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I feel like the biggest thing the US could do is remove means-testing from our disability aid programs. Means testing usually does not feel like an effective wa

I feel like the biggest thing the US could do is remove means-testing from our disability aid programs. Means testing usually does not feel like an effective way to distribute services. I want millionaires to be using government aid to help their children: just like with free education, when everyone who needs help uses it, the richer parents will demand, and ensure we pay for, higher quality for all. Everyone who is currently able to can all just pay a bit more in taxes to cover everyone’s accessibility and aid needs. I don’t want it to be possible for a child’s needs not to be met just because the state thinks the child’s family has too much money. Aid services should be treated like sidewalks and fire departments: almost everyone is going to need them at some point, why would you want to make it difficult to access?

cogman10 3y ago
At very least, it'd be nice if the means tests were tied to inflation rather than being increased based on congressional whims. I'm certainly pro universal health care, it would GREATLY simplify mine and my son's life. Private insurance is simply garbage when it comes to services for people with disabilities. With that in place, a much simpler trust system would work for my kid. It wouldn't be this complex system of checks to make sure they stick in line with current legislation standards. I wouldn't have to spend a large chunk of my child's funds on lawyers and trust administrators just to ensure legal compliance. I could cover basically all my kids needs other than medical, that stuff is just too expensive for anyone to afford.
zer8k 3y ago
> I feel like the biggest thing the US could do is remove means-testing from our disability aid programs. The problem isn't the means testing the problem is it's applied with broad strokes like all well meaning but inevitably awful government work. First, everyone pays into disability. So everyone should be able to get their share when necessary. Second, means testing includes things like housing, retirement accounts (which will be penalized severely if accessed), assets, and other things than just raw cash available. Just having a half decent computer is enough to make you fail means testing. So people who are on disability are almost universally forced to be poor. Don't try to hide your assets either. Shifting money/assets/etc to a family memory will still disqualify you. In a practical sense we also need to prevent the exploitation of disability programs. For example, self-inflicted disability (morbid obesity for example) should be subject to a different test of means than birth defects. If you're only disabled because you eat too much and can't be bothered to exercise I question whether you're actually disabled. Every "class" of disability is not equal and so we shouldn't treat them exactly the same. But, like all things, because the government runs it disabilities must be treated this way and as a result everyone suffers.
- mgkimsal 3y ago
  > If you're only disabled because you eat too much and can't be bothered to exercise I question whether you're actually disabled. Perhaps there's a distinction between chronic/permanent disabilities and transient disabilities? If I'm obese to the point where I can't walk, I am, indeed, disabled, but don't necessarily have to be for the next 20 years. Diet/exercise/surgery/etc could all reduce the obesity, but in the immediate 'now', I'm disabled and need assistance.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    There's a reason you have to requalify every three years.
    - mgkimsal 3y ago
      Well there you go. I’m not intimately versed in the specifics. Thanks for clarifying.
- cogman10 3y ago
  > For example, self-inflicted disability (morbid obesity for example) should be subject to a different test of means than birth defects. I don't really agree with this. First, I don't see "abuse" of the system being a major problem that needs to be defended against. If someone wants to destroy their future health by Homering, let 'em. They aren't extending their life by eating themselves to death. But even if that's the concern, I'm pretty sure we could circumvent a lot of those issues simply by subsidizing disability causing conditions (such as building/maintaining public gyms). We can prevent people from getting there in the first place which would greatly reduce the problem of "abuse". Strong means tests are expensive to run and ultimately will filter out people that actually need assistance. If we are going to apply a social filter, I'd rather side with letting those that don't deserve it in than keeping those that deserve it out. This is born out with homelessness studies. Applying sobriety or religious tests before sheltering the homeless ultimately keeps people homeless. Housing first, on the other hand, has a tendency to make people sober.
mgkimsal 3y ago
