’s not forget if you want to buy a meat sandwich 🥪 in 🇦🇹 or elsewhere because in the corner of the wrapped sandwich you will see how many carbon credits you will use if you buy it and Lord help you if you’re really hungry and you want to buy a second sandwich because you will have used up your allotment for the month..
Oh and let’s forget there’s no medications in Cuba 🇨🇺 just ask my friend who escaped from there with her brother.. their boat broke apart on the shores of old Mexico 🇲🇽 and they swam to shore.. her brother didn’t even know how to swim but like I told her it was God’s hands that guided him and her..
Well one day I saw her and she was very upset because her mother was very sick in Cuba 🇨🇺 and there were No antibiotics available and like she also mentioned that her Papa had worked for Fidel all of his life and when he retired he only received $10.00 a month and now his wife was sick and they were dependent on their daughter to help them.. so she did what all good daughters would do she flew to Miami and bought the antibiotics and she had a friend fly to Cuba 🇨🇺 to give to her mother.. because if my friend had flown to Cuba 🇨🇺 she would be locked up by the best Dictator 90 miles south of Miami.. true story.. and I hope people understand that nothing is Free in life and voting has consequences.. and I think if this guy who talks a lot and says nothing.. NYC will be just like SOS 🆘 Venezuela 🇻🇪 on Steroids..
I do believe that we should help our elderly and veterans and folks who are disabled need help but if you’re an able bodied person you need to learn a trade or a skill and go to work like the rest of us because we’re sick and tired of taking care of our own families and the families who have their handouts.. it should be a hand up and not a handout.. and people need to be more responsible for having way too many children because they should have known that this day would come sooner than later because Johnson’s experiment with handouts is over!!!
I live in Europe. Of course there is public healthcare. No, there is no 2-year waiting lists for surgery. I can see my doctor within a day or two of calling, and immediately if it’s an emergency. More than this, if I get seriously sick in the middle of the night, a doctor comes to my home.
Sometimes, there are waits for tests (unless your doctor feels it’s an emergency.) In that case, I can go to a private clinic. The payment is about what my copay in the US would be.
I really don’t know where you get your information, friend.
Because you definitely need a dose of Survival Lilly because she reports from Austria 🇦🇹 where she lives and she shares the articles .. smd letters that she has received from the Austrian government…
and my friend from England can vouch for the oiss poor healthcare and so can her daughter who lives in Wales and yes!! If you have a private plan then you can see your doctor asap.. but if not .. there are long wait times ..
just ask my friends daughter in Wales and the pharmacy doesn’t have the medication to provide for her.. and just ask my dead uncle who thought the the Free healthcare system in Canada so wonderful .. until he got sick .. and got the run around from 3 different specialists and to see each specialist he had to wait 3 months .. for each visit.. a total of 9 months and he couldn’t finger out why he had to wait so long..
well after that long wait time he was in the hospital first the ER for 48 hours and then he was taken upstairs to a neurology floor and after 4 days he was sent home on hospice and died two weeks later.. he had kidney problems that were never treated properly and I said to my aunt why didn’t he come back to the states and see a doctor at the VA after all he was a veteran.. she said well we didn’t think of that.. and to think that he was only 67 years old when he died to lack of care.. and even my friend who lives in Toronto can vouch for the bad healthcare in Canada and it’s necessary to buy a private plan..
So do yourself a favor and listen to Survival Lilly and then you will have a better understanding that things aren’t as rosy as they seem in Austria 🇦🇹 and other countries..
So why is there a two year wait time in Austria 🇦🇹
PS with our private healthcare plan a private doctor will make house calls too!! In fact that’s what they did for many years.. I remember the doctor coming to our house when I was a little girl.. and country doctors use to make house calls.. it wasn’t uncommon..
It really is something to watch the current regime replay the greatest hits of the Reagan and Bush/Cheney years, from useless military boondoggles to regime-change wars premised on the thinnest of pretexts.
