America: A Food Stamp Nation?
Gaming the System
By E. Noel Preston, M.D.

Almost 46 million people in the United States, or perhaps 15% of the population, are on food stamps. In 2010, this cost the federal government $68 billion, or more than a third of what it received as corporate income taxes.

There are unwed teen-age mothers, and welfare queens, and families on Medicaid who buy airplane tickets to visit their grandmothers in Africa. There are also mothers who get up early to take their children to band practice, who go to parent-teacher conferences, and who volunteer to help in the classrooms.

It is foolish, bad, stupid, and whatever else you want to call it to have a baby at age 15. And yes, some of the people who get food stamps cannot read or write. And yes, there are some people who are gaming the system.

But corporations are gaming the system far worse. Insurance company CEO's are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and paying their employees less than $8 an hour. When I was practicing pediatrics some of my patients' mothers were bank tellers, but they were on Medicaid because their health insurance had a $1000 per person yearly deductible and didn't cover their children's vaccines! The mother of one of my patients was married to a bank vice president and surprise! She was our waitress where we went for dinner with friends one night.

Most poor people simply do not have enough money. As one of last year's New York gubernatorial candidates said, "The rent is too damn' high!" So is the electric bill, the gas bill, the water bill, the grocery bill, and just about everything else. It's not because poor people are lazy: they just don't have enough money! 

On the other hand, more than a few people have lots of money. Sales of Mercedes luxury automobiles and Louis Vitton luxury handbags are 20% higher this year than last year, but WalMart keeps people on as "part-time" workers to avoid hiring "full-time" employees who would qualify for benefits such as health insurance or 401-K retirement plans.

So who is it who's gaming the system? America's poor, or America's large corporations that pay minimum wage and would rather have part-time instead of full-time workers, but offer their executives seemingly limitless, unrestricted compensation packages? Who indeed is fleecing the public? The people with the golden parachutes, or the people with no parachutes at all? 

Whose teenagers will be in our Armed Forces? Whose children will become our mayors, and police chiefs, our lab technicians and rescue workers? Who will be our city employees? Who will work on our farms? I hope these children do get food stamps now so they will eat healthy and grow up to be big and strong so they can protect those orotundics who use "summer" as a verb, who never had to get an after school job, and who claim they would see small children starve.

Maybe there are some parents who are lazy indolent parasites, but why should we punish the children? Taking food away from a hungry child is despicable. President Richard Nixon started the food stamp program, and it is a good idea, and it should continue.

Noel Preston, MD, is a retired pediatrician.   He writes on a variety of subjects... More information can be found at whuffodat@aol.com

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