What's wrong with entitlement?

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If you're entitled to something and feel you want or need it, then why should you not press for it?

Your premise states the problem.

Are you "entitled" to anything?

By nature, the answer is almost always "no."

By law, just because you might have a right to something doesn't mean it is in the best interest of society for you to have it.

Right now, in the USA, the welfare program for disabled people is being FLOODED with applicants...most of whom DO NOT need to be on disability. They do have a qualifying medical condition, but they CAN work. Due to the bad economy, they can't find work, so they are using the program as a way to get by.

The program was never designed with that in mind. Every person who goes on SSDI but CAN work is taking money away from people with disabilities who legitimately CAN NOT work.

If the program collapses in the next decade or so, who will shoulder the blame?

All entitlements are listed under the U.S. Constitution and its fallowing Bill of Rights. I am entitled to those but was warned that I might at some point be required to fight in order to maintain them.

It depends on what you feel like you are entitled to, and whether or not you are actually entitled to it. We are on food stamps and I'm very grateful for them. It would screw us up ten ways from Sunday if we lost them, but we aren't entitled to them at all. Yes, it's funded with tax money and part of that tax money comes from us but the government can use that money for roads or schools or whatever else they choose to, that will benefit the public. They don't have to use them on a food stamp program. They do have the program available and we fall into the parameters of it, so under their guidelines we are entitled to it, but if they changed the guidelines or discontinued the program we wouldn't be entitled to getting money from the government for food.

You said if you feel like you are entitled to something and want or need it. Those are very different than actually being entitled to something. I posted about something similar in the healthcare thread. I want treatment for my major depression, my huge hole in my tooth, and for my husbands untreated high blood pressure and cholesterol. We need treatment for those things. I feel like I'm entitled to something like that because there are programs but we don't meet the requirments for them, so we aren't entitled to them. My husband could drop dead today from a heart attack but that doesn't mean he can actually go to the doctor and get the labwork and prescriptions he needs to keep that from happening. We don't fit the guidelines and we don't have the money to pay for it ourselves. You would think that something that is under a couple hundred dollars and will save somebody's life would be provided by the government, since they provide physicals so teenagers can play football and expensive vaccines to keep teenage girls from getting STD's, but they don't.

Pushing for change in legislation so you can get the surgery is really your only recourse in this, although with problems with the system like the ones I listed above, and many, many worse problems out there, it's going to take a long time. You mentioned suicide being the reason not getting the surgery means it's a life or death thing, but suicide from major depression is a very real risk as well and that's just a couple hundred dollars to fix that in many cases, not tens of thousands of dollars. I understand that there are people out there getting care that helps them and it's horrible when you don't, I'm in the same boat with you. It's a double kick in the face for me because it's so cheap to fix our problems here and there's nothing they will do about it.

Why exactly do you think you are entitled to this, other than the government does pay for health care for some things?

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Without knowing anything about this specific case, I do know that it's a MO of conservatives to deliberately mismanage government run assets and social programs in order to justify their elimination/ privatisation.

I absolutely agree with Olive Oil's assertion that people should be entitled to decent medical care.

It's ludicrous, in a first world country, for a person not to be treated for high blood pressure or for a "hole" in one's tooth.

The fact that we don't have national health care systems like Canada and the UK is ludicrous. Obamacare is a joke of a compromise.

It is easy to see how it is going to end badly for entitlements ...