The government has been taking care of the people for years and who is it to say they are responsible for the lower class? The rich become rich because they take risks. Some start from nothing just like the rest. They work for what they have. I am middle class and i have what i have worked for. I have done without just like the rest. My priorities have been for food, shelter and type of work i need to have those things.There are many who take advantage. I live by a church, who gives out food and the people who line up have nicer cars than me. There needs to be proof these people are trying to provide for themselves, trying to get work because i personally know someone who had a bunch of kids that is living off the government who has never worked nor been married and is not disabled. Her kids dressed nicer than mine. I understand helping people, we are to love our neighbor as ourself and alot of the rich do help and some of the middle class do help as well. Why is it left up to the government to feed families? Why arent more people loving their neighbor?
WRONG. The rich become rich from the exploitation of the people. its all right in front of you if you just bothered to look. AND a little education helps - the government is us.
My first reaction to your comment was frustration, as I disagree with it so strongly (see various other comments in this string that I do support). But then it occurred to me that there are many fundamentally decent people who, at least right now, would share your perspective. So I thank you for your willingness to share your thoughts in a forum that might seem hostile to them, ~ AND without the use of all-caps & four-letter words, which we have an overabundance of already.
Julie, I’m sorry… but you are not middle class. You are working class. If you were actually middle class, you wouldn’t be envious of other peoples children’s clothing; you wouldn’t even notice.
I have been poor. I have even been homeless. I have been well off, and I need to tell you; I worked a hundred times harder when I was poor. Life is so much more expensive when you are poor.
its not THE GOVERNMENT - THE GOVERNMENT IS US! WE SHOULD FEED US. AND NOT ENRICH THE BILLIONAIRES
It's truly mind blowing that what you write here isn't self evident. It shows the sophistication of the propaganda machine from grade school on.
I deeply value how gracefully and strongly you write. This piece is phenomenal.
And why did the "Welfare Queen" trope work and Bill Clinton continue it's legacy? Because, while poverty is the top line issue, racism within the electorate was manipulated by the powerful and, more importantly, White Supremacy built into the structure of American society to shut out Black and Brown folks from achieving economic and social stability remained obfuscated and hidden from view. Even in this essay, there's a blind spot to how the elite use White Supremacy as a means to deny the masses their due share of an equitable society. If all are to be free and prosper in the promise of this Great American Society, we must confront, make amends and repair the harm inflicted by clinging to the cancerous ideology of White Supremacy.
One thing I think very few people understand is that to some extent the welfare state was put in place as an anti-revolutionary measure. It's very foolish indeed to think about social welfare as being about the deservingness or otherwise of individual people, rather it should be seen as a means of maintaining civil society & preventing unrest. What do they think is going to happen when a large percentage of people have no food? This is a cynical, accelarationist act that is nevertheless in some sense the logical endpoint of decades of neoliberal propaganda, as you so rightly point out J.P.
For decades now, American society has been bombarded by relentless propaganda, mostly paid for by the super wealthy, that Government is always bad and evil, and only an unfettered, deregulated economy will serve Americans best. This had been the wet dream as long as I have been alive, by Libertarians and their think tanks, which (what do you know!) coincidentally aligns with the ambitions of obscenely rich Americans such as Elon Musk or a Warren Buffet, also known as Robber Barons during the 1920s gilded age.
Even now, Americans are meant to believe, that despite record breaking profits by billion dollar corporations across the US for decades, and the extreme wealth that these corporations have brought to a handful of Men; despite the lack of real wage growth for Americans since the 1970s, and despite significant increases of productivity by American workers; and despite the obscene level of wealth inequality, the greatest it has ever been in the history of this country - Americans are still being told that they deserve what they get, which now includes having to go without food if they can't afford it, even while working.
The absurdly wealthy in the US are now telling Americans, much like Marie Antoinette did in France 1793, to "Let Them Eat Cake". One really does wonder how long this is going to go on, how long Libertarianism, given its most despicable, hateful decade upon decade attack upon American government (and Americans themselves) - will continue with its deathly, Ayn Randian immoral and hollow grip upon the American people - before Americans finally wake up to the fact they've been robbed blind with an ideology that turns out to have only benefited a handful of obscenely rich individuals, and left Americans scrambling now to just put food on their table.
