#means testing

[liberalsarecool]

'Means test' is conservative cruelty. Cutting funds, programs, and assistance for the most deserving of care/stability is the religion of the Right. Punch down. Think small. Act small.

[odinsblog]

If Republicans in Congress cut federal funding for Medicaid expansion MILLIONS could lose access to health care.

Republicans are coming after Social Security.

Keep moving. Nothing to see here. Medicaid (and eventually Medicare, and Social Security) are totally safe — as long as your conservative Republican governors decide that they wanna keep those programs.

Move along.

Absolutely nothing to see here. 👌

[thoughtportal]

[rainbowpopeworld]

Michael Sheen, as Nye, arguing for a social safety net and against austerity

This is the second clip I recorded because these are the exact same issues which we are still facing.

A scene that takes place in Parliament. Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, played by Michael Sheen, is speaking against austerity and advocating that the government should help people and not just large businesses. He asks all those present if they’ve ever been means tested- ever had to go through the indignities that struggling people have to to prove they need help, in order to get meager assistance, if any.

[fvckw4d]

People who insist on means testing drive me fucking crazy. "We don't want a rich person to benefit from the program." The public already pays for the wealthier to have social safety nets, not to mention the social safety net of BEING RICH. The difference is that they can hold that over the heads of employees, partners and family members. Get the right degree or I'll stop paying for your college. Stay at my job or I won't pay for your healthcare. And the higher middle class up doesn't use a lot of the things people wring their hands and fearmonger about anyway.

A good example is the self inflicted anxiety about rich people benefiting passively from free public transit. I've seen policy makers go "we don't want our richer citizens getting free fare." Rich people don't take the fucking bus. That's been cited as an issue before, that people who drive don't take the bus, so it doesn't cut down on carbon emissions to fund it. But we use taxes to make those people's highways and parking garages, we spend millions on scooters and rented bikes and subsidizing rideshare, we divert bus routes to places only college students and office workers go and away from the poorest neighborhoods, who often don't even have a stop near them.

And some of the biggest employers and schools and colleges ALREADY OFFER free fare to students and employees. They get sweetheart deals where they pay a bulk amount for non-means tested free public transit. It means the largest demographic of receivers of free fare aren't destitute citizens, but abused workers and college kids from out of town, who leave as soon as they can't get around the city for free anymore. It means your school or workplace can hold that over your head, which they regularly do.

If a city is already offering public transit to people without means testing just because an employer or college pays for it, and even then some people will have free fare and not fucking use it because public transit is so bad here or they still see it as beneath them, then maybe that's and indication of how we could fund it and who is already most affected by it not being free. I don't care if a rich person "accidentally" benefits from a system, it's a hell of a lot better than them EXCLUSIVELY benefiting from the system while people who actually need it are regularly disqualified because of a few dollars or paperwork they don't have time for.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Consider the remarkable concept of “lunch debt,” with which a student is burdened when their parents haven’t been able to put enough money into their school account. When they get to the front of the line in the cafeteria, they might be told that because of their debt, they can have only a jelly sandwich (no hot meal for you, Oliver Twist). In some cases, kids have been forced to wear stamps or wristbands so staff (and their peers) know who they are. How should we solve this problem? One option would be to take the already complex system through which children in public schools are fed and layer more complexity on top of it. Set up a few new means-tested programs, create funding streams that school districts can apply for, offer some grants. Or we could just give every kid lunch. And breakfast too, for those who want it. Imagine: Children just walking into the cafeteria and getting fed. No accounts that parents have to keep up, no time spent assessing families’ incomes or processing payments or running down parents who haven’t paid — no “lunch shaming” — none of that. Kids just eat.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Abdallah Fayyad at Vox:

In an ideal world, everyone who qualifies for an aid program ought to receive its benefits. But the reality is that this is often not the case. Before the pandemic, for example, nearly one-fifth of Americans who qualified for food stamps didn’t receive them. In fact, millions of Americans who are eligible for existing social welfare programs don’t receive all of the benefits they are entitled to.

[...] Means testing a given social program can have good intentions: Target spending toward the people who need it most. After all, if middle- or high-income people who can afford their groceries or rent get federal assistance in paying for those things, then wouldn’t there be less money to go around for the people who actually need it? The answer isn’t so straightforward.

How means testing can sabotage policy goals

Implementing strict eligibility requirements can be extremely tedious and have unintended consequences. For starters, let’s look at one of the main reasons lawmakers advocate for means testing: saving taxpayers’ money. But that’s not always what happens. “Though they’re usually framed as ways of curbing government spending, means-tested benefits are often more expensive to provide, on average, than universal benefits, simply because of the administrative support needed to vet and process applicants,” my colleague Li Zhou wrote in 2021. More than that, means testing reduces how effective antipoverty programs can be because a lot of people miss out on benefits. As Zhou points out, figuring out who qualifies for welfare takes a lot of work, both from the government and potential recipients who have to fill out onerous applications. The paperwork can be daunting and can discourage people from applying. It can also result in errors or delays that would easily be avoided if a program is universal.

