The opening of the Obamacare health exchange last month drove a 35 percent surge in new applications for Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income people, the state Department of Human Services confirmed today.
"The development is a bit of good news to the law's supporters after what has been an embarrassing national roll out of the Obamacare program," according to NJ Star-Ledger reporter Susan K. Livio. Yes, we have now reached the point that an increase in tax-subsidized health insurance is hailed as a success.
After one commenter said "REALLY? Almost 40K new welfare recipients is considered 'good news'!?!?!," correspondent David Spinosa responded:
I enjoy the demonization by some in here of "tax payer funded" programs. Did you go to school? Does your garbage get collected? Did YOUR kids go to school? Having fun collecting that Social Security check?
NJ Familycare isnt just for "freeloaders". If there is a system to be gamed it will be by the MINORITY of people. As for my family, we are currently using it yes. My wife had stage 3 cancer this past year and golly gee well I couldnt work 4000 hours a week and pay that co-insurance so guess what..we are screwed. But at least my kids have medical insurance now. Which..by the way...we PAID into just like we've PAID into the Social Security we will probably never see.
Point is..you pay into things you may never benefit from. That's the way this country works. Dont like it old timer? Fine..no Social Security or Medicare/Cade for you. Dont like it 20 year old moron? No school aide, no GI Bill, no nothing for you. How wonderful of a country would that be?
I left these comments:
David:
You've just put your finger on the evil genius of the welfare state. Tax-funded programs seize money by force from those who earned it, in exchange for some promised benefit in return.
But not everybody benefits in proportion to their "contribution." Some pay more than they ever receive in benefits. Some receive more in benefits than they ever contribute. These programs are all about forced redistribution of wealth—legalized theft—and nothing else.
Yet if someone collects the benefits their taxes supposedly entitled them to, they are called hypocrites for pointing out the true immoral nature of these programs. It's moral extortion designed to silence the critics, who are essentially told that the price of their benefits is not only their taxes, but their silence; i.e., their free speech right to dissent.
Worse, since productive, hard-working people are forced to "pay into things you may never benefit from," the things you do need and value are harder or impossible to afford. Is it any wonder that, with the welfare state now bigger than ever, the poverty problem is also—half a century after the "War on Poverty" began?
So, here's a proposal to all supporters of tax-funded programs: Since we all supposedly pay for the benefits these programs provide us, why have them at all? Why not end them, and leave people to take direct responsibility for their own (or their own children's) education, their own garbage collection, their own retirement, and their own healthcare, among other things? That is the way this country is supposed to work.
The welfare state divides the nation into slaves and freeloaders, with most people straddling that divide as part freeloader, part slave. This is a long way from the Founders' vision; a nation of self-supporting, productive traders.
Related Reading:
Unaffordable Healthcare Invades the Middle Class
From Middle Class to Welfare Class
2 comments:
I think Spinosa's only response would be, "So what?" I think if we put the full philosophic case to him, he'd still say, "So what?" He thinks we shouldn't take our chances under freedom when we'd all be ok under total statism, if we all just pitch in to make it work. We'll all get enough back to get along on. No more war, just peace.
As for free speech, that's not involved, unless people are fined and/or thrown in jail for exercising it. The moral extortion says you must pay taxes. Then, you might be eligible for, & might actually receive, benefits. But, if you don't pay, and the 'authorities' must forcibly extract taxes from you, you might be subject to fines and/or jail. Shootin' your mouth off about it doesn't get you in trouble. Not paying does. That's the issue to fight, by free speech, not the issue of free speech, unless they fine and/or jail you for it. But, if they do, speak anyway, after starting physically violent resistance.
The implication is that if you accept the promised benefits you coercively paid for, you have no moral right to complain. Politics follows social mores. No moral right eventually leads to no legal right, which can manifest in fines or, more likely, reduction or denial of benefits. That is the threat to free speech.
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