Per USA Today:
Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand.
More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That’s up at least 17% since the recession began in December 2007.
….
The program has grown even before the new health care law adds about 16 million people, beginning in 2014. That has strained doctors. “Private physicians are already indicating that they’re at their limit,” says Dan Hawkins of the National Association of Community Health Centers.
I wrote recently about how Medicaid’s low reimbursement rates combined with rising enrollment will create long wait times and less access to medical care for Medicaid recipients. This problem will become much worse once Obamacare packs millions more into the already strained program.
On the bigger picture, I wrote more than two years ago about how much money is being invested in the “social safety net” here in North Carolina.
Thus, the current “social safety net” would be large enough for DHHS spending alone to provide the average recipient family of four with a check of nearly $22,000 every year. By comparison, the federal poverty guideline is $21,200 for a family of four.
The results from all these “anti-poverty” efforts?
From 2000 to 2005, DHHS spending totaled more than $50 billion, while at the same time the poverty rate in North Carolina increased from 11.7 percent to 14.9 percent.
And finally, some far-left, fringe leftists argue that an increase in government programs such as unemployment, Medicaid and food stamps serve as an economic stimulant and helps “create jobs.” So, given that Medicaid enrollment is up 17%, food stamp recipients are up 50%, and the number of people receiving unemployment benefits is up four-fold; where are all the jobs?
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