I read a comment on NT about punishing the people who expanded Medicaid and rewarding the people who didn't as it seems with the slim possibility of passing he GOP's healthcare plan that may never come to pass.  California was one of the states that would receive less money and that was considered punishment for expanding Medicaid.

I wonder if the thought ever occurred to these people of promoting and rewarding people who realized it is not always easy, but to try be successful is not to own a jet plane, but to be able to take care of oneself without having to depend on the government?

One out of three people in California is on Medicaid.  For some reason that doesn't sound like California is aiming the right direction.

Medicaid expansion basically covered the working poor.  Maybe their employers need to pay them more money so they can afford health insurance, or you should stop bitching.

Calexit sounds like a good deal to me.  California, the big blue welfare state!

If Cal exits, can West Virginia and Kentucky and Arkansas be far behind?

West Virginia percentage on Medicaid = .305 (558519/1831182)

Kentucky percentage on Medicaid = .282 (1254443/4436974)

Arkansas percentage on Medicaid = .305 (912920/2988248)

.309 for CA which is higher than those states you list.  That makes them a bigger welfare state than those you list.

Comment removed for skirting the CoC [ph]

You may have a future as an unintentional deadpan comedian.

That's your reply when your own numbers show CA is higher than the red states you cite?

The difference between .309 and .305 is four tenths of one percent. It is negligible as a percentage in this instance.

If you want to be taken seriously than make serious comments.

If you want to be taken seriously than make serious comments.

four tenths means 158,000 more people in CA.  That isn't significant?

It is the big blue welfare state!

The problem with California is that it's middle class has been leaving the state since the 90's. It's far too expensive for the average person to live there. At one time the tech industry lured high priced professionals from all over the world to CA. Those people are still there and help fuel the high cost of living as does high taxes and high property prices. On the other hand CA has had a steady stream of immigration from those born outside the country - a full 25% of those living in CA were born outside the US. Those are the people who provide the cheap labor for the Imperial Valley & the states agriculture & service sectors. California is very generous to it's immigrant population. The price of health care has gone up, tax structures & budgets have become unpredictable, State debt has increased, crime is up and K-12 education ranks very low. What you have is a state of extremes, top heavy with professional people and overcrowded with the working poor - sort of a combination of MA & Mississippi.

So California as it exists now is unsustainable.

Half of the people with jobs in the US make approximately 30,000 dollars per year (or less) . Since that figure is the median, and thus the top of the bottom half, we can safely assume there is a large percentage of working Americans who make a lot less.

Do you think someone can realistically afford to provide health insurance for their family with a $30,000 a year salary?

These are the costs of having a country and an economic system that allows people to become billionaires. You don't want people on welfare? Then pay them more than 10 dollars an hour.

If you don't want to do that, then be quiet about it.

We have picked up a lot of new immigrants from CA and IL.  Leaving the big blue high tax states.

Do you think someone can realistically afford to provide health insurance for their family with a $30,000 a year salary?

So according to your own figures, the other half of the working population will have to pay health insurance for half of the working population. That simply does not work, even with economics as taught at UC Berkeley! 

These are the costs of having a country and an economic system that allows people to become billionaires. 

Sounds like Bernie Sanders logic. Even if we go to a completely Socialist system and the wealthy are stripped of all their possessions, it will not pay for a national health care system burdened with medical care for 50% of the working population and once we have taken their money - then what?

Do we just keep taking every one else's meager savings and pass it around?

Universal health care would be paid for by a progressive tax on income , along with bringing the cost of US care in line with the rest of the world. Every advanced country in the world has some form of universal health care except the US. Do you seriously think this can go on forever?

Universal health care would be paid for by a progressive tax on income , along with bringing the cost of US care in line with the rest of the world.

Would be?

Currently, Obamacare is being funded by tax payer dollars, which are massive bailouts for insurance companies

Every advanced country in the world has some form of universal health care except the US.

The countries you are referring to are Socialist countries that CONTROL MEDICAL COSTS!

If you want to socialize the Medical sector and impose strict cost controls to Pharmaceutical companies ect, I'm with you, but if you want to allow the Medical sector to continue in the wide open free enterprise mode while the US taxpayer picks up the bill - I'm against you - It will break this country!

If you want to socialize the Medical sector and impose strict cost controls to Pharmaceutical companies ect, I'm with you,

I hope you wouldn't be with him Vic, since that would also include enslaving those in the medical profession.  Doctors would work where told, for whatever compensation the government chooses to pay them.  When the doctors decided to say to hell with it and go elsewhere, their passports would be revoked and they would be sent to "reeducation" camps until they accepted that their income actually belonged to the state. 

