Reddit reviews $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America

Is there any proof that people on welfare are stupid? If you could please provide it, I would appreciate it.

Edit: it seems you lack a lot of understanding about people on welfare. I recommend you read a book called $2 A Day. It gives you a much better idea as to what many people go through, and how it isn't as simple as just finding a job to get out of welfare. Many people are born into much worse circumstances than you have been, and this doesn't automatically make them stupid. It does make you sound unintelligent though.

> I'm more than happy to compromise on reforming safety nets (that work better and are cheaper, such as a negative income tax)

I'll amend this to say I'm happy to compromise on reforming safety nets that work better and involve less government (which often means cheaper, but that's not necessarily the goal), such as negative income tax. I'd rather be free and poor than unfree and rich, I also happen to think that freedom and prosperity are closely related, if not in a causal relationship.

A negative income tax is superior to our complicated welfare system because (in order of importance to me):

1. it's objective (you report income, you receive benefits; there's no human making decisions)
   
2. it gets money to those that need it most (I recently read $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America, which studies the poorest Americans that the welfare system misses; why have a welfare program if it misses those who need help the most?)
   
3. it'll probably cost less
   
   I'm essentially willing to support anything that reduces the scope of the government, even if it increases taxes, though I'd prefer lower taxes. I think the government should be as limited as possible to maximize individual freedom first, and minimize cost second, and I'm willing to sacrifice the latter to get the former.
   
   > After watching this congress, I have zero hope we'll ever see free market healthcare
   
   I try to steer conversations away from who pays and focus on how much is being spent. I don't think it's worth pushing for repealing the ACA until we deal with regulations and whatnot that are driving costs up, but I do think repealing the individual mandate is an important part of it, so I guess I'm in favor of pushing for partial repeal, but only after fixing some of the other major problems.
   
   For example:
   
   

• reform or abolish the patent system: should drive down prescription costs
  
• abolish tax incentives to offer health insurance at work and require employers to offer the cash value of an offered plan to employees (will get more people using the free-ish insurance market we already have)
  
• potentially abolish group plans (not 100% sure on this one)
  
• limit the types of suits you can file against doctors so they can try innovative and risky procedures if you choose to
  
• require doctors to provide expected outcomes and expenses for a procedure before starting or recommending the procedure (works well in the laser eye surgery industry, so why not expand it?)
  
• remove any regulations that prevent doctors from opening a specialized clinic (e.g. a doctor that only does appendectomies)
  
• legalize marijuana and reschedule the remainder of recreational drugs to allow research and put them on a track to be legalized
  
• make birth control and other common medications available over the counter
  
• allow patients to elect for the generic versions of drugs in hospitals or to have any FDA approved alternative be used in the hospital (essentially abolish whatever "no outside food or drink" type regulations for hospitals)
  
  Etc, etc, etc. Even if we make healthcare universal or whatever, we'll still have these problems driving up costs, and it could even get worse since patients don't see the costs.
  
  We can make an immediate impact by enacting a few of the above, which will show people that opening up the market does drive down costs, and then we can use something like a Negative Income Tax to subsidize people who can't afford the current system (e.g. we can slowly erode the ACA subsidies with a cash based system). People like cash, so I think this could be an attractive solution.
  
  Like you said, it's not ideal from a libertarian standpoint, but it's far better than anything that's been proposed by either side of the aisle, and even has appeal to poor people (getting cash from the government is definitely a win over getting goods in kind).

> Safety nets only kick in when the market has failed people.

In an ideal world, sure, but in many cases they kick in when people have failed the market. In fact, many social programs are set up to keep people in the system instead of helping them get out of it. Check out $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America for examples of people that are completely missed by our current welfare systems. In short:

• employers are unwilling to gamble on people living in government housing
  
• most government services are not cash based, so individuals don't have cash to get better clothes or transportation for an interview
  
• many poor people live with others, so they have less need of some programs are more need of others, yet benefits aren't fungible
  
  If we are to have a useful social safety net, it needs to be partially, if not entirely, cash based. For example, I think we should replace Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Unemployment, etc with a Negative Income Tax, which should reduce costs and increase utility in those who are willing to apply themselves.
  
  > When America was great
  
  America is still great, why do you think it isn't? Sure, we have some problems, but our laws have so far prevented government from completely screwing things up. All we need is a reevalutaion of some key programs to make sure they're actually helping people that need it instead of helping the wealthy.