patrick.net

zzyzzx says

It should get lazy people off of "disability" and doing jobs that Mexicans currently do, and that should be very good for the US. Why do you hate American workers?

Americans would be happy to do those jobs for a living wage and adequate worker safety laws. Unfortunately, American employers don't want to be forced by a limited labor market to offer either, so they hire illegal foreign workers and lobby for visas to bring in guest workers legally. If our government would adopt an American worker friendly attitude, we could significantly cut our anti-poverty programs by strictly limiting the foreign competition within our own borders and giving our workers bargaining power to attain the wages that would feed their families without government assistance. Unfortunately, all you want to do is cut spending on anti-poverty programs while at the same time allow totally unfettered labor arbitrage. That is a recipe for destitution of the majority of Americans, no matter how hard they work, and that is morally indefensible.

"My niece was on disability for 2 months recently due to a VERY SEROUS health condition that could have ended her life. The meager disability payments she got helped out but were in no way a replacement for her salary. She is back at work now."

That's great that she received some help, but it is unlikely that the record number of Americans on disability is due to a sudden increase in illness and injury.

Blurtman says

"My niece was on disability for 2 months recently due to a VERY SEROUS health condition that could have ended her life. The meager disability payments she got helped out but were in no way a replacement for her salary. She is back at work now."

That's great that she received some help, but it is unlikely that the record number of Americans on disability is due to a sudden increase in illness and injury.

Exactly, that is the scenario for which welfare programs exist-not have people using it for generations.

lostand confused says

Exactly, that is the scenario for which welfare programs exist-not have people using it for generations.

If you know of some trick to pass down disability status have at it.

Frankly nobody in this thread has proved that disablity is some epidemic of Welfare Queendom.

Maybe more people are on disability now because more people are sick and need it. How do we separate "real" illness from fakers?

I see all the time not-poor fliers trying to take what seems a 3 year old onto the plane as a "lap child". Because they can get away with it? And yet I don't assume every child I see being carried onto a plane has lying thieving parents. Maybe they are big for their age.

Cerebral palsy, is that a character flaw? Perhaps we should kick some crutches out and see. Sometimes people over-magnify the abuse cases they do see, because you don't really see the many people who are severely disabled and need it.

Vicente says

Maybe more people are on disability now because more people are sick and need
it. How do we separate "real" illness from fakers?

If we used stalinist era enhanced interrogation investigative technique, I am sure that we could "sift" the real from the fake....

futuresmc says

people like you argue for America to adopt a global standard to our funding of anti-poverty programs....

Ugh - if you actually paid attention to HeritageFoundationCare (which includes everyone) and how many of those poor kids you pretend to feel sorry for are hooked on toxic pills that cause lifetime side effects by the teenage years, you might reconsider whom you think you're arguing for and against. In Mexico for example, healthcare for poor children is often better than here; Mexican kids get more vaccines and fewer pills, and at lower cost. And here's a hint: instead of re-framing other people's arguments in a false frame of your own invention, you might consider limiting your presentation of their views to what they actually said. It might lack the creativity of your false framing approach, and of course strawmen of your own fabrication are usually easier to argue against, but integrity does come at a price.