1. US federal spending 3.53 trillion - deficit 613 billion =2.92 trillion total revenue

2. Medicare 787.7 billion + Social Security 828 billion + 335.6 billion Income Security ("Welfare") = 1.952 trillion spent / yr on these programs

3. 1.952 / 2.92 = 66.8%

Thus, 66.8% of revenue of the government takes in is consumed by the three largest entitlement groups of Medicare, Social Security and Welfare

And with the baby boomers retiring there is going to be tremendous stress on these programs.

source, http://www.usdebtclock.org/

The "hole" in my tooth isn't a redneck way of saying cavity It's an actual hole. I was eating a Mentos candy that my daughter gave me and you know how chewy and sticky those things are. Well, I've had a lot of dental work in the past because I've always had bad teeth and there isn't a tooth in my head that doesn't have some kind of filling in it, many of which are old. It pulled this 30 some odd year old filling out on the back lower left side. Completely out! It's a big one too. I can't get it refilled because I can't afford to pay for that and I can't get it pulled because I can't afford to pay for that either. In a town close by here, once a year they have a charity day where lots of dentists come and pull people's bad tooth for free. However, they don't give you antibiotics first, which I have to have due to MVP, and while they will give you novocain, they won't give you gas (I'm terrified of the dentist) nor will they give you anything for pain afterwards! You also have to sign up close to a year in advance. They actually set up a big tent and do it there.

I could see government healthcare not covering elective things, or even needed but not absolutely must have things like hormones for menopause and stuff, and I could see them even not covering my depression because it's not directly life threatening, but blood pressure is a pretty serious thing and can't be fixed without meds.

The could at least mandate a way to set up and enforce payment plans for certain things, like dental work and prescriptions even if it's only something like having you sign something saying they can take a certain amount out of your paycheck a week for it. That way they know they will get their money. A dentist could certainly do that, but ours won't here. Our dentist won't even see you no matter what without cash or a credit card or insurance. Back when we did have dental insurance and I was in pain for something else, they turned me away because I wouldn't have me $20 copay for two days and promised to bring it to them that Friday afternoon! The insurance paid for everything else, but they said nope.

However, as much as I want and need these things, and my husband wants and needs them, I'm not entitled to them. I'm only actually entitled to what programs that are set up to do these things say I am, within their parameters. Desperately wanting, desperately needing, and entitled to are all different things. I used to know a lady who had cancer and couldn't get her surgery because they had no insurance, they had a small income, and they didn't have the cash for it. She died. The government wouldn't pay for it, the doctors and hospitals wouldn't work with them on payments, and her church couldn't raise enough money to pay for it. So, she died. If anybody was entitled to surgery paid for by somebody else, she was. She was medically dying, they knew it, told her, acknowledged it and everything, but still said no.

I've been through the "friend dying of cancer because of lack of health insurance" bit myself.

This is why I'm for universal health care for, at least, life-threatening conditions.

To me, if a government is entitled to enforce the peace, it has at least some moral obligation to take care of its citizens in dire need.

The problem is, if we had one that covered only serious and life threatening conditions, people would start wanting to expand it and get mad when it wouldn't cover less medically serious conditions. An example would be that if we had a universal dental care program that handled cavities, abcesses, broken and knocked out teeth, etc then people would start getting angry because it doesn't cover checkups or cleanings or flouride treatments or putting braces on their kids teeth.

I would be ok with a program that only covered my husbands problems because his problems will directly kill him, while my depression won't directly kill me. Sure, I could end up killing myself from it and yes it's not expensive to treat but if there was money only for treating serious conditions then I would understand that somebody who had something that would, in and of itself, kill them, then I'd be unhappy but ok with the fact that they were treating those conditions and not mine.

Some days I can hardly get out of bed and I'm barely functional, and I have a family to take care of and I'm doing a piss poor job of it right now because of the depression. There's no end in sight until I can get my meds, even though I sometimes have good days. It's impossible to sustain any form of acting normal for me right now and life is pretty much hell because of that. However, I understand that even though depression is a medical condition and can have a bad outcome, it's more important to first treat those who have a life or death issue rather than a quality of life issue, which is what mine is.

That's a fun game:

Defense 820.2 billion + domestic security 34.1 billion = 854.3 billion
.8543/2.92 = 29.3%

Interest 223.5 billion / 2.92 trillion = 7.7%

Education 112.6 = 3.9%

Transportation 95.5 = 3.3%

Hmmm . . . that puts us at 111% so far.

While technically correct, your mathematical representation is somewhat flawed.

