Michigan legislature reaches a new low with Medicaid-Work waiver scheme.

[ABetterDetroit]

I fail to see how punishing children born into a economic situation that is 100% out of their control by making it more difficult or impossible to get health care for them improves anything.

I thought the the ultimate goal was to lower generational poverty to save taxpayer money?

Shit like this bill certainly does not help achieve that goal.

[Lowell]

Republican pollsters must have told their legislators that the work requirement would fire up voter turn out this fall.

Unemployment provision to be pulled from Medicaid work bill

LANSING — The sponsor of proposed Medicaid work requirements is dropping a provision that would have exempted recipients who live in Michigan counties with higher jobless rates, saying Gov. Rick Snyder's administration worries it would be an "administrative nightmare."

Opponents of the legislation have said the provision would disproportionately hurt African-Americans because they live in cities with higher unemployment but counties with lower unemployment, while white Medicaid recipients in rural counties with higher jobless rates would not have to comply with the workforce engagement requirements.

Sen. Mike Shirkey told The Associated Press on Monday that allegations of racism are "ridiculous," but the provision is being pulled because it would be too difficult to administer.

Yeah, uh uh, sure, okay, whatever...

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...caid-work-bill

[Bham1982]

I thought the the ultimate goal was to lower generational poverty to save taxpayer money?

Shit like this bill certainly does not help achieve that goal.

Ha! That's not the goal. The goal is to slash govt. revenues in order to enrich connected elites, leading to massive deficits, thus forcing cuts to entitlements for less favored groups.

Plutocracy is the goal, and we're damn near close.

[aj3647]

[[Nothing in the post is intended to suggest that welfare should not be available to those in true need, regardless of race, color, creed, or LGBTQ status.)

Your entire post suggested that. Cletus, a white guy who voted for Trump and lives in Bumfuck MI up in the UP where the unemployment rate is 9% can KEEP his Medicaid because "there are no jobs", but black people living in Flint [[where the unemployment rate is over 10%) can't keep their Medicaid because apparently there's jobs a plenty there? And you're defending this?

If you want to defend a policy tailor-made by Michigan Republicans to protect their own "constituents" [[i.e. white people) at the expense of those who don't vote GOP [[minorities), then you ARE saying that welfare should not be available to those in true need regardless of race.

I suppose you'll just say that there's no racist intent and it's just some magical happy coincidence that it will be mostly black people fucked over by this because of how the rules were deliberately drawn.

[Jimaz]

Notice we never hear that lazy unemployed millionaires should be required to work because, well, that would be absurd.

[aj3647]

"victims of welfare"... Wow. Well it sure was nice for the legislators from Dogpatch and Bugtussle to save their little brown brothers and sisters from that fate. It's just a shame though that they couldn't spare their fellow pale b̶a̶c̶k̶w̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶b̶r̶e̶d̶s̶ citizens from that same tragedy of being similarly "victimized" by basic health care for their families.

And there's the crux of loaded, negative terminology like that: it only gets applied to "certain" types of people and not others. You'll never hear white conservatives refer to white people living in Northern Michigan as "lazy" or "leeches" or "welfare queens" or call them "victims." Nope, that terminology seems to be almost uniquely applied to the certain types of people predominately found in Flint and Detroit. I wonder why that is?

This of course despite the fact that the plurality of people on welfare, on Medicaid, on food stamps...are white. But then again, poor uneducated whites in Michigan overwhelmingly vote GOP, so you can't bite the hand that feeds you.

[Atticus]

We taxpayers are all paying for it one way or the other.

Either we have single payer or some other semi-socialized insurance program in which we the tax payers pay for everyone’s insurance...

Or we adopt the Republican ideals in which case the hospitals have to over charge everyone with insurance to make up the costs the hospital bears serving those without insurance.

At least in the single payer system, we don’t also have to pay the cut for the collection agencies, bankruptcy lawyers, and insurance overheads as well. But that would bring us close to social medicine... God forbid.

[Wesley Mouch]

Your entire post suggested that. Cletus, a white guy who voted for Trump and lives in Bumfuck MI up in the UP where the unemployment rate is 9% can KEEP his Medicaid because "there are no jobs", but black people living in Flint [[where the unemployment rate is over 10%) can't keep their Medicaid because apparently there's jobs a plenty there? And you're defending this?

I'm not defending it. But I also am not attacking it.

Sounds like the targeting of the new benefit is done badly. So rather than claiming racism, you might better claim incompetence.

Would you be OK with this exemption from the work requirement if it were targeted to all zip codes with high unemployment?

If you want to defend a policy tailor-made by Michigan Republicans to protect their own "constituents" [[i.e. white people) at the expense of those who don't vote GOP [[minorities), then you ARE saying that welfare should not be available to those in true need regardless of race.

I suppose you'll just say that there's no racist intent and it's just some magical happy coincidence that it will be mostly black people fucked over by this because of how the rules were deliberately drawn.

No. If the law is being unfair to some people, because unemployment their area is also high, then that's a valid flaw for criticism. I do take issue with the assumption that racism is as big a motivation for every decision. It is just as plausible to me that this is entirely political. That the authors were Republicans who just didn't want to give any room the Democrats. I see more politics than racism here -- but claims of racism are certainly popular these days.

[Eastside...]

...lovely post Wesley