> I want millionaires to be using government aid to help their children: just like with free education, when everyone who needs help uses it, the richer parents will demand, and ensure we pay for, higher quality for all. Beautifully summed up. I don't want people to have to impoverish themselves, burning through entire life savings, to 'qualify' for small assistance. IME, it reinforces a 'why bother trying' attitude amongst people struggling on the lower end, and reinforces an 'I got mine, I'll protect it at all costs' attitude from people who've managed to save more. Money saved from reducing means-testing from the administration of benefits/services might not be massive, but it would be a move towards "more efficiency", something many folks claim to value/support.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  I don't really see that working. The rich might use the government benefits to the extent they exist, but they will always have the option of paying more privately, or buying additional private insurance, etc. You see this every day in public school, where the more well-off families pay for math tutors or extra coaching or other out-of-school opportunities for their kids.
  - WorldMaker 3y ago
    That's the point though. The rich already have all the benefits, plus more, but we also make the poor spend a lot of time, money, effort, and stress on "proving" they are poor to get the baseline benefits just so the rich "can't" use them (even though the truly rich have access to better and more services). If the rich already have plenty of access to stuff why are we forcing the poor to go through all these extra "proof" steps? Of course, rich people will cheat and take the 'free stuff" too (because they can, because many of them penny pinch too). So why not just make it for everyone and avoid all the tests and stress and administrative overhead of "prove you are poor to get this service"? (A very similar thing applies to things like public school "free lunch" programs. The poor have to do a bunch of paperwork to qualify every year and lots of real poor people fall through the cracks of the system because they miss the paperwork or get some small detail wrong. The rich are generally going to pack better, healthier lunches anyway, so in some cases the time and cost of that paperwork would be better spent on "free lunch for all" programs, even if that means a few rich kids get free lunch sometimes.)
red-iron-pine 3y ago
> I feel like the biggest thing the US could do is remove means-testing from our disability aid programs. Means testing usually does not feel like an effective way to distribute services. This was an argument for "libertarian" universal income. Huge government edifice which exists to determine who, where, and how aid is distributed. Much glad-handing, acrimony, and inefficiency. Just cut out the middle-man and cut everyone a check, or implement something like Richard Nixon almost did, the reverse income tax.
- cogman10 3y ago
  The issue with Univeral income is it's easy to dismantle or not fund. Let's say we set the level at $1k per month for everyone. Great, until it's 2050 and that level is still $1k. Without inflation adjustments it eventually turns into giving people the equivalent of a penny, only now there aren't other safety nets in place. But also, you'll have politicians saying "This is a huge cost to the government and everyone should just take care of themselves. So let's cut back the spending for people born in 2023". Just like they did with SS.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    >But also, you'll have politicians saying "This is a huge cost to the government and everyone should just take care of themselves. So let's cut back the spending for people born in 2023". Just like they did with SS. Yes, one of the most important parts of making a healthy, empathetic, caring, and functional society is removing those people from office.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > The issue with Univeral income is it's easy to dismantle or not fund. Completely the opposite. Because everyone gets it, lowering the funding requires you to fight everyone. The average income is moderately higher than median income, so the median person (i.e. the majority) receives more than they pay, even if it's funded with a flat tax. (Which also allows you to vastly simplify the tax system, because flat tax + UBI is progressive but requires much less privacy-invasive financial tracking than other forms of progressive taxation.) > Let's say we set the level at $1k per month for everyone. Great, until it's 2050 and that level is still $1k. So index it to inflation, or better yet, GDP per capita. > But also, you'll have politicians saying "This is a huge cost to the government and everyone should just take care of themselves. So let's cut back the spending for people born in 2023". Just like they did with SS. They only get away with that because the people born in 2023 wouldn't have received SS until ~2088, which doesn't concern their parents, and the infants are too young to put up any resistance. With a UBI, everyone gets it, and then every parent will object that they're cutting funding for children.
no_wizard 3y ago
Not to mention means testing can be used for discrimination Growing up one thing I realized was white privilege, for lack of a better term, was my families access to welfare programs. My father passed when I was young and my mom was left to raise us on our own. When he passed she made just barely above the poverty level, and you know what the government agent did? He fudged a couple things on the paper work and my mom got SSI and Medicaid for us until we turned 18. I’ve heard the hell non white families go through in similar situations in my home state and I don’t imagine they got that privilege
r00fus 3y ago
Exactly - universality is why Social Security and Medicare haven't been politically destroyed (yet) and remain the most popular public programs in the history of the US. Means testing is not only inimical to the concept of shared benefits, but it's actually expensive to perform the means-testing. And some people who should qualify don't get the benefits.

