Friday, June 10, 2011

Revenues down, entitlements up - Reason: "Another trillion dollars in debt (and we've still got four months to go.)" In the fiscal year, that is, borrowing money and sticking the grandkids with the bill.

Here's part of the problem, from American Thinker: "A Nation of Government Dependents" found via Maggie's Farm. This is a comment on the article:
I am an ER doc in a large suburban hospital. Over my 20 years of practice, I have watched the welfare roles grow to twice what they were when I started. More troubling is how attitudes of the dependent have changed. Where once people were thankful for short-term help, they now seek to find every possible penny they can find, and now services are demanded: thank-yous are few and far between. It's so bad now, for example, that I recently had a Medicaid patient come in at 0200 by ambulance- for a pregnancy test...when I asked her why, she told me she didn't want to waste her gas, and she knew the ambulance and the ER couldn't refuse her. It's getting to be almost too much for me sometimes. I've talked to Congressmen and Senators about the abuse, and they are always "woking on it". Meanwhile, we have a patient who has been to the ER 1300 times since 2003 !! When I call the Medicaid office, they tell me there's nothing they can do. I'm convinced that the system is going to have to crash, and I'm really frightened about the people that believe it's their right to have others take care of their needs without a hint of personal resposibility.
Don't worry, Obamacare will cut back expensive ER visits just like they did in Massachusetts.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

These nightmare anecdotes sound an awful lot like Ronald Reagan's imaginary "welfare queen" with fifty false identities and a stretch limo who drove from office to office picking up her checks.

Eric said...

Well, the NY Times ran a story recently about a housing subsidy offered in NYC and there was an attached video called "Hanging by a Thread" that profiled a girl (with a young child) who was collecting $1000/month from the city for housing.

She had plenty of money for:
1) Smokes
2) Cell phone
3) A cat
And let's just say she hadn't missed many meals. But she couldn't move back with family because she "had a fight with her mom." Aw, isn't that terrible? Hanging by a thread indeed.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/nyregion/new-york-city-close-to-ending-key-housing-program.html

Anonymous said...

And the Washington Post reported on a military contractor who collected $1 million for two 19-cent washers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081602230.html

Assuming Fatty McCatfood doesn't deserve a cent, at $1,000 a month it would take Smoky Mamadrama over 83 years to defraud the taxpayer to that degree.

Therefore, both systems have failed us. Let's eliminate Medicaid AND defense!

Eric said...

August 2007, how timely. The government prosecuted the sisters, one of which committed suicide and the other went to prison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlene_Corley

Good thing the ratio of defense contractors to welfare recipients is 1:1.

Anonymous said...

Yes, all the way back into the pleistocene era of 2007. Good thing they caught and prosecuted the only person in history to take a defense dollar that wasn't rightly theirs.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2011/02/department_of_d.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/19/us-crime-contractor-idUSTRE73I65R20110419

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Securities/news/2011/02_-_february/sec_charges_defense_contractor,_directors_in_fraud/

Thirty defense contractors between 2007 and 2009 were awarded $682 million in contracts despite being convicted of defense-related criminal fraud over the same period. That's just the amount awarded to contractors convicted of criminal fraud.

But as you astutely point out, there are more people on welfare than there are defense contractors, so the theft from the taxpayers is therefore unequal. Two NYC baby mamas beat one Lockheed Martin project supervisor.

Got any stories about welfare recipients secretly getting 363 tons of shrink-wrapped packets of $100 bills? I'll accept any news links, whether they're from 2011, or 2007, or 1492.

nnn said...

Today's LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-missing-billions-20110613,0,4414060.story

The money must've been wasted on 6,600,000 welfare bums.