YUP. STARTED WITH REAGAN. Joke was on us when he came out and stated THE GOVERNMENT IS THE ENEMY. yup. we are the government. so basically what he was saying was that THE PEOPLE ARE THE ENEMY. It was all right there out in the open.
What gets me is we always here screams of Socialism is Evil. That any kind of sharing of resources or collaboration of Americans makes you a "Commie!" Especially when it comes to our Health Care Industry, which makes record profits every year - while at the same time offering less and less to Americans in terms of real Health Care - to increase corporate profits even more - because that is what greed based corporations do.
But what's even stranger is that Privatized Health Care Insurance in the US is a SOCIALIZED system. Americans pay these extortionist and ruthless Health Care Insurance companies an absurd amount of money each year - but what is paid in goes into a POOL of MONEY - that is then PAID OUT not to each American that has paid into the INSURANCE POOL - but only to those the Private Insurance Companies deem worthy of getting the money for health reasons - that they themselves have criminally proscribed to the detriment and even deaths of millions of Americans (see Sicko by Michael Moore, a classic). Paying into a POOL of money and then sharing it with other people is SOCIALISM. And that's what American Insurance companies do.
The Health Insurance industry is a SOCIALIZED system, perverted by the interests of a handful of unscrupulous rich individuals to make a profit whenever an American needs to see a doctor, and the US is the only advance Industrial nation in the world that still does not have a Universal Health Care system handled by its own government - that would disallow the open robbery of the American people in a health care system run by psychopathic human beings who could care less how much your health insurance actually covers you when you get legitimately ill - and an industry that is the #1 cause for American bankruptcy, unlike any other advanced nation in the world.
And you can chalk this up to the BULLSHIT Libertarianism ideology that has been rammed down the throats of Americans now for the last half century, that serves only the obscenely rich while leaving breadcrumbs for 99% of the rest of ordinary Americans.
There is another all-caps response available to the government’s role in society…
IT’S NOT THE GOVERNMENT’S JOB TO PROTECT YOU AND YOUR PROPERTY
Let them with the greatest numbers and the largest rock gather food from any what hath hoarded it.
Gonna guess that won’t make it on Shitter (“X”)
Absolutely excellent essay!!!
Individualism will kill us, and as a disabled person, I can't help wondering if that's the aim - anyone unable to be exploited for the billionaires is considered worthless, undeserving of life.
I'm in the UK, and we have the same problem here - currently the Labour government are trying to 'encourage' disabled people into work by cutting our benefits, ignoring the fact that those who can work are rarely able to find accessible work places that will actually employ them.
It wasn't too long ago that the Conservative government tried to make food banks illegal, totally ignoring the fact that it was their policies that make food banks needed in the first place.
Exactly, both needlessly cruel & they don't do anything to encourage companies to hire disabled workers. Here in the U.S. we have Vocational Rehabilitation, a largely useless bureaucracy that gatekeeps training and services meant to help you find work. And it's almost impossible to get disability benefits & even if you do they are barely enough to live on. The Americans with Disabilities Act is pretty useless if you can't afford a good lawyer. Meanwhile there is loads of technology being developed or that could be developed to help disabled people but no they'd rather make it easy to steal disabled artists' work.
Calling SNAP a corporate subsidy is exactly the reframing we need. When Walmart workers require food stamps to survive, taxpayers are essentially subsidizing Walmart's labor costs. The real question is why should the public be paying for Walmart's deliberate decision to keep wages below subsistance levels while their profit margins soar?
In an urbanised world where responsibility for providing for each other has been taken away and the working poor fall into deeper precarity; when the backstop of welfare infrastructure fails; when people have to feed themselves, as Andrew Wilkow and others suggest, then desperately hungry people with starving children will relearn hunting skills very quickly. I wonder what a rich person tastes like.