This actually happened to businessmen, military officers and those with assets during the 1920,s after the Soviet Union was formed and they were forced to flee Russia.  Most of those who tried going back were not, however, sent to the concentration camps.  They were simply shoved in front of walls and shot.  This is how Socialists deal with those who have a dime more than they do; enslave them or kill them.  It's also why no Socialist can ever be trusted with power of any kind; they will abuse it.

Doctors would work where told, for whatever compensation the government chooses to pay them

I believe that those who administer health care, medicare & medicaid should be able to negotiate price with doctors & health care providers. I understand your concern - doctors are currently fleeing the system, but I think you would agree that if health care is a right - doctors cant simply charge whatever they want. The other problems are big pharma - which really needs price control, and medical malpractice, which needs reform.

Do you think that would be too much to ask for a country in which medical care & prescriptions are becoming so expensive?

This actually happened to businessmen, military officers and those with assets during the 1920,s after the Soviet Union was formed and they were forced to flee Russia. 

I'm not advocating for a Communist solution

When the doctors decided to say to hell with it and go elsewhere, their passports would be revoked and they would be sent to "reeducation" camps until they accepted that their income actually belonged to the state. 

This actually happened to businessmen, military officers and those with assets during the 1920,s after the Soviet Union was formed and they were forced to flee Russia.

lol

Universal health care would be paid for by a progressive tax on income

Until the cost of healthcare is dealt with nothing will get any better, only worst.  I don't care if you go back to health insurance before Obamacare or have single payer health care.

The cost is going up and the numbers who are qualifying for coverage without having to pay anything is nothing more than a redistribution of wealth and personally, most of those who end up paying the tab don't really have the money to spare.

Of course cost needs to be addressed. People should not get rich providing health care, other than maybe a few doctors.

Do firemen or police personnel get rich? Health care should be a public service like that. Take the profit out of administrating health care.

Of course cost needs to be addressed. People should not get rich providing health care, other than maybe a few doctors.

Do firemen or police personnel get rich? Health care should be a public service like that. Take the profit out of administrating health care.

Not that doctors should get rich but police and fireman don't take out over $200,000 in loans for a post graduate education (that's in addition to undergraduate costs), train for four additional years after medical school, and be subject to malpractice lawsuits. 

These are the costs of having a country and an economic system that allows people to become billionaires. You don't want people on welfare? Then pay them more than 10 dollars an hour.

John, I find that a ridiculous statement.  The cost for having a country that motivates people to make 10 dollars an hour is one of the biggest problems this country has in my opinion.  California has taken on more than it can pay out.

John, I find that a ridiculous statement. The cost for having a country that motivates people to make 10 dollars an hour is one of the biggest problems this country has in my opinion. California has taken on more than it can pay out.

What I'm seeing is an increase in automation to eliminate workers altogether rather than an increase in wages. Businesses (like Burger King) are moving to using a machine for transactions instead of a cashier. 

Six, there will always people making the lowest wages. It is a fact of life. Right now we have wages that are so low because we want more millionaires and billionaires. If they dont want to pay people a wage people can pay for insurance on, then dont complain about obamacare or medicaid.

Six, there will always people making the lowest wages. It is a fact of life. Right now we have wages that are so low because we want more millionaires and billionaires.

John, I agree there will always be people making the lowest wages, but it's not because we want to make more millionaires and billionaires in my opinion.

Think about it, when you were growing up and the first job you had.  Did you have to compete with a 40 or 50 year old man or woman?  Most people who have these 10 an hour jobs are the young people or the people who have little ambition to improve their lives.  Now that is one of the problems and we're always going to have those people without any ambition.

As I said having these people will always be with us, but until we address the cost of healthcare from some creative ideas, we will never improve our situation.  The more the government gets involved in our affairs the less likely it is for us to come to a solution as the only thing they will be discussing is how much money can we allot to our healthcare this year.  Creative ideas to deal with it will be the furthest thing from those who govern minds.

It will still be who's going to give us the most ice cream and continue to lead us down a path to unreserved restraint.

If California is the world's sixth largest economy, then there's something seriously wrong with one in three Californians on Medicaid. My recollection is that legal immigrants are using Medicaid at high rates but illegal aliens are also accessing it through emergency care. Illegal aliens can go into emergency rooms and the hospital provides service without asking legal status. Legal status only comes up after service is provided and, only then, when they are unable to provide a social security number. As I understand it, that expense is reimbursed through Medicaid. A lot of the expense is for mothers giving birth in an emergency room.

So, basically, we're incentivizing poor illegal aliens to sneak across the border and give birth to an anchor baby (at taxpayer expense), who then becomes an American citizen, who can then bring in poor relatives who can legally place an increased drain on the welfare system . . . a financial death spiral. 