cogman10 3y ago

At very least, it'd be nice if the means tests were tied to inflation rather than being increased based on congressional whims. I'm certainly pro universal health care, it would GREATLY simplify mine and my son's life. Private insurance is simply garbage when it comes to services for people with disabilities. With that in place, a much simpler trust system would work for my kid. It wouldn't be this complex system of checks to make sure they stick in line with current legislation standards. I wouldn't have to spend a large chunk of my child's funds on lawyers and trust administrators just to ensure legal compliance. I could cover basically all my kids needs other than medical, that stuff is just too expensive for anyone to afford.

zer8k 3y ago

> I feel like the biggest thing the US could do is remove means-testing from our disability aid programs. The problem isn't the means testing the problem is it's applied with broad strokes like all well meaning but inevitably awful government work. First, everyone pays into disability. So everyone should be able to get their share when necessary. Second, means testing includes things like housing, retirement accounts (which will be penalized severely if accessed), assets, and other things than just raw cash available. Just having a half decent computer is enough to make you fail means testing. So people who are on disability are almost universally forced to be poor. Don't try to hide your assets either. Shifting money/assets/etc to a family memory will still disqualify you. In a practical sense we also need to prevent the exploitation of disability programs. For example, self-inflicted disability (morbid obesity for example) should be subject to a different test of means than birth defects. If you're only disabled because you eat too much and can't be bothered to exercise I question whether you're actually disabled. Every "class" of disability is not equal and so we shouldn't treat them exactly the same. But, like all things, because the government runs it disabilities must be treated this way and as a result everyone suffers.

mgkimsal 3y ago
> If you're only disabled because you eat too much and can't be bothered to exercise I question whether you're actually disabled. Perhaps there's a distinction between chronic/permanent disabilities and transient disabilities? If I'm obese to the point where I can't walk, I am, indeed, disabled, but don't necessarily have to be for the next 20 years. Diet/exercise/surgery/etc could all reduce the obesity, but in the immediate 'now', I'm disabled and need assistance.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  There's a reason you have to requalify every three years.
  - mgkimsal 3y ago
    Well there you go. I’m not intimately versed in the specifics. Thanks for clarifying.
cogman10 3y ago
> For example, self-inflicted disability (morbid obesity for example) should be subject to a different test of means than birth defects. I don't really agree with this. First, I don't see "abuse" of the system being a major problem that needs to be defended against. If someone wants to destroy their future health by Homering, let 'em. They aren't extending their life by eating themselves to death. But even if that's the concern, I'm pretty sure we could circumvent a lot of those issues simply by subsidizing disability causing conditions (such as building/maintaining public gyms). We can prevent people from getting there in the first place which would greatly reduce the problem of "abuse". Strong means tests are expensive to run and ultimately will filter out people that actually need assistance. If we are going to apply a social filter, I'd rather side with letting those that don't deserve it in than keeping those that deserve it out. This is born out with homelessness studies. Applying sobriety or religious tests before sheltering the homeless ultimately keeps people homeless. Housing first, on the other hand, has a tendency to make people sober.

mgkimsal 3y ago

> I want millionaires to be using government aid to help their children: just like with free education, when everyone who needs help uses it, the richer parents will demand, and ensure we pay for, higher quality for all. Beautifully summed up. I don't want people to have to impoverish themselves, burning through entire life savings, to 'qualify' for small assistance. IME, it reinforces a 'why bother trying' attitude amongst people struggling on the lower end, and reinforces an 'I got mine, I'll protect it at all costs' attitude from people who've managed to save more. Money saved from reducing means-testing from the administration of benefits/services might not be massive, but it would be a move towards "more efficiency", something many folks claim to value/support.

