However, there are too many out there that are too lazy to work or find it more economically advantageous to continue to live off the public dole. There is also those that fit into the category of not willing to get their GED if they didn't finish high school, not willing to try and achieve anything beyond high school, or have had the opportunity for post-secondary education, yet choose to obtain a degree that isn't widely marketable for a job. Those that exist in the previous sentence are fine; that's freewill; that's you reap what you sow. However, that is a choice that you made and you shouldn't reap what I sow.

Jay, I think it's this that I really don't get. The assumption is that people in low wage jobs with no insurance aren't trying hard enough. Certainly, there are bonafide gold brickers out there. As long as humanity exists, there will be those who just don't bother to try. But the assumption appears to be that these types make up the majority of those on the dole in some form or other, or in low wage jobs. Are you truly saying that people who are stuck in the cycle of having to work 3 jobs just to put food on the table, let alone pay rent, aren't trying hard enough? If they don't have a high school diploma when are they supposed to go upgrade - on an all too rare lunch break? How about when their kids are home from school and baby sitters are too expensive? How about when they are trying to look after the disabled partner or parent, without the benefit of outside care workers because they cannot afford to pay for them? Are you really saying that people like this deserve to be without health care because they are in an impossible position?

Frankly, there are far too many rich kids out there who don't try to do anything but spend their parents' money, who never try to be useful members of society because they've never had to. They are more than a waste of space, because they have the opportunities but never avail themselves of them. Yet they get good healthcare because their rich parents can afford it, while the guy with no health insurance working those 3 lower than minimum wage jobs are less worthy because they aren't trying hard enough???

Or perhaps the guy on who can't work because of illness or injury, but is still fighting to get on disability, isn't worthy of good health care because he might be faking his symptoms.

Or let's go with the single mom with three kids who has a deadbeat husband who refuses to pay child support, let alone alimony, so she not only has to work multiple low wage jobs to make ends meet, but they don't give her health insurance and half her money is spent on baby sitters because one of them is a night job. Please don't tell me that this woman isn't deserving because she's not trying hard enough, or perhaps never completed her high school diploma.

I just hope folks in such instances can, at the very least, prioritize for spending of basic needs over discretionary items before such an occurrence occurs or that this is a rather infrequent occurrence.

Believe me, if you are the woman I described above, there are no discretionary items. What's more important, the food, or the appliance that allows the human waste from that food to be eliminated in a healthy and sanitary manner. Perhaps she should just forget the toilet and let it overflow all over her bathroom floor.

And are you really telling me that all university degrees that do not translate into an immediate high paying job are useless and people who go after those degrees are somehow not worth their salt? I prefer my version of the world, where people who go after arts and humanities degrees are as highly regarded as those who go after business or economics degrees (because those people with the economics degrees did such a great job with the world economy and the lack of regulation in the banking sector). Most people with those so-called 'useless' degrees do often end up in jobs completely unrelated to those degrees. Speaking specifically to people with arts degrees, from personal experience, they often end up doing the minimum wage or lower, back breaking, servitor type jobs while they try to pursue that which feeds the passion that sent them to university for that arts degree in the first place. I can't speak to the States, but I can say that in Canada, an out of work actor is not covered by EI and is not elligible for welfare; no starving artist is. Yet, the art they produce, whether through music, dance, painting or acting, is as integral to a fully rounded society as someone with a degree in commerce. And often, that art is produced while they are waiting tables for the upper 1% of society, or serving in an upscale boutique for spoiled women who wouldn't know how to put clothes on a hanger if their lives depended on it, let alone pick something up off the floor when they've dropped it there.

There's useless and there's useless. The truly useless are those who have every opportunity handed to them, but who don't even try to do anything with it. But that's a debate for another day.

Becareful of this type of broad-brushing, Jay, lest you spill paint on yourself. Because one day, you may find that you need help, and somebody is going to look down on you from a great height and tell you that you aren't worth it because you're just lazy and not really in need. And if this has already happened to you, I am truly sorry to hear it.

Warm hugs,

Kat

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
"Strictly Ballroom"