Updated 7/12/2017 with new fun facts and figures
Redistribution of wealth. That’s one of the mantras of the far far left progresissies. How is that working?
Right now, the YOUR government spends $553,400,000,000.00 (over half a trillion of YOUR tax dollar$) on Medicaid according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Click HERE to see the full numbers.
The population that is below the poverty level is 13.5% of the total population. There are 321,400,000 people in the US, meaning that 43,389,000 folks are living in poverty.
Medicaid is there for the poor. That means every poverty stricken person is allocated $12,754.38 every single year. That’s $51,017.54 of FREE MONEY for a family of 4 living below the poverty line.
I have to scratch my head here. The poverty line in the sand is $12,000. So healthcare spending for every single person at or below poverty, is more per person than they earn. Huh? Just for your edification, the median income in the United States (half of the population is above this number and half are below it) is … wait for it … $51,939.00. On paper, the hypothetical family of 4 could have a combined income of $24,000 and still get their $51,017.54 in Medicaid, for a combined equivalent income of OVER $75,000 !!! With food stamps add another $7800 per family giving them and equivalent income of almost $83,000. And here’s another fun numbers game. If we go with “Feel the Bern” Sanders’ $15 per hour minimum wage, the “working” individuals in our hypothetical family of 4 only need to work 5 months (800 hours each, less than part time) out of the year to get their, $83,000. That works out to almost $52 per hour for the poverty “wage” earners in the family of 4, when you total it all up. How much do you make per hour?
Right now, the biggest stumbling block in passing healthcare reform is Medicaid EXPANSION. The current incarnation of the bill SLOWS the rate of growth in EXPANDING Medicaid. It DOES NOT cut CURRENT levels of Medicaid, Once again there are NO MEDICAID CUTS!
Let’s play another numbers game, for more fun and entertainment. This is the Lonewriter HealthCare Initiative. Again, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 70% of all Americans are covered by an employer plan, they pay for coverage themselves, or are covered by Medicare. That leaves 30 percent who are on Medicaid or choose not to have coverage. Now if we divide up the $553,400,000,000.00 of CURRENT MEDICAID FUNDING and give $7000 for every man, woman, and child living below poverty (The 13.5 percenters), that still leaves $4708.13 to give to every other man, woman, and child in the 30% who choose not to buy insurance (free loaders) EVERY YEAR!!! I don’t know about you, but $28,000 of FREE MONEY EVERY YEAR for a family of 4 seems like a pretty good deal to me. Heck, $18,833 for the family of 4 who are free loaders, is not a shabby deal. That means, using the Lonewriter HCI allocation, 100% of Americans are covered, under my stupid plan.
‘Splain to me again, why we need to expand Medicaid?
Looks to me as if wealth redistribution is alive and well. I wish someone would give me $12,000, or $7000, or even $4700 to pay for my useless Obummercare medical insurance.
And who pays for the GIANT giveaway? You do, if you have a job! Take from the working man and give to … well you understand. It’s the progressive thing to do.
Feel better?
Update 7/14/2017 – Just to be clear, the lower income people never get that money that is “spent” on Medicaid. In point of fact, I have no idea where the money actually ends up. I suspect most of it ends up in the pockets of those who handle it, in all the layers of government. There is plenty of money to go around, but it vaporizes before it gets to those in need. Congress should be investigating where all this money goes, rather than saying “Russia, Russia, Russia” all day long. As Shakespeare wrote, describing corruption, in his play Hamlet, “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark“. Oh wait, Denmark is a Bernie Sander’s Utopian socialist country. Nothing could be rotten there.