On the wait times...my dad was diagnosed with cancer and they had to run tests to see if it had gone to the bone. Some die or chemical they use in these tests wasn't in stock. They call him at 9 PM! the day before his appt. for the test to tell him they have to reschedule. When do they reschedule it? Over a MONTH later. If it's not in the bone, think it can get there in the next month? ::sigh:: And he HAS insurance, 100% miner's, disability AND Medicare. He's insured out the wazzoo.

Get on the phone with that hospital and raise Holy ****!!! That is completely unacceptable! Talk to whoever you have to, go in person and ask to speak to the CEO if you have to. Raise **** until you get that date changed! There is NO WAY I would put up with this and neither should you. Let me tell you something, in today's health care mess....you have to be proactive and fight for yourself and your loved ones. Working in the hospital, I have noticed that the squeaky wheel ALWAYS gets the grease, so to speak. It's the most informed, proactive patients that get the most attention. Unfortunately, being nice doesn't seem to cut it anymore.

Well, it's already done. The reschedule date was 11/5. Now he had more tests this week that he won't get the results for until I believe Tues. His first test was supposed to have been done at the end of Sept. but didn't get done until Nov. 5. And it wasn't in the bone. These last tests he had were to see if it was elsewhere.

But in the end, my mom and dad have this belief that God has healed him and they're not going to be concerned about it.

EZMoney, I do know what you meant, but I was more responding to how easy the statement could be misinterpreted. I think as far as how Michael Moore has been known to spin things, it is probably among the least distorted of many of the things he's said.

Most of us have a perception of how common certain things are, based on our own experiences and what we are exposed to (including what we see, hear, and read in the media). The perception of welfare abuse is the norm rather than the exception. The main reason - we will very rarely if ever hear of or see the vast majority of welfare "success stories." The family on it for six months after a job loss, illness or death of a spouse will never make the news. Most people perceive themselves as much lower on the income scale than they actually are, because the lifestyles they see on television are so out of the ordinary. As for volunteering, yes more people "should" do it, but there's no way to make them.

I probably sound like a liberal democrat, but I'm actually more of a moderate independent. A conservative republican coworker once said moderates are people too lazy to have an opinion, but the fact is that I believe in spending as little government (tax) money as possible on the most necessary and effective choices. Some of the choices I find important, other people wouldn't, that's why we have to vote. I do wish that the party system weren't so entrenched, so that those of us who do have beliefs that don't fall along traditional party lines had more of a voice.

Well, I base my perception on my experience. That's the experience of one who had to resort to welfare and government housing while I got a quick career school education because I refused to raise my daughter on welfare after my ex took off on us. You rarely hear or see it because, it rarely happens. I lived in a 60+ government apt. complex. One old man was disabled, I went to school full time, and two dads worked. The rest? Welfare leaches. Welfare lifers. One of them I know (that was 1986) is STILL on welfare and has added 2 more kids to her previous 3. At least the last 2 have the same dad. Four men, five kids, still living on the government dole. She doesn't deserve insurance paid for by me. Though she's getting it through her Medicaid no doubt.Neither did the other nearly 60 residents. IIRC, there were 64 or 66 apts. So there was AT LEAST 60 non-working welfare recipients. Many of them living with their boyfriends without welfare knowing about them. A few of them getting double foodstamps via fraudulent means, several of them selling drugs out their back doors, and MANY of them selling their stamps for cash to buy cigarettes.

So it may not seem that prevalent. But if you actually go down into the projects and watch, or just live there for a couple years as I did, you might find it's more rampant than you had realized.

And the few actually trying to get out of that aren't written about in the news because they're so overshadowed by the many that DON'T try getting out. I could give more horror stories of what I witnessed in those brief couple of years. It was so bad, for my tastes, that I moved out to pay $200/mo. for a 12 x 60 trailer (a breadbox), rather than the $150 I paid there once I'd began working. The apt. was three times the size of the trailer, and less money. But you know...it wasn't welfare. And I no longer had to grit my teeth to keep from slapping the bejezzus out of one of my extra stupid neighbors who had no clue about morals or decency.

Sorry, didn't mean to go off on a rant. But ever since I was there, I always get easily riled thinking about welfare leeches. And people who've never lived it just can't see that it's really all that bad or that people won't try if given a chance. Believe you me...there are PLENTY of people who enjoy a free ride. Mostly because they don't know any better themselves. And they pass it on generation after generation. And until their thinking gets changed somewhere along the line, they keep breeding more welfare leeches. I just don't think the answer lies in giving them even more freebies. Most of them already get Medicaid anyway, so I guess it's a moot point on giving them insurance and a whole different topic.

But from being there, it's just shown me that not everyone is willing to work for what they get, or to even be appreciative of what is given to them. Many more people than we may even realize. Not the majority, not by a long shot, but enough. And it may be a lot of the reason why people just tire of donating voluntarily and why they don't want the money taken from them to pay for these groups of people while paying for others. If only there were a better system to ferret out the wheat from the chafe as they used to say back in the horse and buggy days....

Just to add...

Just realized it was 66 apts. 6 per unit, 10 units. Not that it matter, it was still too many not working or going to school or disabled compared to the measely 4 that fell into those categories. 62 people doing nothing but having kids.

Which is one of the extra stupid neighbor comments...

I was one day asked when I was going to have another kid (I had one). I said "When I can afford one." They said, "But if you have another one, welfare will increase your benefits." Does that sound crazy to anyone else? Sheesh!

