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There's two ways to become eligible. A. Program based (enrolled in Medi-cal, SSI, Food stamp program. (These programs are not easy to qualify for.) B. Income

There's two ways to become eligible. A. Program based (enrolled in Medi-cal, SSI, Food stamp program. (These programs are not easy to qualify for.) B. Income based (1-2 household: can't make more than 25,900. That includes all income, including gifts. If you have 10 family members you can make $74,900. I don't think it's "so lax". They credit a little under $10 bucks a month. So it's a landline, or a lousy cell phone. You still end up paying the rest of the bill. It's not free. (The cell phone providers take the subsidy hoping/praying the customer will go over their credit. "Then we can bill the lousey service!" I can't imagine a internet provider service for that less than $10 credit. (There must be a catch?) People complain about the free phones some poor poeople get. It's a horrid cell phone. If you qualify, get the landline, and it's only for local calls. These days government programs know a lot about households. The Internet has stopped a lot of the fraud. People are very poor, but so many Americans believe the poor are cheating in some way? Those days are kinda over. Big brother knows everything--yea! The Rebublicans stil believe the slackers are cheating the system. Sad.

jacobolus 10y ago
There are some folks cheating the system like those right-wing militia ranchers who “adopt” dozens of orphaned children and then make them do hard labor, while collecting state support for it.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  This sounds about as real as the "welfare queens driving Cadillacs" myth.
  - jacobolus 10y ago
    e.g. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/get-the-government-s-hands-off-my-foster-kid-subsidies http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/get-the-government-s-han... Obviously this isn’t a widespread problem though, and should be dealt with on a case by case basis.
hermannj314 10y ago
> That includes all income, including gifts. Many who make claims of poverty can be disengenuous. Income generally excludes non-cash payments from other government programs. You "make" 25,900 a year and get to keep claiming poverty after free healthcare, free housing, free food, free daycare, free internet, free bus transit, etc. It is the way it calculated, but most of these "poor" live very good lives significantly in excess of their paper poverty. Sometimes far better lives than those making just enough to not qualify for government assistance at all. This happens in my midwest suburb commonly. It is an unfortunate side effect, more for the middle class than for the poor.
- technofiend 10y ago
  I've been so poor I had to try out that "free healthcare" and it nearly killed me. It may be free in the sense of little or no monetary cost but if anyone has a mental image of gleaming hospitals full of doctors waiting to serve patients they are sadly mistaken. Patients are forced to trade time instead of money for their healthcare, assuming they can get it all. When you are forced into the bottom tier of the medical system you're competing with every other patient with a complaint from constipation to gunshot wounds. These hospitals do not have unlimited resources and triage patients based on need. The result is someone like me who had an upper respiratory infection slowly getting worse and turning into pneumonia can sit for a day or two in the emergency room waiting for a shot. I don't know if you're ever had a full blown case of pneumonia but as someone who did and still has scarring in their lungs it's no joke. You slowly drown from the buildup in your lungs and there's nothing you can do but hope the antibiotics outrace the infection before you can no longer breathe. Does sitting around Ben Taub Hospital in a plastic chair for more than a day sound like "living a pretty good life" to you? I assure you, it is not.
  - hermannj314 10y ago
    I think you think I was making an argument I didnt make. I am not claiming free healthcare is of equal quality to any other healthcare, and I am sorry your experience was so shitty.

jacobolus 10y ago

There are some folks cheating the system like those right-wing militia ranchers who “adopt” dozens of orphaned children and then make them do hard labor, while collecting state support for it.

enraged_camel 10y ago
This sounds about as real as the "welfare queens driving Cadillacs" myth.
- jacobolus 10y ago
  e.g. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/get-the-government-s-hands-off-my-foster-kid-subsidies http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/get-the-government-s-han... Obviously this isn’t a widespread problem though, and should be dealt with on a case by case basis.

hermannj314 10y ago

> That includes all income, including gifts. Many who make claims of poverty can be disengenuous. Income generally excludes non-cash payments from other government programs. You "make" 25,900 a year and get to keep claiming poverty after free healthcare, free housing, free food, free daycare, free internet, free bus transit, etc. It is the way it calculated, but most of these "poor" live very good lives significantly in excess of their paper poverty. Sometimes far better lives than those making just enough to not qualify for government assistance at all. This happens in my midwest suburb commonly. It is an unfortunate side effect, more for the middle class than for the poor.

technofiend 10y ago
I've been so poor I had to try out that "free healthcare" and it nearly killed me. It may be free in the sense of little or no monetary cost but if anyone has a mental image of gleaming hospitals full of doctors waiting to serve patients they are sadly mistaken. Patients are forced to trade time instead of money for their healthcare, assuming they can get it all. When you are forced into the bottom tier of the medical system you're competing with every other patient with a complaint from constipation to gunshot wounds. These hospitals do not have unlimited resources and triage patients based on need. The result is someone like me who had an upper respiratory infection slowly getting worse and turning into pneumonia can sit for a day or two in the emergency room waiting for a shot. I don't know if you're ever had a full blown case of pneumonia but as someone who did and still has scarring in their lungs it's no joke. You slowly drown from the buildup in your lungs and there's nothing you can do but hope the antibiotics outrace the infection before you can no longer breathe. Does sitting around Ben Taub Hospital in a plastic chair for more than a day sound like "living a pretty good life" to you? I assure you, it is not.
- hermannj314 10y ago
  I think you think I was making an argument I didnt make. I am not claiming free healthcare is of equal quality to any other healthcare, and I am sorry your experience was so shitty.