There’s also the fact that creating an income threshold creates incentives for people to avoid advancing in their careers or take a higher-paying job. One woman I interviewed a few years ago, for example, told me that after she started a job as a medical assistant and lost access to benefits like food stamps, it became harder to make ends meet for her and her daughter. When lawmakers aggressively means test programs, people like her are often left behind, making it harder to transition out of poverty.

As a result, means testing can seriously limit a welfare program’s potential. According to a report by the Urban Institute, for example, the United States can reduce poverty by more than 30 percent just by ensuring that everyone who is eligible for an existing program receives its benefits. One way to do that is for lawmakers to make more welfare programs universal instead of means-tested.

Why universal programs are a better choice

There sometimes is an aversion to universal programs because they’re viewed as unnecessarily expensive. But universal programs are often the better choice because of one very simple fact: They are generally much easier and less expensive to administer. Two examples of this are some of the most popular social programs in the country: Social Security and Medicare. Universal programs might also create less division among taxpayers as to how their money ought to be spent. A lot of opposition to welfare programs comes from the fact that some people simply don’t want to pay for programs they don’t directly benefit from, so eliminating that as a factor can create more support for a given program. In 2023, following a handful of other states, Minnesota implemented a universal school meal program where all students get free meals. This was in response to the problems that arise when means testing goes too far. Across the country, students in public school pay for their meals depending on their family’s income. But this system has stigmatized students who get a free meal. According to one study, 42 percent of eligible families reported that their kids are less likely to eat their school meal because of the stigma around it.

Vox explores the idea of how more people could benefit from changes to welfare qualifications by making such programs universal instead of means-tested.

[lordnot]

I honestly don't get what the big deal is.

Listen: any Presidential candidate who demonstrates 60 days of taking a stand against arms sales to Israel while not spreading easily debunked propaganda about October 7th is eligible for my vote!

I would have thought the Kamala stans would be overjoyed!!

[bacchuschucklefuck]

couldnt draw my thang for mid-autumn so treated myself to a calne redesign instead

[thoughtportal]

so they're still going to charge me interest while they 'figure it out'

[starcurtain]

Comparing Aventurine's "Keeping Up With Star Rail" to Mydei's is so funny because

Ratio: 🥺👉👈 D-Does he like me?

Meanwhile...

Phainon: I would like to confirm, for the public record, that Mydei and I fuck.

[leo-fie]

Don't let the jokes along the lines of "Oh, you want my firstborn too?" fool you.

The amount of information social security wants from you, including all your contracts and deeds, everything you own and all your bank statements, year after year even if nothing changed, is an horrific invasion of privacy.

Means testing is not a good thing.

The logic of only giving to the deserving is inherently inhumane because it implies that people who are bad at paperwork don't deserve to live.

Means testing is often more expensive than if the state just gave to everyone.

It is designed to stress you out and grind you down, so you give up and go back to work. Neoliberal capitalism doesn't work without a substantial amount of desperate unemployed people, it can't have a functioning social welfare system.

[hinamie]

tiger lily

[kayatoastkkat]

hello tumblr isat fandom. pushes this in front of you and runs away

[kenchann]

my yuu doodles + enma yuuken

[aashiqeddiediaz]

you know what boils my blood.

over the last 2 weeks, i've seen countless patients walk into my urgent care center, symptomatic for so many things, refusing to get tested for covid and flu, citing that they don't want to knowingly bring it to their holiday tables. i had a patient tell me, verbatim, "i don't want to test for covid, because i don't want to be the asshole who brings it on a plane."

i understand that - i understand that holidays are times where people look forward to meeting loved ones that they might only see once a year, or where they get a break from the hectic back and forth of their lives.

but here's the thing - whether they get tested or not, they will bring whatever they have to their holiday tables. it's pure recklessness to know that you're sick, and walk into someone else's house spreading the disease.

today, january 2, i saw 91 patients, many of them who have tested positive for covid and flu. many of these patients are the same ones who didn't want testing 3 days ago, until their events were over, and now, they will have to reach out to everyone they know to let them know that they were positive because they were showing symptoms well before their event.

the next week or two? we're going to see many, many more, all people with symptoms that started around christmas. these are the only two viruses we test for rapidly in our office, but they are potent and can be fatal in many people.

so here's why i wrote this post, and maybe it's a little late, but - if you care about your loved ones, please get tested if you know you're sick. it doesn't have to be at a clinic if you don't want it to, because the over-the-counter tests work just fine too (if you test within 5-7 days of symptom onset). just...please don't try to run from the knowledge that you might have covid, because immunocompromised people, elderly people, people with co-morbidities like asthma, pregnancy, diabetes, etc...many of them may not recover. and they may not be sitting at your holiday table in the future because of it.