The real status of welfare in the US

[punisa]

Was talking to a friend yesterday and she told me how I got it all wrong regarding the state of social benefits in the US.
According to my friend - US has huge social benefits for unemployed and free basic health care that virtually takes care for all of your needs.
Furthermore she bashed the black population for being extremely lazy simply because the social benefits are too high and thus they live of these benefits.

This rant stinks hard, but I have never been to the US (she has) and I'm in a lack of good solid arguments. Because I never imagined US being such a nice social state as she portrayed it.

If you could point me to some numbers and date regarding the topic, I'd be grateful.
Also, comment if you wish.

[The Douche]

Your friend is a racist and is parroting the racist comments of people to the right of mainstream US politics.

She is also flat out wrong, there is no basic health care coverage, nobody gets free healthcare in the US from the state unless they are a military veteran or over 68 years old.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I don't have any hard figures as such, but as someone lucky enough to be born in a more generous country, I can tell you she was talking complete bullshit.

If I remember correctly, federal unemployment benefits run out after a period of 99 weeks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99ers), and I suspect that the unemployment benefits offered by individual states, if any, are minimal or similarly limited. For comparison, there is no time limit on claiming Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) in the UK.

Also, the US Medicaid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid) program is nowhere near as generous or comprehensive as, say, the United Kingdom's National Health Service. While NHS services are free at the point of use for UK residents (with the exception of prescriptions for employed people, IIRC) and even some foreign nationals (such as EU residents), Medicare is a means-tested benefit where poverty alone is not enough for one to qualify. Although hospitals in the US are legally obligated to stabilise you if you have a life-threatening condition, what this means in actuality is that people who are simultaneously unable to get decent health insurance and who fail to qualify for Medicaid are limited in their options - especially when then the hospital presents its bill.

In addition, I've heard all sorts of health-related horror stories from US residents, about how their insurance companies refuse to pay for a particular course of treatment or how they could not get covered for "pre-existing conditions" such as being female. And that's from those people who can afford insurance in the first place. A lot of Americans cannot afford health insurance, but at the same time getting treatment on Medicaid, or applying for disability payments, is a bureaucratic nightmare.

In short, your friend is deluding herself with rightwing dittohead propaganda, and it seems likely that neither she nor the authors of the spew she's obviously swallowed have ever looked at the welfare and healthcare systems of other, more civilised countries.

[MarxSchmarx]

So with friends like these who needs enemies?

As far as sources go:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3726

e.g., this view ...

...taps into very old American notions of what distinguishes the deserving poor from the undeserving poor—trying to distinguish those people who are poor through no fault of their own, and therefore deserve our sympathy and our assistance, and all of those other people who are poor because they’re stupid, because they’re lazy, because they have too many babies.

[¿Que?]

Yeah, pretty much what everyone else has said. Here's a personal anecdote.

I used to work at a Medicaid call center and let me tell you, that was some of the most depressing shit I ever heard. It wasn't second hand information either. I was getting calls from people who were trying to get health coverage e.g. parents of children with cancer, homeless veterans with missing limbs and psychological problems, all sorts of shit. We weren't suppose to really talk to them or help them. 90% of the time we'd direct them to another government office, who would in turn send them to us. All I could do was listen to their stories and tell them that it would work itself out, although I would often get *****ed at for high call times, on account of the fact that many times, these people knew I couldn't help them, but they just wanted someone to listen. It was really sad.

Of course, the call center itself was outsourced to some private company, so technically I was not employed by the state. It was really really bad.