Blog Action Day: Poverty

Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is Poverty.  Poverty is a topic near and dear to the MOMocrats, and one we've written about extensively before.  With the current economic crisis, the gap between rich and poor is likely to widen. Blog Action Day is dedicated to getting bloggers to talk about a single topic to try to impact the way the world thinks (and acts). This year's topic is Poverty.  How has poverty touched your life?  Have you been poor? Worked for the poor? Donated money so someone else can have a better life?

Consider the following:

• According to UNICEF, 26,500-30,000 children die each day due to poverty.
• Of the 2.2 billion children in the world, 1 billion live in poverty.
• Approximately 36.5 million Americans live below the poverty line.
• The "poverty line" for a family of four is an annual income of $20,650.
• A single mom making minimum wage who works full time makes $7.25 per hour, bringing her annual income to $15,080, before taxes.  If she is supporting two or more children without help from dad, she lives below the poverty line.

Today, we join thousands of bloggers across the globe to speak out on this topic.  We invite you to join us.

On a happier note, it's MOMocrat Joanne's 50th Birthday!  In honor of Blog Action Day and her birthday, Joanne is donating $1 to the Capital Area Food Bank for every comment on her fabulous blog PunditMom today.  Go wish Joanne a Happy Birthday, and help out people in need at the same time.

Comments

[World Concern]

It's crazy to think that about 30,000 children die each day. I work for an international non profit and it's just so cool to see everyone getting involved.

Check us out: www.worldconcern.org

[Marion]

I'm looking forward to sliding below the poverty level when Obama starts taxing the hell out of everything. I expect my small business to go under. But that's okay because housing and health care is a 'right' and I can expect everything for free!

[kouji haiku]

well, i support obama but unfortunately, i'm not american.

and for my part, i turn to sites like freerice, kiva, and goodsearch, as ways to help alleviate poverty online.

saw this post via the front page of blog action day. it's great that you're participating. :)

[Julie Pippert]

Uhhh Marion, point to me the place where Obama will tax the hell out of everything, including your small business. Show me where it's all up for free. You show proof of that, because I know differently.

Also? Guess what? I do believe that housing and health care is a right---because I believe in working together.

Then again, I follow a guy called Jesus and call myself a Christian.

I know not everyone is of the same faith and persuasion.

[Linda Deevers]

Julie, you said "I do believe that housing and health care is a right" and that fine, but is it a right if someone else has to pay for it? We certainly have the right to pursue happiness. My looking to be happy doesn't cost you anything. We have the right to breathe air - that doesn't cost you anything either. Food? If I can't afford to buy it, I can certainly hunt, so that doesn't cost you anything. Housing? If i can't afford a house, I can insist that you buy me one? Cool. If I get an eviction notice then I'll expect the government to pay the landlord because housing is a right. Health care? Cool! If I get sick then the government should make doctors treat me for free. It's a right, right? Medicine costs money too, so lets also make the drug companies provide their products for free. I'm sure they'd like to do that. Utility and insurance companies will gladly provide power and insurance to hospitals for free since I have the right to health care.

My rights end when they impact on you. When I have to take something away from you to get what 'rightfully' mine, then it wasn't mine to begin with. I'm also a Christian and would never knowingly allow a fellow human go without food and clothing. I can't provide them a place to live or pay their doctor's bills. Our church spends 6 digits each year providing assistance to needy families. Not because it's their right, but it's our privilege to help them. They have no right to our money (or the government's which is really all of ours) but those of us who can help and want to help, will help.

Obama is planning on raising capital gains taxes. That will discourage investment in companies. After all, why try to make money investing in business and pay double to the government when you can invest elsewhere? When business has less money, they hire fewer employees. Small businesses typically run a S corporations. A business making 250,000 (which isn't a lot of money for a healthy business) will be taxed at a higher rate. Pay more taxes, hire fewer people. It's not rocket science. According to IRS data, two-thirds of small business profits are earned in households making at least $250,000 per year -- those same households in the crosshairs of the Obama-Biden tax plan. By the Obama-Biden campaign's own admission, this tax rate would approach 50 percent.

Before you jump all over people you need to study the issues. Vote for whoever you like, as will I. I can't speak for Marion but I'm offended that you would just dismiss someone out of hand as a non-Christian without knowing anything about them.

[cynematic]

Linda, Marion: Let's look at it the other way. Maybe you can help me wrap my mind around the McCain $5,000 tax credit for health care.

Now, when a lot of very poor people are also badly educated and time-crunched, do you think they spend lots of effort figuring out all the sections and subsections of the Form 1040 when they could just as easily fill out the 1040EZ? That is, if they're required to pay taxes at all?

So I'm just not seeing how low-income people, many of whom are already wrestling with other parts of government bureaucracy for Social Security, disability, WIC or other benefits, will have the time, money or wherewithal to sit down with their accountant at H.R. Block and get those tax credits added to their bottom line.

