Conservatives, this is what poverty looks like.

LOL. Great idea, except the insurance companies would scream bloody murder about that. It'd show them as the heartless bastards they really are. They wouldn't be able to hide.

Most insurance companies are private for the plain reason that as private corporations, they are not required to disclose their financials publicly. They can then play sort of fast and loose with what information they do release into the public.

I'm not denying it. I'm saying the corporation would have spent at least a few years fighting it before it got to jury trial, probably on that basis. It would have cost my mom a lot of time she didn't have between working and caring for me. The payoff would not have been worth that time.

 

It sounds like you've gone thru allot of adversity , along with you're mother. So being as polite as I can, I can honestly say what you've gone thru may resemble what poverty in America may be, but doesn't even come close to what real poverty around the world looks like.

 

But they have a mountain of regs on them. Lets switch it to repeal of much of the mountain, free up competition but get some meaningful truth in advertising requirements. After that I say who cares what they have to say? Their product can't be inspected at the time of purchase otherwise.

 

Except for giving depositions and directly testifying at trial which in total would maybe total 10 days, it wouldn't cost your mother any time. Whatever legal wranglings that go on between opposing counsel's, regardless of how many years, do not require time from the plaintiff. You are talking about 10 days for a settlement that would likely be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. There is no way you can claim that the payoff wouldn't have been worth the time.

 

Well first, your mom is awesome. She really did everything she could for you. She deserves no criticism. However, your story and HER story is not the largest proportion of what poverty is.

I've got poverty in the making within my relatives. A girl who lives with a guy that won't keep a job, and who eventually has a baby, finds out the guy is "messing around" and kicks him out. Then bringing him back in just in time to conceive another baby before kicking him out again. I hate to say it.....but that is the common way to get into poverty nowdays.

So your situation happens---I've seen that too. But what your mom went through doesn't drag down society when we help her. Its generational poverty that decays society.

What stops the cancer of poverty is children with two parents in a committed home. Good choices and good morals are key. But again...none of that was a factor with your mom.

Minimum wage allowed me to work with I was 17 and in high school. And it allowed me a flexable job while I was in collage. I love it---when teen age kids from my church land their first fast food, min wage job. Such an important step in their future. THAT is what minimum wage jobs are for---a starting place. Some jobs ARE NOT MEANT to support a family---and by forcing the issue you have unintended consequences....like blocking the jobs for someone else. Companies aren't going to hire an untried high schooler at a wage meant to support a family. They are going to choosy as heck....hiring people who plan to work a life time.

 

Yeah, and to find a lawyer that is that dedicated and good she would have had to have hunted around for a few months at least, Then of course, whatever the judgement is, the lawyer would have probably taken most of it. So I fail to see how it would have been any benefit.

Hell, I wasn't going to say this, because i know this is going to open me up to all sorts of flak from both sides but I don't care anymore. If I had a time machine and could go back in time to when my mom was pregnant, I would tell her to get an abortion and concentrate on having a good life for herself. Whether or not I was wanted or not, I would tell her to concentrate on her career.

I'm not sure how to go about that. I've never seen their regulations, but I tend to think that most of those regulations are in place to prevent the insurance companies from screwing their policyholders. I have zero faith in the insurance industry, and believe that above anything else should be nationalized. To me, it doesn't compute that a private business is able to dictate what someone else's health should be.

I know, many other countries are worse off than the United States, in fact most of them are. But, when you consider that we as a nation have the resources to practically solve all of these problems, but we don't because the people who have the money don't want to do it, there's something wrong. We aren't attacking the problems effectively. It seems coldhearted, but we should address the problems here at home before we do anything to help the rest of the world. If we get our own situation sorted out, we would have more resources to then devote to other countries.

Thank you for your kind words.

Yeah, nowadays, that is a more common way to end up in poverty. A lot of that comes down to youthful irresponsibility and not considering what a child means. Then again there's all sorts of deadbeats around. When people are becoming grandparents in their thirties there's something wrong. However, even though we can recognize there is something wrong, it is difficult to do something about it. I do not believe in legislating morality since it too often interferes with the right to privacy. I cannot reconcile my concept of personal liberty with the concept of precluding these individuals from doing that is something entirely consensual.

Birth control can still fail, and even with a 99.999% efficiency rate, in a population the size of the United States, let's just consider that there are 100 million sex acts in the United States each year, every sex act uses protection with an efficiency of 99.999%, that's still 100,000 failures per year. Abstinence, of course, has 100% efficiency at preventing pregnancy, but that's still not possible to mandate.

I remember seeing this one woman at the bus stop one day, she was gushing about how she was so happy she was going to be a grandmother. I could tell just by her voice and manner of speaking that she was somewhat mentally challenged. I wasn't talking to her because I was trying to figure out just how old she was. The picture that unfolded over the next five minutes of this woman talking was honestly shocking, and I don't get shocked by much. She had her daughter at 16 or 17, I honestly forget which. Her daughter was now 22, and had her fourth kid. Going off the simple math, her daughter had to have had her first kid as a teenager. I did the quick math, this woman was barely old enough to be President and she had four grandkids.

 

Im sure if your mother had that decision to make all over again, she would choose the EXACT same path. I don't think you should disrespect her choice, nor should you marginalize yourself. You seem to have carved out a nice life for yourself, and Im sure THAT is your mothers greatest pride and accomplishment in life.

 

Oh I have known grandmothers who weren't old enough to be President. To me it is just crazy to be a grandparent by the time one turns 30. Fortunately it is more the exception than the rule.

