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Originally Posted by Elspode
I would agree that there is a certain segment of society that has figured out a way to do as little as possible and live off of the teat of social programs, and that's certainly their prerogative if they have no higher aspirations than that, and are able bodied and not mentally deficient. Our current social programs keep people from living as though the USA was a Third World Country, but not a lot more.
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I can only speak from my own experience of my patients and their families who are on public assistance. They all seem to have TVs and most of them have cable. There is usually at least one vehicle in the household. They have Section 8 housing, electricity, gas, running water, and no real incentive to get off public assistance. I honestly think that it would do these folks good to SEE the third world and find out what poverty actually is.
I'm not talking about the seriously mentally ill here ... "my patients" represent a very broad range of folks ... teens to seniors, some worried well, some just plain bad, some junkies, and some pretty much regular folks who have run into a bad patch.