If California is the world's sixth largest economy, then there's something seriously wrong with one in three Californians on Medicaid.

That get's my vote for best comment of the day. 

It came at the right time. Have a good day

Two-thirds of those on Medicaid are children, seniors or disabled

By   Dan Clark   on Wednesday, August 23rd, 2017 at 8:36 a.m.

Or, we could just go with Graham/Cassidy … and let's just fuck 'em all so the wealthy can get their tax cuts!

Or we can all go bankrupt trying to support the socialist state of California who's heart (and open border) is bigger than its wallet. 

Or we can all go bankrupt trying to support the socialist state of California who's heart (and open border) is bigger than its wallet.

I offered an idea or three on how we might address a real concern; your comment offers nothing but a dismissive response with no specifics regarding "bankruptcy".

'Undocumented' immigrants pay billions in taxes

There were roughly 11 million immigrants estimated to be in the U.S. illegally as of 2013, according to the report. And each and every state collects at least a few million dollars from tax payments made by such immigrants each year, ranging from Montana's $2.2 million to California's $3.2 billion.

"Regardless of the politically contentious nature of immigration reform, the data show undocumented immigrants greatly contribute to our nation's economy, not just in labor but also with tax dollars," Meg Wiehe, the institute's state tax policy director, said in a statement last week.

aol

Let's have a discussion … don't throw "popular" mischaracterizations at me. please.

Undocumented' Immigrants Pay Billions In Taxes.

And the only reason that it's to our benefit is because illegal aliens can't legally get tax deductions or welfare benefits (outside of emergency care). If they had a legal status, then they would be an enormous drain. In any event, since California has most of the illegal aliens, California should take solice in the fact that, although the state is sliding toward bankruptcy because they are paying out more than they take in, illegal aliens are a veritable cash cow in taxes (lol).

The average illegal alien costs about  $70,000 in services more than he generates in tax revenue. 

The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers

Key Findings

• Illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers about $113 billion a year at the federal, state and local level. The bulk of the costs — some $84 billion — are absorbed by state and local governments.
• The annual outlay that illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers is an average amount per native-headed household of $1,117. The fiscal impact per household varies considerably because the greatest share of the burden falls on state and local taxpayers whose burden depends on the size of the illegal alien population in that locality
• Education for the children of illegal aliens constitutes the single largest cost to taxpayers, at an annual price tag of nearly $52 billion. Nearly all of those costs are absorbed by state and local governments.
• At the federal level, about one-third of outlays are matched by tax collections from illegal aliens. At the state and local level, an average of less than 5 percent of the public costs associated with illegal immigration is recouped through taxes collected from illegal aliens. 
• Most illegal aliens do not pay income taxes. Among those who do, much of the revenues collected are refunded to the illegal aliens when they file tax returns. Many are also claiming tax credits resulting in payments from the U.S. Treasury.

Link

Q:  Do illegal immigrants cost $338.3 billion dollars a year? More than the Iraq war?

A:  A chain e-mail that makes this claim is loaded with errors and misleading assertions. Published studies vary widely but put the cost to government at a small fraction of that total.

FULL QUESTION

I wonder if much of this is true? Is this on your radar screen?

This is astounding and infuriating. Why isn’t this in the papers? Please read and pass it on.

FULL ANSWER

This chain e-mail has been forwarded to us by readers many times over the past year. The most recent version adds a new angle, claiming that the amount of money taxpayers spend on illegal immigrants would be enough to "stimulate the economy." But no matter the spin, the e-mail is rife with errors.

It also contains several red flags that should tip off readers that this is more bogus than believable. For one thing, the figures given don’t add up to a "whopping $338.3 billion dollars a year" spent on illegal immigrants in the U.S., as the e-mail claims.

The e-mail lists 14 claims about illegal immigrants, all of which were included in a longer list penned by anti-immigration activist   Frosty Wooldridge   and   published   on the conservative Web site NewswithViews.com on Jan. 22, 2007. Another NewswithViews columnist, Lynn Stuter, included Wooldridge’s list, with some updated links, in   an article   posted on April 15, 2008.

The source cited for at least nine of the items is either the conservative Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) or the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), both of which call for more restrictive immigration laws. CIS spokesman Bryan Griffith told us that he had never seen the e-mail but that he suspected something was out there because of occasional surges in traffic that forced him to rewrite Web pages. When told about the e-mail’s contents and conclusion of a $338.3 billion yearly cost, he responded that CIS "never said anything of the like and is not going to comment on a chain e-mail that is in no way scientific."

The e-mail also continually blurs the important distinction between legal and illegal immigrants – a sign of sloppy and untrustworthy work.