SoftTalker 3y ago
I don't really see that working. The rich might use the government benefits to the extent they exist, but they will always have the option of paying more privately, or buying additional private insurance, etc. You see this every day in public school, where the more well-off families pay for math tutors or extra coaching or other out-of-school opportunities for their kids.
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  That's the point though. The rich already have all the benefits, plus more, but we also make the poor spend a lot of time, money, effort, and stress on "proving" they are poor to get the baseline benefits just so the rich "can't" use them (even though the truly rich have access to better and more services). If the rich already have plenty of access to stuff why are we forcing the poor to go through all these extra "proof" steps? Of course, rich people will cheat and take the 'free stuff" too (because they can, because many of them penny pinch too). So why not just make it for everyone and avoid all the tests and stress and administrative overhead of "prove you are poor to get this service"? (A very similar thing applies to things like public school "free lunch" programs. The poor have to do a bunch of paperwork to qualify every year and lots of real poor people fall through the cracks of the system because they miss the paperwork or get some small detail wrong. The rich are generally going to pack better, healthier lunches anyway, so in some cases the time and cost of that paperwork would be better spent on "free lunch for all" programs, even if that means a few rich kids get free lunch sometimes.)

red-iron-pine 3y ago

> I feel like the biggest thing the US could do is remove means-testing from our disability aid programs. Means testing usually does not feel like an effective way to distribute services. This was an argument for "libertarian" universal income. Huge government edifice which exists to determine who, where, and how aid is distributed. Much glad-handing, acrimony, and inefficiency. Just cut out the middle-man and cut everyone a check, or implement something like Richard Nixon almost did, the reverse income tax.

cogman10 3y ago
The issue with Univeral income is it's easy to dismantle or not fund. Let's say we set the level at $1k per month for everyone. Great, until it's 2050 and that level is still $1k. Without inflation adjustments it eventually turns into giving people the equivalent of a penny, only now there aren't other safety nets in place. But also, you'll have politicians saying "This is a huge cost to the government and everyone should just take care of themselves. So let's cut back the spending for people born in 2023". Just like they did with SS.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >But also, you'll have politicians saying "This is a huge cost to the government and everyone should just take care of themselves. So let's cut back the spending for people born in 2023". Just like they did with SS. Yes, one of the most important parts of making a healthy, empathetic, caring, and functional society is removing those people from office.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > The issue with Univeral income is it's easy to dismantle or not fund. Completely the opposite. Because everyone gets it, lowering the funding requires you to fight everyone. The average income is moderately higher than median income, so the median person (i.e. the majority) receives more than they pay, even if it's funded with a flat tax. (Which also allows you to vastly simplify the tax system, because flat tax + UBI is progressive but requires much less privacy-invasive financial tracking than other forms of progressive taxation.) > Let's say we set the level at $1k per month for everyone. Great, until it's 2050 and that level is still $1k. So index it to inflation, or better yet, GDP per capita. > But also, you'll have politicians saying "This is a huge cost to the government and everyone should just take care of themselves. So let's cut back the spending for people born in 2023". Just like they did with SS. They only get away with that because the people born in 2023 wouldn't have received SS until ~2088, which doesn't concern their parents, and the infants are too young to put up any resistance. With a UBI, everyone gets it, and then every parent will object that they're cutting funding for children.

no_wizard 3y ago

Not to mention means testing can be used for discrimination Growing up one thing I realized was white privilege, for lack of a better term, was my families access to welfare programs. My father passed when I was young and my mom was left to raise us on our own. When he passed she made just barely above the poverty level, and you know what the government agent did? He fudged a couple things on the paper work and my mom got SSI and Medicaid for us until we turned 18. I’ve heard the hell non white families go through in similar situations in my home state and I don’t imagine they got that privilege

r00fus 3y ago

Exactly - universality is why Social Security and Medicare haven't been politically destroyed (yet) and remain the most popular public programs in the history of the US. Means testing is not only inimical to the concept of shared benefits, but it's actually expensive to perform the means-testing. And some people who should qualify don't get the benefits.