I didn't say it wasn't common, it's just not as common as the perception, and more has to be done to prevent people from abusing the system. I was a probation officer for three years so I also saw much more than my share of
the abusers. I saw enough to also think this was the norm, rather than the exception, but I learned that I was wrong. The vast majority (I no longer remember the statistics) of welfare recipients are on welfare less than a year. This doesn't mean that many people do abuse the system. Most welfare recipients do not live in assisted living situations, they live in the community in houses and apartments next door to people not in the system. In low income housing situations you concentrate the number of welfare ricipients, and you also concentrate the abuses.

There are many who abuse the system, far too many, but statistically it is still a small percentage. Still, even if it's 10% (and I no longer know what the true statistics are), it's too much, and more has to be done to keep people from using the system as a life-long crutch.

I had a girl on my probation caseload, for a minor offense, who was really trying to get her life together. She was trying to get financial aid to go to college and had a job, but was still living with her welfare mom. She was only 17, and her mother was pushing her to get pregnant (she had no steady boyfriend) so that she could move out of the house and get her own welfare check.

I also had many women on probation who were trying very hard to get off welfare, but the jobs they could get had no insurance and transportation and child care costs made it nearly impossible. Many were functionally illiterate (and to be blunt) not very intelligent. It's very easy to sit and judge (I certainly did my share), but the line isn't always clear between people who CAN help themselves and people who can't. I can't tell you how many times I had to explain very simple things working people take for granted, like the need for an alarm clock (and how to use one). I had a woman who was offered a job, and when they asked "when can you start?" and she said "as soon as I find daycare for my son." Two weeks later (not calling them at all during this time) she discovered they gave the job to someone else. She was astonished and didn't understand why they "broke their word."

That's why I would be in favor of welfare systems that involved mandatory employment even if jobs had to be invented and were sort of lame (like some of my college work-study jobs) it would discourage people from using it when they just didn't want to work. We put mentally handicapped people in sheltered workshops where they are often basically forced to work whether they really want to or not (I've worked in these places), it seems like we could do the same for welfare recipients. If they don't have the skills, they could be taught them.

I don't know if it would work, but I think it would be worth a shot.

In California there is a very strict cap on the amount of public aid/welfare one can receive in a LIFETIME (3-5 years MAX) with teh CALWorks program. In addition, mothers have to go back to work 3-6 weeks after the baby is born. There is no such thing as a "career welfare recipient" anymore, in California.

Here's some food for thought:

http://www.cffpp.org/briefings_ca/brief_0303.html

A separate survey on the prevalence of domestic violence among women who receive CalWORKS found that:

* Approximately 80% of recipients had experienced abuse at some point in their lives; over half had a need for domestic violence services at some point in the previous three years; and only half of women experiencing serious abuse sought help from law enforcement, courts, a service agency, or health provider.
* Need for domestic violence services was found to result in substantially lower wages, a higher incidence of job loss, and fewer weeks of work during the previous year.
* Many abused women were also in need of mental health and/or substance abuse services.
* Only three of the six hundred thirty-two women surveyed had received the Family Violence Option waiver, exempting them from CalWORKS work requirements, in the last thee years.

Thanks for that info SOUL.

I'd prefer they didn't set up a system of lame jobs but actually forced them into a learning program. Just putting them to work "making boxes" (which I saw on some special about some state's welfare program doing this grrrrrrr) doesn't get them off welfare. It keeps them there. Putting them into a career school program, helping them get their GED and learn some typing or accounting skills, SOMETHING they can actually use, would get them off the system. And if they refuse to go, take them off welfare. Of course they won't do that because of the kids. Which brings up this point...

Nearly every state has a 5 year cap now. And there's a way around all of them. If you have another kid, you STILL get welfare. You will get smaller check as they won't give YOU money now, but they'll continue giving you stamps and money for your kids. They don't want the kids going without. So they just keep popping them out for larger and larger checks. And they can feed em all using free food pantries and sell their stamps. Well now it's, take a friend to the store and buy them tax free food on your food "card", and they give you .50 on the dollar back in cash for doing it.

If there's a way to abuse the system, someone will. And if there isn't a way, someone will invent one. If they put nearly as much thought into making money than in taking money, they could really make a good income.

I didn't mean that the jobs should be lame, but many politicians argue that programs like this couldn't be successful because there just aren't enough existing jobs to go around (which I don't believe, because I think decent jobs can be invented with a little creative thinking). However, even "making boxes," could be useful in teaching some of the most basic job skills like getting to work every day, on time, dressed appropriately, and how to interact with people in the workplace. Ideally the people who had absolutely no job or people skills would start at jobs that require the fewest skills (the ones that seem "lame" to anyone who has worked before) and work their way up as they gained job skills.

Most of us don't even realize we ever learned these skills, because it never occurred to us to do otherwise. I know before I was a probation officer, I never realized people existed who didn't understand the concept of an alarm clock. They might have seen them on tv, but no one in their family had ever owned one. I never expected to have to explain the concept of "calling in sick." You don't know how many times, from how many people I've heard "but my boss knows I don't have a phone." Yeah, and he also knows that your neighbor or someone else within walking distance of your house does.

I do think that most people do want to work, or at least would if they had a chance to feel the sense of pride and accomplishment in being useful to society. I worked with juvenile and adult offenders and in social service with very limited individuals for over 15 years, and some of these people appeared completely useless to society. I've met very few who didn't have dreams of being someone useful or important to others. Though many had absolutely no idea how to take the first step, or didn't believe that they were capable of it because of failures in the past (or failures they had witnessed in their parents and sometimes nearly everyone they knew).

Back to the original topic...I cannot stand Michael Moore or anyone that seeks to create controversy in a country that is already divided enough as it is. Someone with his power should be trying to bring people together, not making matters worse.

I thought the original topic was to ask people about universal health care in countries outside the US, not Michael Moore...

Leave it to JEN and TECH to stir things up

Don't look at me, I'm just confused.