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Doctors Say Food Stamp Cuts Could Cause Higher Healthcare Costs
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Lauran Neergaard writes at the Christian Science Monitor that doctors are warning that if Congress cuts food stamps, the federal government could be socked with bigger health bills because over time the poor wind up seeking treatment in doctors' offices or hospitals as a result. 'If you're interested in saving health care costs, the dumbest thing you can do is cut nutrition,' says Dr. Deborah Frank of Boston Medical Center, who founded the Children's HealthWatch pediatric research institute. 'People don't make the hunger-health connection.' Food stamps feed 1 in 7 Americans and cost almost $80 billion a year, twice what it cost five years ago. The doctors' lobbying effort comes as Congress is working on a compromise farm bill that's certain to include food stamp cuts. Republicans want heftier reductions than do Democrats in yet another partisan battle over the government's role in helping poor Americans. Conservatives say the program spiraled out of control as the economy struggled and the costs are not sustainable. However research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts estimated that a cut of $2 billion a year in food stamps could trigger in an increase of $15 billion in medical costs (PDF) for over the next decade. Other research shows children from food-insecure families are 30 percent more likely to have been hospitalized for a range of illnesses. 'Food is medicine,' says Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern, who has led the Democrats' defense of the food stamp program. 'Critics focus almost exclusively on how much we spend, and I wish they understood that if we did this better, we could save a lot more money in health care costs.'"
Take out the choice
The department of Agriculture, which runs the Food Stamp Program, is tasked by law to make sure there is enough food for everyone and that everyone gets fed. Food stamps were born by order of the Supreme Court, not Congress.
I'm pretty sure you won't find much support for having DOA nannies standing at every dinner table to make sure everyone on food stamps eats their collard greens. I'm positive you would accomplish nothing with this approach.
There is no way you can supply food support while at the same time make sure that no budget shifting takes place. They money that might have gone for what people get for free on food stamps will be directed to other foods. Or what-ever. Food stamps were not intended to fix stupid. Just Hungry. You ALREADY can't buy beer on food stamps, stop trying to micromanage the program you apparently know nothing about.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
>The whole idea of paying farmers not to farm is wrong headed.
Yet another person who doesn't understand land and soil conversation, and the long term effects of farming on soil health.
I don't know the specific numbers, but food stamps / EBT is relatively easy to get, and the exact amount received monthly is calculated based on the income and size of the family. A family might only get $75 a month, for example. So saying that "1 in 7 Americans are poor enough that they wouldn't be able to feed themselves without government assistance" is certainly not the case, as many of the recipients are only getting a small amount to help supplement their food purchases.
A quick googling shows that the average amount received monthly is $133.08. Of course some families may receive several times that amount, and others much less. The maximum gross income for a family of 4 to receive any SNAP benefits is somewhere around $2,800. According to this online calculator, a family of 4 with an income of $2,800 would get $8 a month assistance. If the income is $2,500 it jumps up to $80 a month.
Better known as 318230.
I worked in one of those stores. A single mother of five is almost certainly better off not joining the staff.
She's starting 20 hours a week* at just above minimum wage. That's about $160 a week. Daycare for five kids destroys that. Since it's a big box store all associates are expected to open once a week and close once a week, and they really like to change the schedule every week so you have no clue whether you'll be home Tuesday night three weeks from now, which means she has no clue whether your eldest will need to babysit his brothers or he can agree to go to an Academic Games tournament.
In other words getting the job is going to make her a worse mother without bringing in anywhere near enough to pay the bills. The only reasons for her to take the job are a) it might convince some self-righteous asshole who inherited $500k and turned his hobby into a job in the State Senate that she's not one of Those People, allowing her to keep her government benefits longer, and b) it qualifies her for the Earned Income Credit at tax time.
The reason left-wing working-class black city councils tend to be anti-Walmart isn't that black people are stupid morons who've been brainwashed by hippies, it's that they've done this math.
*Cashiers at my store usually start at 10 hours, and cashier is the entry-level for almost all women who are hired in, so 20 hours is probably an exaggeration. Garden is the other way women get in, they only get 20-25 hours there, and it's not unusual for Corporate to decree that there's no budget to hire them permanently after six months.
>So we've doubled the amount of money we spend on food stamps and we have record numbers of Americans that rely on the government for their food.
Have you tried to reword that in the correct fashion?
We have record numbers of Americans that rely on the government for their food and have doubled the amount of money we spend on food stamps.
You also neglect that most of the people on food stamps ALSO HAVE A JOB.
You also neglect that the average household size on foodstamps is 2 and only a very small percentage of foodstamps households are over 4.
I'd go on debunking the rest of your 'talking points', but I'm not going to convince you of your ignorance on the matter, and you're not going to do any research to enlighten yourself on the matter.
80% of the bad loans were issued by financial institutions not even subject to the CRA.
http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insights/blog/archives/2008/09/community_reinv.html