As for the bigger picture, we all have different lives, different experiences, and our own stories. A great many conservatives I know grew up relatively poor. I also suspect that one shouldn't take the left-right sniping from inflexible positions on message boards too personally. Sometimes it helps me at least to consider big picture issues that never/seldom gets said, but underpins even my own opinions. For instance, I believe that a lot of conservatives would be a lot less opposed to a great many programs if there were enforcement mechanisms that people could see or participate in so that there is the perception that fraud is being regularly and actively stopped. So if you say, 'Hey let's spend more money on food stamps" my response might very well be "Hey, let's not." even though I don't begrudge most people on it. I just might not perceive the need in relation to the cost and the presumed rewarding fraud more (though as long as it is actually spent on food, I wouldn't care if benefits were doubled).

 

That gets us into the inequities in the political system and how many Conservatives who grew up poor then are railroaded into supporting a party that prevents the issue of poverty from being adequately addressed. It happens on both sides though.

A lot of people don't get that the easiest way to reduce welfare dependence is to increase the income of the people on welfare through employment. Replace every dollar a person gets in welfare with a dollar from a job and you will see the economy better and the cost of welfare programs drop because they are not needed. Yes, it will cost the rich more, but they are already making more than they are taxed, since their largest income streams aren't considered income at all by the federal government.

I don't think the enforcement mechanisms need to be participated in by the general public either. The general public is no more intelligent on the issue of disability than the bureaucrats already in place.

I don't disrespect the choice. Though, I think if she had it to do over again, she still would have had me, that's how giving she is.

 

But you think a monopoly bureacracy should make health decisions for everyone?

Most insurance regs are to protect them from competition.

 

What you call inequities, others consider priorities. A poor person might be a Christian and that faith might mean more to them than a dollar an hour, so they align with the side that fights to preserve Christian values as opposed to the side that would be better for them economically who belittles their faith.

I'd much rather support something new or novel than more money into the same black hole. For instance, I would be okay with paying people some nominal wage like $16K a year to stay at home and take care of a verified disabled parent or grandparent than shuttle those folks into skilled care facilities. If you can keep them at home even a few extra months we will break even for the year.

You may not think that the general public should be involved, but I am more likely to know that the man up the street from me gets disability for his back but works off the books climbing and limbing trees, toting heavy blocks, or doing the things for a living he is not supposed to be capable of doing.

 

There's no rational reason why there shouldn't be a party that can have both Christian values and supports economic policies that are beneficial to the poor. In fact, other countries have parties that do exactly that. The only reason we don't is, as I have pointed out numerous times, we rely on the undemocratic first-past-the-post voting system. Having umbrella parties screws everyone except for the people that control the party, and the voters DON'T control the party.

I found a program in another state where the state would pay people to care for their disabled relatives, I am not sure if Wisconsin has a similar program though. Honestly, i am not sure if my mom would want to do that, she does value being able to have time away from Grandma to work.

Well, if you know for a fact that your neighbor is on disability for his back and is working off the books, then you can report him to the state agency and have them investigate. It is not your business to investigate, however.

 

I think it is because we have two branches in the legislature. If we had 3, there would be 3 parties. People as a group have this insane need for psychological symmetry. Starting from there, the two parties are too entrenched and suck in those small groups like a whirlpool, leaving them and their cause trapped because the other side will never support them once one side has tainted them. One would think that conservationist and environmentalist; farmers and childhood nutrition people; poor conservatives and poor liberals could find some common ground, but nope, you are with us or you are against us. You are a Hatfield or you are a McCoy.

 

The number of houses in a legislature has nothing to do with the number of parties in the government. It has everything to do with the electoral system of the government.

As Maurice Duverger established. First past the post systems generally tend toward two party systems. One party will form around a certain issue and if they get enough popular support across the population, their opponents must combine forces and compromise in order to have any chance at winning an election under the first-past-the-post system. Two party systems that rely solely on partisan matters to coalesce the two sides are inherently unstable. The only reason we have seen the same two parties in power for the past century and a half was because in the late 19th Century, the advent of big businesses treating campaigns as business matters gave the political parties a factor other than partisan matters or geographic ties with which to coalesce their support.

 

what do you mean not a factor? her mom chose to have sex and a kid out of wedlock with an unreliable guy

 

If only she had taken the time to notice the large "unreliable" tag on the dad beforehand. Sign.

 

First off, I'm a guy, Francine. I think I've told you that before.

Second off, my father was reliable, they were going to get married but for their incompatibility.

Thirdly, how do you not know the pregnancy wasn't the result of a broken condom?

 

Well, now that you put it that way, it wasn't - because you put it that way.

But regardless: why was your mom and dad putting themselves at risk for having a kid without having first figured out compatibility? Why should society pay for their refusal to be responsible?

- - - Updated - - -

I'm assuming you were shooting for a sigh there.

What I wonder is why would you support the idea of potentially having a child without also first ensuring that you'd have the means to protect and care for it?

 

My birthday is in late December, you do the math....

As I have said before, but for my medical conditions, I would not have been on any welfare program. The medical conditions were not the result of any congenital defect.

 

Um...was there a National Unprotected Sex Day in April or something?

 

I knew I shouldn't have let you do the math on your own, Republicans seem to suck at math....

Your math isn't that good, lol, mid-March, and what happens around the middle of that month?

 

National Bang Your Secretary Without a Condom Day?

 

you are a liberal, no abortion? obviously a high school educated girl getting pregnant on a promise was really smart

 

I guess I have to just spell it out for you. The guy in your avatar would have gotten it right away.

St. Patrick's Day is in mid March and just so happens to be roughly nine months before my birthday.

Read every one of my posts on this thread. I actually already answered your question. It's also worth noting that the job she was fired from while pregnant, that she would have kept but for the pregnancy with a disabled child, would have had her in the lower-middle class within five years. She made damn good money. I guess in your zeal to tell others what to do with their bodies, you forgot to read the posts on this thread.