I'm no expert on taxes, but you, Linda, seem to have some aptitude for numbers. Maybe you could explain the McCain tax credit to me and how it'll be used by lower-middle and low-income people to buy family insurance coverage?

I'm not asking to be snide. I really want to know.

[Julie Pippert]

Linda,

Short sighted. That's what believing you aren't already paying for homelessness and health care is.

We already pay more for health care in this nation---to cover the uninsured---than other nations pay to provide health care for all. You want facts? Look at my health care article above, full of links.

Obama wants to make health insurance affordable so everyone has it. That's practical, and sound economically.

It's better than a city deciding between cutting costs on vaccinations or fixing potholes, and yes, that's what they are having to do right now.

Your solution to hunger is...give them guns and let them hunt?

I can't even address that reasonably. Sorry.

Yeah, if people end up unable to have housing, trust me, it's better that we do what we can to help them have a place to live. When you have a place to live and are healthy, you can get a job. When you get a job, you can provide for yourself.

Obama's plan is to get people to a self-sustainable place. I'm on board with that.

Doctors already have to treat you, especially in ERs, even if you are uninsured.

Who do you think pays for that?

Our system is broken. EVERYONE admits it.

How much better to get everyone covered so doctors, hospitals, companies, cities, you and I aren't eating that cost.

No, we aren't talking about your right to indulge yourself. We are talking about human rights, to survive. Those don't end when they hit me. They become my problem and my call to action to help when they impact me.

We're a society, not a loosely grouped bunch of fend for yourself Darwinistically-driven people.

At least I hope not.

You haven't read Obama's plan very well if you don't know about the tax exemptions for small businesses. Even ones earning $250,000. You've also missed the inducements to invest, especially domestically.

You're right---these plans are complicated, but the truth is not rocket science. The information you cited is incorrect. I'm sorry you've received bad data. I'm sure with the right data, you'll see the actual plan, which you may or may not agree with.

That's your right.

I've done nothing but study the issues and I will certainly challenge people who make assertions such as Marion did and will further challenge incorrect data.

Welcome to a new world, Linda, where progressives don't mind their manners to the point that we let misinformation run amuck and lie back and get trampled like a welcome mat. Welcome to a world where Republican assertions and every-man-for-himself philosophies are challenged.

[Linda Deevers]

The $5,000 tax credit doesn't make any sense to me either. Unless insurance coverage comes down in price, no one is buying family coverage for $5,000 except for catastrophic coverage. That's easily obtained for that kind of money.

I'm confident that the $5,000 as proposed will have no chance whatsoever through congress so I'm not worried about it passing. Neither side has a workable plan. McCain's proposal is just silly and won't go any where. Obama's plan is banking on convincing doctors and insurance companies lowering their prices for procedures and premiums. That's not likely to happen as long as we're all suing doctors, hospitals and insurance companies at record rates. We drive up the cost of doing business and then what, legislate lower prices? While at the same time require that companies pay for existing conditions? You don't need a degree in economics to realize that this makes no sense. Once an insurance company is required to pay for a new customer's long term preexisting condition, they just share that expense with all the other premium-paying customers.

Without changing the laws that encourage suing our care providers and allowing companies to compete against each other for good customers, we're not going to see any prices drop at all. This is not rocket science. The democrats will also tell you that the federal employees get great care at affordable prices and that's true - but it's subsidized by taxpayers.

Both major parties here need to hire a few economists and come up with some real answers. So far we're hearing tripe designed to get us emotionally charged to vote their guy. At the end of the day, we're going to be stuck with whoever we vote in, so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that one of these candidates' plan-of-the-day will have some sound economic basis. But I'm not holding my breath.

[Julie Pippert]

Linda, you make a good point about the lawsuits, but I believe with reform---such as allowing doctors adequate time with patients and ensuring that patient care decisions are left in the hands of medical professionals (and oh how I wish they'd move over to electronic records---we had that in MA and quality of care was so, so much better in my experience)---malpractice and negligence will decrease, and with it, lawsuits.

Obama's plan banks on an insurance exchange to drive down costs. The refund (which I admit I am skeptical about) counts on things such as electronic records.

A big part of medical costs is insurance, the complicated and undercovered as well as uncovered. if we fix that, it can help them lower costs.

When I moved to TX, which is basically the situation McCain's plan would create, it was cheaper for me to buy COBRA for a year out of MA than switch over to the health insurance my husband's employer offered...just because I was pregnant. Thanks to the deregulation and high exclusion situation here, my pregnancy was considered pre-existing and was not covered, at all.

How dangerous! So we did COBRA to protect my health and the baby's, and believe it or not, to save.

