PBS: Are Americans a Stingy Lot of People?

[daredtowork]

73. Thank you

I'm pretty pathetic at that myself since I don't use facebook or twitter at all. I have very mixed feelings about putting my name on anything since I would prefer to stay "off the grid" all together. But there are also very few "insiders" who can explain this situation. I think the main reason you haven't heard a ton about it already are that people are so terrified of the arbitrary elements of the system that they are afraid that if they say anything they will get cut off, or at least get entangled in months of bureaucracy while their sole source of food/rent his held up -sort of what's happened to me here. And that goes double for areas that where there is strong suspicion of bureaucratic corruption (again, Oakland...).

In a way the Affordable Care Act also created the option to expose these situations because the possibility of dealing with your disabilities via the health care system instead of just steadily becoming more and more disabled means that there is a path out of welfare, and thus there's more of an option to say, "Well, I can let people know what happened as I slam the door on my way out."

I would like to say that was my story, but as you can see from my sig, Social Services knee-capped me for even TRYING to work. And right now I'm so busy tearing my hear out over the Medi-Cal situation, it's hard to focus on anything else.