Quote:
Originally Posted by mapuc
On Facebook we have a discussion about our(danish) cash assistance. Some say they get to much and that's why they don't want to take a job. Some say they get just barely to survive.
Then someone said that in USA their socialpolitics is perfect and that Denmarks should copy their way
So is your social politics a good thing or??
Markus
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All I can say is... the exact same argument has been going on here probably for as long as there has been public assistance. With the two sides taking basically the same positions as you've described above.
I would venture to say that the answer is that it's just not that simple (it never is). Undoubtedly there are people who desperately need the help and are just scraping by with what they get. Certainly there are people who abuse the system, and there are those who don't abuse it so much as they become dependent on it and that dependency is passed on to subsequent generations through lack of a better example.
I work for a good-sized medical practice (four offices in two states) and we have a lot of patients who are on Medicaid (basically health insurance provided entirely by the government) and in my 20 years there I've seen what looks, at least, like every variation mentioned above and then some.
I've also seen patients who were in dire financial straits with lots of health problems they couldn't afford to treat and who probably should have gotten some assistance, but didn't qualify for it because of some technicality in the the applicable laws.
One thing I am seeing now is an increasing number of people who are receiving public assistance but do have jobs, or are in training for a job, who eventually "graduate" from the system when they've been employed for long enough to be making a decent wage with benefits provided by their new employer. That's very encouraging IMO.