Your essay captures with clarity why reform, however necessary, can never reach the root of the problem. The failure of systems like SNAP isn’t just a flaw in policy or law, it’s the consequence of the boundless desire of those in charge to take more than their share. Drawing on Aristotle’s critique of Phaleas, you show that the gravest wrongs are born not of need but of excess. Even if we were to level wealth or rewrite the rules, those bent on acquisition would still find the angles, subvert enforcement, and twist good systems into instruments of profit—SNAP’s drift toward corporate subsidy being a case in point. The only lasting cure, then, lies not in better mechanisms but in better people: a renewal of character, moderation, and the moral habits that make just structures possible in the first place.
When the USDA sends memos to grocery stores telling them to NOT HELP customers on SNAP in any way or said businesses will be cut out of SNAP $ permanently-& my congresswoman decries government run grocery stores that Mamdani proposes I scream into the void. I can’t believe America burned food rather than feed people via USAID then again I just re-read The Grapes of Wrath where they sprayed kerosene on oranges, slaughtered pigs & spread quick lime on them, dumped potatoes in the river & put guards on the banks so people could not retrieve them. I feel we are there. Again. Not even 100 years later. The people who remember this are long gone. I read that SNAP will be only partially funded & may take months bcuz, as Barbie said, “Math is hard.” Unreal.
I guess you have never been to the government run grocery stores in Cuba 🇨🇺 and SOS Venezuela 🇻🇪.. why don’t you talk to a Cuban or a Venezuelan person about it.
And I find it sad that people actually fall for his lies.. nonsense .. because they left countries that told them that they would have Free everything and we know that nothing is Free in life.. it’s just like when Ortega was campaigning in the campo in Nicaragua 🇳🇮 .. he told the people in the campo if you vote for me I’ll give you Free Cooking Oil for your lifetime.. well once Ortega was elected EL Presidente he had his henchmen travel to the campo and pull all of the cooking oil off of the grocery store shelves.. and look at the folks who voted for a bus driver and look where they are now.. dirt poor and scrambling for their next meal.. I was taught that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day but if you teach a man to fish 🎣 he eats for a lifetime.. novel concept.
And if you all want to listen to what is going on in Austria 🇦🇹 and Europe and England 🏴 then you need to go and listen to Survival Lilly’s YouTube videos.. listen to parts one .. two and three how the governments are failing in those countries and there’s no public healthcare.. it’s a 2 year wait for surgery but you if you sell your vehicle you can pay CASH for your surgery (9,800 euros) and then there are the companies that are laying off and shutting down.. and inflation is insane and folks are having a hard time paying for food and rent and the government is out of $$$$…. Let’s not forget if you want to buy a meat sandwich 🥪 in 🇦🇹 or elsewhere because in the corner of the wrapped sandwich you will see how many carbon credits you will use if you buy it and Lord help you if you’re really hungry and you want to buy a second sandwich because you will have used up your allotment for the month..
Oh and let’s forget there’s no medications in Cuba 🇨🇺 just ask my friend who escaped from there with her brother.. their boat broke apart on the shores of old Mexico 🇲🇽 and they swam to shore.. her brother didn’t even know how to swim but like I told her it was God’s hands that guided him and her..
Well one day I saw her and she was very upset because her mother was very sick in Cuba 🇨🇺 and there were No antibiotics available and like she also mentioned that her Papa had worked for Fidel all of his life and when he retired he only received $10.00 a month and now his wife was sick and they were dependent on their daughter to help them.. so she did what all good daughters would do she flew to Miami and bought the antibiotics and she had a friend fly to Cuba 🇨🇺 to give to her mother.. because if my friend had flown to Cuba 🇨🇺 she would be locked up by the best Dictator 90 miles south of Miami.. true story.. and I hope people understand that nothing is Free in life and voting has consequences.. and I think if this guy who talks a lot and says nothing.. NYC will be just like SOS 🆘 Venezuela 🇻🇪 on Steroids..
I do believe that we should help our elderly and veterans and folks who are disabled need help but if you’re an able bodied person you need to learn a trade or a skill and go to work like the rest of us because we’re sick and tired of taking care of our own families and the families who have their handouts.. it should be a hand up and not a handout.. and people need to be more responsible for having way too many children because they should have known that this day would come sooner than later because Johnson’s experiment with handouts is over!!!
