The only people able to participate are those who can afford a digital movie camera. I have a very important question to ask the candidates about something most Americans do not know about - but will, the hard way.
The Federal Government in 1993 passed the Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA '93). It required states to recover money from families of the elderly and disabled who recieved assistance from the government for attendant care or nursing home care. What those individuals paid all the years of working into Social Security taxes does not matter. To recieve assistance individuals have to take a vow of poverty. They have to promise to never work and have no assetts except their homes, and live on an income below the poverty line.
When the recipient dies the family has to pay back every penny ever spent on them. Since they lived in poverty, family members are not allowed to have any money either, their only assett is their home. The state takes it from them, including bank accounts, Trust Funds,, Pensions, etc...There is no limit as to what the state can take.
This affects ALL Americans who plan on living to retirement and do not plan on making $100,000 or more a year. Nursing home care is about $75,000 a year. Minimal attendant care for someone in a wheelchair is $35,000 a year. Try making $40,000 a year and paying for your own care! So what happens?
Most people with mobility disabilities are forbidden to work since the only way to recieve assistance for care is to live in poverty and recieve state funding.My quadriplegic husband worked anyway, inspite of our governments. We lived in poverty with two incomes since the attendant care took over half our income.
Even if you work your whole life, as my husband and I did, and want to go into semi-retirement, you are forced to do without or take your vow of poverty and have the state strip you of everything you worked for. As my husband put it "The goernment has made me a liability to my family." He has nothing to leave his wife or children except debt.
My question?
What are you going to do about this barbaric, predatory loan that discriminates against the elderly and disabled?
How can you STILL argue that there is no need for Universal Health Care? Provide attendant care for those who need it and watch the 69% unemployment rate among the physically disabled drop DRAMATICALLY!!!
Only monsters can condone this predatory loan - Congress has since 1993!