Something else to keep in mind is that your entitlement list also include some major revenue generators which you do not take into account:
In 2012, Social Security Total expenditures in 2012 were $786 billion. Total SS tax income was $840 billion, which consisted of $731 billion in non-interest income and $109 billion in interest earnings on asset reserves. Asset reserves held in special issue U.S. Treasury securities grew from $2.678 trillion at the beginning of the year to $2.732 trillion at the end of the year.

So Social Security generated 840 billion, 840/2,920 = 28.8% of federal revenue.

Medicare tax revenues and expenditures were flat for the same time period.

The broad category "welfare" also lumps together many revenue generating programs, like unemployment.

Not to mention that some of the government's interest expenses are also some of the government's revenues.

This is one of the greatest paradoxes of all time and it's nothing but a blatant manipulation tactic to try and control segments of the population by people, you guessed it, who feel entitled.
People who complain about entitlements are the ones who feel the most entitled of all.
And that, my friend, is the paradox.

Actually, this is just hype. If you were to take the disability data in the link below and run it in a logarithmic chart (as opposed to a linear chart), you will see no major quickening in the rate of increase of people on disability. If anything, the rate of increase has slowed in recent years. It appears that the period from about 1991 until 1996 or so was the period of the fastest rates of increase since the decline in the number of people on disability in the late '70s and early '80s.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/OASDIbenies.html

Everyone feels entitled. Get over it. And everyone should fight for their entitlements, not cowed by others because they will just lose if they don't. Don't be fooled. Everyone who breathes feels entitled. That's life. So fight for your entitlements and don't be guilted or cowed for feeling entitled because that's just a ploy. Your response needs to be "Damn right now stfu and give me what's mine" because I can guarantee that's exactly what the people who are trying to guilt you are thinking and perhaps saying to others in secret. Don't play into their guilt game.
Life is just one big game and the ones who aren't shy about going after their entitlements are the winners. That's just reality.

Here's the thing. I'm not entitled to get my depression treated for free. My husbands not entitled to get his blood pressure and cholesterol treated for free. She's not entitled to a sex change operation for free. It's the right thing to do to treat people who have serious, life threatening illnesses for free, and it's a great thing to do to have programs to provide treatment for non life threatening things for free. However, are we actually entitled to it? No, we aren't. If I sign up for something thats offered and i depend on that, then by signing up for it there is a contract between me and the entity that is providing it, therefore entitling me to it for whatever period of time and with whatever provisions were spelled out in the contract. If I pay into an insurance policy then I'm entitled to benefits from it that were specified in the policy. If I meet certain criteria set for by government programs then I am entitled to the benefits offered in those programs. But I'm only entitled to them while the program exists and if I meet the criteria.

The thing is, we aren't entitled to something that someone else has simply because we want it. Wanting something and complaining about not having it and wishing that somebody offered it for free or affordable isn't the same as entitlement.

Um you forget the majority of people pay a host of taxes from federal, state, sales, just to name a few. The average American is swamped with them. So you see, it's not "free." We pay through taxes and nobody gets their social security taxes in the form of refunds. So yeah I am going to say that's our money and we should get it back otherwise get rid of the tax entirely.
And next time you admonish entitlement mentality, consider the last time you went ahead and worked but wanted no compensation for it because companies see workers as people wanting entitlements. They think everyone should work for pennies on the dollars. That is what the elite rich want for America. See, they feel entitled, too. Entitled to a lot of free labor. So this little speech is not going to work on me because I know better and you shouldn't let it work on you either. You should be wise to all the bs they use to try to take from you.

And the federal government wants to take your social security tax and throw it down a black hole all because elitists in this country don't want you to have any of it back, they want to spend it on what they see fit. They want for everyone to pay the tax and get nothing in return. That is what they want. They will cut every "entitlement" to the bone and your taxes will be higher than ever before. This is the great vision. Are you going to stand by and feed into their agenda or will your reply be a resounding hell no?