My concern is the new trend across the US of private practitioners refusing insurance and only accepting cash patients. Among access issues, this leaves an additional problem of experienced practitioners being only available to those who can afford out of pocket, and less experienced available for insured patients.

[Linda Deevers]

Julie, you sound like you have read Obama's site, as have I. There is a proposal for a capital gains exemption for investing in small companies - a good thing to be sure - but nothing about taxes on small, individually owned companies if they happen to make over $250,000. The sections on making college affordable are also lovely if only there was clarification on how all of this is going to paid for.

I didn't suggest that we just hand homeless people guns and let them hunt. I said that people have a right to eat. For people with low incomes that live in resource-rich areas, hunting is a way of life already and has been for centuries and beyond.

You sound like an intelligent person and you and I could get involved in a word-twisting match that would be quite entertaining. I recognize my responsibility as a human in society to help my fellow humans. I also respect that you feel it's someone else's right to take what you have because they're hungry and homeless. The net effect is the same - you give because you have to and I give because I want to. Either way, one less person has gone hungry.

I have no doubt that if we were to sit down over coffee that we'd have a lot in common. We're both giving people. We differ in that I choose to give and you don't seem to have any problem with people taking. I spend all day working on cases where people lie and cheat to get 'what the government owes them'. People use every loophole to try and get something for nothing. The running joke on blogs is how someone drives up to the welfare office for food stamps and then drives away - in their shiny new Escalade. Around here the vehicle of choice is the new Expedition but it's a real problem and not just a joke.

You show me a candidate that can inspire all of us to want to work together and willingly help each other and I'd vote for them in a New York minute. Neither of these candidates are inspiring at all. They're offering handouts and bribes for votes. Neither of them deserve our support. As I said, you vote for who you like and I'll do the same.

It's been a pleasure and I'll allow you the last word if you wish.

[cynematic]

Linda,
With regard to catastrophic coverage, that might be fine for a healthy 20-something in an entry level job, but what about kids who need well-baby and well-child preventative visits? Or moms who need prenatal checkups?

My guess is that catastrophic coverage is also useless if you have the ever-popular disqualifier of a "pre-existing" condition. Gee, I guess that's saying, "Sucks to be born with diabetes, autism, kidney disease, a heart defect, or come down with cancer at an inopportune time." I'm still boggled, as Julie has testified, that some insurers consider pregnancy a "pre-existing" condition. Crazy, huh?

You said:
"I'm confident that the $5,000 as proposed will have no chance whatsoever through congress so I'm not worried about it passing. Neither side has a workable plan. McCain's proposal is just silly and won't go any where. Obama's plan is banking on convincing doctors and insurance companies lowering their prices for procedures and premiums."

So, to clarify--the status quo is okay? With McCain's $5,000 tax credit we get, as you pointed out, an ineffectual/empty gesture that leaves the most vulnerable lacking coverage. With Obama we at least get the fighting chance, with a united Congress, to spread both risk and reward over a larger population.

Here's what I've been wondering. The "free market" failed spectacularly when the subprime and credit swap default bubbles popped. What if enormous health care profits (and related rising costs) are a similar bubble, propped up by lawyers who know how to drive a hard bargain against even rightful malpractice claims and know how to keep insurers from extending coverage? If the economy keeps going, doctors will have the top 10% wage earners of all Americans as paying clients (maybe several million people), and everyone else will be too poor/too jobless (and therefore uninsured) to visit a doctor. That's living off the top of the pyramid that seems unsustainable to me.

Or look at how the "free market" has bloated wasteful spending by private contractors to the Iraq war effort, like Halliburton, KBR, and others.

I think we're all coming around to the idea that, with banks at least, the "free market" is neither free nor capitalism when it requires hundreds of billion of dollars in taxpayer bailouts.

So maybe this is also a time to re-think whether it's good for citizens if the profit motive drives delivery of health care or is introduced in military endeavors.

I'd rather take my chances with expansion of coverage by an Obama administration which would demand regulation of health insurers in exchange for access to new markets, encourage preventative care through regular visits to a range of less expensive medical technician-providers, and negotiate on behalf of all of us for more reasonable drug prices.

And I don't rule out the role of churches in helping the needy. It's just that government should and can shoulder some of the burden too, don't you think? There's already Medicaid, Medicare, and SCHIP but they're clearly not covering enough people.

Churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques can't do it all alone. And try as hard they can, there'll be people they still cannot reach. I'll bet as a Christian the idea of our youngest and our oldest choosing between medicine or food sits poorly with you. That people in this wonderful country are still confronted with this choice today sits poorly with me, too. Maybe that's why I'm willing to give an Obama administration a chance--because status quo is oh-so-clearly not working.

[Wendy]

Hmm, I think these comments got a little sidetracked. :)

I have a donation challenge going on for my Blog Action Day post too. Love all the more personal posts on the topic here too. Huzzah for Momocrats!