Summary

Because we’re gluttons for punishment, we’ve gone through each claim in turn and report on each in detail farther down. But here are a few highlights (or lowlights) of what we found:

• The e-mail includes a link to a CIS report that contradicts some of the e-mail’s own claims. The report found that illegal immigrant welfare use "tends to be very low." It also estimates the total federal net cost of households headed by illegal immigrants at under $10.4 billion, a small fraction of what this message claims.

• One "paper" that is cited is a non-peer-reviewed, non-scientific study that essentially fabricates a number for illegal immigrant criminals.
   

• Five of the links lead to transcripts of Lou Dobbs’ cable television show, which fulminates regularly against illegal immigration and is hardly a neutral source. Furthermore, in all instances, the e-mail then takes the original Dobbs reporting out of context.

So, how much do illegal immigrants cost federal, state and local governments in the U.S.? Estimates vary widely, and no consensus exists. The Urban Institute   put the net national cost  at $1.9 billion in 1992; a Rice University professor, whose work the Urban Institute criticized, said it was $19.3 billion in 1993. More recently,   a 2007 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office   examined 29 reports on state and local costs published over 15 years in an attempt to answer this question. CBO concluded that most of the estimates determined that illegal immigrants impose a net cost to state and local governments but "that impact is most likely modest." CBO said "no agreement exists as to the size of, or even the best way of measuring, that cost on a national level."

factcheck

There are many claims regarding the cost of illegal immigrants to the U.S. … I don't claim to know what the actual cost is … I posted the above to show that there is no shortage of claims … and some have been specifically refuted.

The cost of illegal aliens to the government should be the cost to deport them. When we have zero unemployment and nobody on welfare, then think about spending money on illegal aliens. Charity should begin at home.

Thanks for your comment Amac.  You know I agree with part of it.

After reading your comment and understanding your reasoning, I find it to be on topic.

Thank you, Six.

All of these statistics, articles, etc. just mean.....

CA is well aware that their open border thingy is the primary reason why they can't sustain themselves.  They, also, know that people move there for opportunity and, really, there isn't any.

Some people have to have help.  It doesn't mean they are lazy people, bad people, but not all of us can make the bucks to survive. 

I don't care what statistics you bring to the table.  Illegal immigrants do NOT contribute to our economy.  The state taxes they pay i.e. buying stuff does not balance out to a plus  when our state pays for their health insurance and, also, pays them X number of dollars to offset their insufficient income.  The ones who profit off of illegals are the construction people who pay them at the end of the day and don't claim it.  Or, the lawn care people or the domestics. 

IYO, perhaps, this is a mischaracterization, but is a fact in the Redneck Riviera. 

I don't care what statistics you bring to the table.

Clearly.

Again, I am not an advocate of illegal immigration … nor am I an advocate of disregarding inconvenient TRUTHS.

when our state pays for their health insurance

FACTS:

Most people in the following groups are eligible for coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace:

• U.S. citizens
• U.S. nationals
• Lawfully present immigrants

Find out more about other eligibility requirements for health coverage through the Marketplace.

Undocumented immigrants aren’t eligible to buy Marketplace health coverage, or for premium tax credits and other savings on Marketplace plans. But they may apply for coverage on behalf of documented individuals.

That doesn't stop them from getting the hand outs that they get.

Of course, they can't get marketplace coverage.  Duh!  But, they drain a County.  Lined up outside of Ecumenical Ministries, the Medicaid office and any other office that will give them help.

I am not for families going hungry or no place to live, but our own citizens are living on the streets hungry and no place to go. 

You should see the families that come through our Church doors.  So, don't tell me about how much they contribute to society. 

That doesn't stop them from getting the hand outs that they get.

Of course, they can't get marketplace coverage.  Duh! 

You changed your argument … DUH! Yourself.

No, duh, you. lol

I want to thank everyone who has commented on this article and have kept it civil.  You will know I'm moderating it because everyone gets a thumbs up from me if I read their comment on an article I've put up, not because I necessarily like the comment, but because we all need to moderate our articles as much as we can. 

Unfortunately I am somewhat handicapped in this as I may put an article up and have to go to work, so I'm thinking of a possible solution to that problem if you will.  I suggest if we have an article posted and it isn't flying off the front page like a fart in a windstorm, maybe we could have someone accept the responsibility to moderate it until we're available to do it ourselves.  If they have to leave, then they would find someone to moderate it.

Nothing worse than a locked article you would like to comment on, but the seeder has it locked.  I understand this and some people would rather moderate their own articles all the time, but that isn't always feasible, so just a suggestion.

If you're going to get a COC violation, get it with a little humor attached to it and not with the snarling of teeth.