I live in Europe. Of course there is public healthcare. No, there is no 2-year waiting lists for surgery. I can see my doctor within a day or two of calling, and immediately if it’s an emergency. More than this, if I get seriously sick in the middle of the night, a doctor comes to my home.
Sometimes, there are waits for tests (unless your doctor feels it’s an emergency.) In that case, I can go to a private clinic. The payment is about what my copay in the US would be.
I really don’t know where you get your information, friend.
Where are you in Europe?
Because you definitely need a dose of Survival Lilly because she reports from Austria 🇦🇹 where she lives and she shares the articles .. smd letters that she has received from the Austrian government…
and my friend from England can vouch for the oiss poor healthcare and so can her daughter who lives in Wales and yes!! If you have a private plan then you can see your doctor asap.. but if not .. there are long wait times ..
just ask my friends daughter in Wales and the pharmacy doesn’t have the medication to provide for her.. and just ask my dead uncle who thought the the Free healthcare system in Canada so wonderful .. until he got sick .. and got the run around from 3 different specialists and to see each specialist he had to wait 3 months .. for each visit.. a total of 9 months and he couldn’t finger out why he had to wait so long..
well after that long wait time he was in the hospital first the ER for 48 hours and then he was taken upstairs to a neurology floor and after 4 days he was sent home on hospice and died two weeks later.. he had kidney problems that were never treated properly and I said to my aunt why didn’t he come back to the states and see a doctor at the VA after all he was a veteran.. she said well we didn’t think of that.. and to think that he was only 67 years old when he died to lack of care.. and even my friend who lives in Toronto can vouch for the bad healthcare in Canada and it’s necessary to buy a private plan..
So do yourself a favor and listen to Survival Lilly and then you will have a better understanding that things aren’t as rosy as they seem in Austria 🇦🇹 and other countries..
So why is there a two year wait time in Austria 🇦🇹
PS with our private healthcare plan a private doctor will make house calls too!! In fact that’s what they did for many years.. I remember the doctor coming to our house when I was a little girl.. and country doctors use to make house calls.. it wasn’t uncommon..
Sarah, you really are being misinformed and being educated by people who have never experienced the US health care system.
It really is something to watch the current regime replay the greatest hits of the Reagan and Bush/Cheney years, from useless military boondoggles to regime-change wars premised on the thinnest of pretexts.
The government has been taking care of the people for years and who is it to say they are responsible for the lower class? The rich become rich because they take risks. Some start from nothing just like the rest. They work for what they have. I am middle class and i have what i have worked for. I have done without just like the rest. My priorities have been for food, shelter and type of work i need to have those things.There are many who take advantage. I live by a church, who gives out food and the people who line up have nicer cars than me. There needs to be proof these people are trying to provide for themselves, trying to get work because i personally know someone who had a bunch of kids that is living off the government who has never worked nor been married and is not disabled. Her kids dressed nicer than mine. I understand helping people, we are to love our neighbor as ourself and alot of the rich do help and some of the middle class do help as well. Why is it left up to the government to feed families? Why arent more people loving their neighbor?
WRONG. The rich become rich from the exploitation of the people. its all right in front of you if you just bothered to look. AND a little education helps - the government is us.
My first reaction to your comment was frustration, as I disagree with it so strongly (see various other comments in this string that I do support). But then it occurred to me that there are many fundamentally decent people who, at least right now, would share your perspective. So I thank you for your willingness to share your thoughts in a forum that might seem hostile to them, ~ AND without the use of all-caps & four-letter words, which we have an overabundance of already.
Julie, I’m sorry… but you are not middle class. You are working class. If you were actually middle class, you wouldn’t be envious of other peoples children’s clothing; you wouldn’t even notice.
I have been poor. I have even been homeless. I have been well off, and I need to tell you; I worked a hundred times harder when I was poor. Life is so much more expensive when you are poor.
Ruth Wilson Gilmore: "We are faced with the ascendance of anti-state state actors: people and parties who gain state power by denouncing state power.”