Employer paid health care... ball and chain?

[Dominus]

Absolutely nothing.

Anyone is free to do as little as he pleases. If he has a partner, child, parent, or someone who wants to provide for him, he may depend on them. If he wants to eat in soup kitchens and live under bridges or in hobo camps, he can do that in many places. If he chooses to work minimally and apply for government subsidized housing, there are places for that.

But, the question is not what's wrong with being idle, but why would society have any obligation to reward the idle, to work to provide for the able bodied. Society has long made various provisions for the feeble, the elderly, the insane, the impaired. Sometimes those provisions were cruel or extreme.

Today, that isn't the case.

But, far and wide, in progressive countries and in 3rd world countries, and everywhere in between, MOST people do not want their labors to be taxed to provide for those who CHOSE not to earn their own living. That's a very different condition.

There are a few who support that notion, but the majority of society doesn't and strong opposes supporting intentional idleness. The Democrats were forced to a work-fare version of welfare during Clinton's presidency because the nation simply isn't as leftist as the more extreme faction would have it.

Regardless of whether we like it or not, there have always been people who just want to be idle. Going all the way back to the first people to walk the earth. And they are not going anywhere anytime soon.

Forcing them to work at the threat of homelessness and starvation hasn't worked. This is why so many people nowadays support removing all social financial safety nets. We know that those who want to be idle will look for every way to take advantage of all the safety nets available.

Here is an example of 4 generarions on disability.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2017/06/02/generations-disabled/?utm_term=.f2923d7efc72

What I'm trying to say in too many words is regardless of how it plays out, those of us who work are already paying for those who just want to be idle.

In fact, I would argue that the current system actually encourages those who are idle to remain idle. When people get on disability or other form of welfare, they spend all their time and energy on navigating the requirements and bureaucracy to get on ad remain on. There have been many documentation of people not bettering their situation because a slight increase in income make a their situation much worse via losing all benefits.

 

[NotHardUp1]

You put the argument in a hypothetical that isn't the case.

No one is forcing anyone to work. No one is threatening homelessness. It's simply the cause and effect of life. Organisms must seek out food and shelter to survive.

If a higher species like humans adds cognitive thought to the equation, that doesn't change it.

The onus is still on the individual to survive. We are a colonial species. We work in societies to foster our species' success, and it has worked all too well.

There has never been an ethos that supported indolence. We aid those who are in need, or the incapable. Indolence is no disability. If an individual of the species chooses suicide, we mourn the loss, but we don't force that person to live on.

If an individual chooses something over earning shelter and food, then it is regrettable for those who look on, but hardly their responsibility. He is of sound mind and free in a free society. Harsher societies forced labor in poor houses.

Your argument perverts the reasoning and turns the onus on those who are willing to work. Dressing it up with "slight increase" isn't any solution. There have already been numerous social models created where that slight improvement has been provided, with food stamps, with school lunches, with free education, with earned income credit, with federally subsidized housing, with unemployment insurance, with welfare, with food banks, with homeless shelters, with free thrift stores sponsored by churches, with battered women shelters, with free tax preparation, with free tutoring programs, with county health offices, with reduced cost clinics, with Job Corps, with literally hundreds of other programs like these.

You suggest that a little help is all that is needed, as if it is a change. A little help and more has been offered for almost a century now since the birth of the New Deal and later the Great Society.

What has followed has been a bifurcation of the poor. There are those who have taken advantage of the programs and progressed, and the other group that has taken it and still remains solidly in poverty.

What your proposal refuses to take into account is the range of human ethics. The continuum extends from those who work and contribute and support charitable causes, to those who work and are not charitable, to those who don't work but are docile, to those who won't work and are criminal. That would also include those who work but hide it and live in a black market mode.

You argue that we are already paying for the idle, but that isn't wholly true. We only pay a limited amount for them. You argue for a guaranteed income, presumably above poverty level, so a good deal more than $13k per individual, $22k for a family of three. And when you do fund that, you haven't wiped out all the other costs such as police, fire, ER, drug rehab, etc. Those costs don't go away simply because you gave money away.

The $13k amount is about twice what I would receive in unemployment from my state if I were to be terminated tomorrow. I've worked every year for 36 years. I would be motivated to work were I to lose my job, as I prefer to live in a house. Any rational adult understands the relationship between work and subsistence. It is foundational. Championing indolence is a social evil. It seeks to reward those who would take from others what they could earn for themselves. It's a form of theft.

 

[NotHardUp1]

In fact, I would argue that the current system actually encourages those who are idle to remain idle. When people get on disability or other form of welfare, they spend all their time and energy on navigating the requirements and bureaucracy to get on ad remain on. There have been many documentation of people not bettering their situation because a slight increase in income make a their situation much worse via losing all benefits.

It could be argued both ways. It is very difficult to get on disability currently without retaining a lawyer.

And you would have plenty of people argue that the worse flaw is that the system doesn't do anything to stop abuse. There are so many instances of people working and having income while on disability. The underground economy is a huge issue. It's much like the handicapped parking spaces. We must have a dozen of them at work and not a one of them has a walking impairment. People work the system, get perks, and loaf. It's rampant, and much of society recognizes that and opposes it.

 

[Dominus]

It could be argued both ways. It is very difficult to get on disability currently without retaining a lawyer.

And you would have plenty of people argue that the worse flaw is that the system doesn't do anything to stop abuse. There are so many instances of people working and having income while on disability. The underground economy is a huge issue. It's much like the handicapped parking spaces. We must have a dozen of them at work and not a one of them has a walking impairment. People work the system, get perks, and loaf. It's rampant, and much of society recognizes that and opposes it.

Abuse isn't and shouldn't be the main concern. There will always be abuses and there will always be people looking to navigate the system to go beyond it's intended purposes.

Much of society does not oppose it. Otherwise, things would have changed already.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Of course abuse is a main concern. It is at the core of every debate in every legislature anytime a large entitlement program is discussed.

It even arises in children's programs and food programs, as people can and do get lunch tickets and then re-sell them. People can and do visit multiple food banks in adjacent towns and resell the food, or use it in lieu of money for rent. People with large numbers of children can and do purchases items and then resell them instead of feeding their kids. I saw it first hand and it surely was not the exception to the point of insignificance.

 

[Dominus]

Of course abuse is a main concern. It is at the core of every debate in every legislature anytime a large entitlement program is discussed.

It even arises in children's programs and food programs, as people can and do get lunch tickets and then re-sell them. People can and do visit multiple food banks in adjacent towns and resell the food, or use it in lieu of money for rent. People with large numbers of children can and do purchases items and then resell them instead of feeding their kids. I saw it first hand and it surely was not the exception to the point of insignificance.

Well, I don't doubt that abuse happens. I've seen it first hand.

Chasing down these abuses is like playing wack a mole. Instead, the system should be designed to encourage getting off the safety net.

One way to do this is to study immigrant groups and what they used to get ahead. I've suggested this before. But as usual, a lot of hostility from members here. We came to the US with literally nothing. And we are not even a special case. Quite common, actually. So, study those cases and come up with a better system. Because the current system obviously doesn't work.

But no, I don't believe that whack a mole will do us army good with abuses. The current system encourages abuse.