Evil. Just evil. Terminally ill patients can't work, they're on deaths door. If they don't get treatment, they are dead. Let's let the medical decisions be handled by doctors and not some politician.<p>Honestly things like this show me the President has to much power. There should be government agencies where no political party can touch it without significant oversight and approval from both the president and both houses of congress.<p>Medicare, Medicaid, FBI, FCC, FAA, The Fed, and more all should be outside admin control of the president and any single party or group of individuals. Only when you have a 2/3s majority of both the houses and the president should you be able to make such broad sweeping policy changes.
> Honestly things like this show me the President has to much power.<p>Not just the executive, but the federal government in general has way too much power. There are so many things that the federal government does which it wasn't meant to do, all justified by an extremely bad faith reading of the commerce clause. It is a significant source of problems for our nation, because it makes federal elections (and in particular the election for president) super high stakes for people. We would be much better off without the various perversions of the constitution that FDR pushed through, but I suspect there's no political will to walk it back (because people love getting money from the government).
Ok see what they’re doing - they’re taking a position that sounds (and mostly is) horrible. But they putting a poison pill for their opponents to consume: HIV patients have to work.<p>Thats common sense. People with HIV are usually able to work, and usually not terminally ill in the typical sense.<p>There are already comments defending the silly idea of HIV patients being excluded from work expectations: “if that’s the cost of a social safety net …”<p>That’s not the cost of a social safety net anywhere else in the world.<p>The current administration isn’t stupid. They know how get their opponents to freak out and say stupid things, and every stupid thing they say outweighs 100 reasonable things.<p>Be careful: work requirements are a mine field of helpfulness, good governance, and cruelty.
This is incredibly cruel, and not surprising at all.<p>On par with this administration- Goons pulled back because they're murdering innocent civilians at car stops? Chief goon steps up and says "put them back!"<p>Then he takes to the waves to instill fear and uncertainty in our election process.<p>Americans are being boiled alive, nice and slow- and a third of them love it!
I have what is ostensibly an incurable terminal cancer and i work, by my own choice, 40+ per week. I see no issue with making folks in similar positions show that they are in fact, too sick to work.<p>If an individual IS too sick to work it should be relatively simple to get the required documents to prove that fact. God know i had enough hospital social workers and doctors asking me if it wanted said documentation.
Maybe certain Kentucky Senators shouldn't be exempt from work requirements, then.
This just sounds cartoonishly evil
People have always suffered under the banality of indifferent evils. A blanket policy is bad policy. Ok, so what's the better solution?<p>ie I'm dead in 5 years from my conditions, so when should I be exempt?
The original title is:<p>> Trump Admin Argues Even Terminally Ill Patients Shouldn’t Be Exempt From Medicaid Work Requirements
The Cruelty Is the Point.<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/" rel="nofollow">https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelt...</a>
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> Are we supposed to accept the idea that an IV drug user sharing needles contracts HIV and they never have to work again even though they'll be getting medication which completely suppresses the virus and will leave a largely normal lifespan?<p>Is that the price of the “right” people being exempted? Then sure.<p>Also simply having HIV doesn’t mean you’re terminally ill.
Maybe your argument works for a few specific cases, what about those that do not meet that? What about someone with stage 4 cancer who needs radiation and will likely live a year or two longer without treatment? Without treatment they can't recover, without recovering they can't go to work; their body is literally dying.<p>With treatment they might be able to live, work and recover. That is what the article is saying. Without insurance people die from cancer. With insurance some people do not die. If we cut their insurance due to more red tape, we're condemning those to death.
The policy being argued exempts such people from the work requirement.<p>People who are not exempt can meet the work requirements through a variety of different activities from part-time work earning $580/month, or 80 hours through a combination of part-time work, volunteer work, and care giving to dependents.<p><a href="https://www.chcs.org/resource/a-summary-of-national-medicaid-work-requirements/" rel="nofollow">https://www.chcs.org/resource/a-summary-of-national-medicaid...</a>
They would meet the requirements to not have to work. Having nothing to do with terminally ill status and everything to do with the things you just listed. The article doesn't say anyone is proposing to change that.
Weird that you comment on rage bait and end your comment with the idea that this group of people are all a bunch of worthless drug users.
Medicaid defines terminally ill as under 6 months to live. So there's no risk of someone mooching off the system for decades.
Parkinson's lol do you know what that actually looks like? It's degenerative. In a country where only the poor are expected to do all the work, seems fair to me that when they cannot work, the state provides them at least a meagre allowance. What exactly should they do, waste away and starve to death? Pay for it with the money from some billionaire who doesn't work for a living
It all depends on how “a terminal diagnosis” is defined.<p>Is someone that is 30 years old, HIV positive, and on antiretrovirals with a low viral load considered a terminal diagnosis? HIV may end their life in 40 years but they’re clearly capable of working.<p>The article does say “medically frail” people are exempted, so Stage 4 pancreatic cancer would be enough to exempt someone from the rules, but where the line is drawn does matter.
Don't know why people downvote and flag your comment, vouched for it.<p>HN votes are a not designed to be "agree/disagree", they supposed to mark interesting comments that spark curiosity, even if I disagree with them. Your comment is the only one like that here.
pg and mods have stated that using votes as agree/disagree is perfectly fine.<p>Regardless, I don't think the GP comment was particularly interesting or insightful. First they complain the article is rage bait, and then end the comment with rage bait of their own. (Way to anchor "terminally ill person" as "junkie".)
Arigatou