Category: Social Services and Entitlements
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The Service-Dog Thing Is Out of Control
Attorney General Mark Herring has taken action against a problem that is fast becoming a social crisis: that is, the runaway enthusiasm for “service dogs.” The AG’s office has filed a lawsuit against Service Dogs by Warren Retrievers, Inc., a Madison County dog breeder that trains Labrador and G0lden retrievers to be “diabetic alert…
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Can Medicaid Expansion Address the Doctor Shortage?
With Virginia on the cusp of Medicaid expansion, it is heartening to see someone asking the obvious question: What good is Medicaid coverage if you can’t find a doctor? Bob Burke at Virginia Business states the obvious: Getting a Medicaid card doesn’t necessarily mean you have a doctor at hand. Plenty of places in Virginia…
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Virginia’s Hidden Deficit: the Unemployment Trust Fund
There are many measures for gauging a state’s fiscal condition. The most commonly cited is the condition of its General Fund: Is the state balancing its budget? Digging deeper, one can examine the degree to which a state is funding (and falling short of) its pension obligations. And one can track the extent to which…
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Working Longer Versus Saving More
One of the big decisions Americans must make as they plant their retirement is when to start collecting Social Security benefits. The popular wisdom is that each year you delay collecting Social Security translates into an 8% increase in annual benefits. The Social Security Administration can afford to goose the payout because (1) it pays…
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Race, Responsibility and the Welfare State
by Vic Nicholls What is the justification for taxing people to provide healthcare? There is no mandate for it in the Constitution. The “general welfare” was never considered to include health care. The campaign slogans of the Founding Fathers never included, “Free leech treatments for all!” Are all men “created equal”? No. Everyone has…
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The Cult of Personal Fragility
Once upon a time, Americans prided themselves for being tough and resilient. They were strivers. They were survivors. They bounced back from adversity. Now they have become a nation of wimps, whiners and victims. In writing a column about the absurd proliferation of “emotional support animals” on airplanes, George Will absolutely nailed what is happening:…
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Thanking Those Who Make EnergyShare Work
Since expanding its EnergyShare program in 2015, Dominion Energy Virginia has helped 35,000 people pay their heating and electric bills and has weatherized 18,800 homes. In addition, the utility has hosted 700 outreach events to share practical, energy-saving tips that enabled participants to reduce energy usage by 7.5% on average. Those were some of the…
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Entitlements, Fiscal Limits and the Looming Age of Rage
Now that Democrats are close to parity with Republicans in the House of Delegates, there is renewed talk of Medicaid expansion in Virginia. Meanwhile, in Washington, President Trump and Republicans are pushing a tax-cut plan that would spur economic growth but, even with stronger growth, would increase deficits by $1.5 trillion over the next ten…
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Boomergeddon Watch: The Elderly Require Millions in Local Government Services
A decade or so ago when I worked for the Boomer Project, principals John Martin and Matt Thornhill warned that local governments in Virginia needed to prepare themselves for the age wave. The elderly have special needs, not all of which can be met by Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. People in the health care…
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How Medicaid Is Cannibalizing Virginia’s Budget
Three big trends are worth noting from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission 2017 state spending update, a review of state spending over the previous 10 years. First, General Fund spending has been constrained by limited revenue growth resulting from Virginia’s weak economy. The increase in spending has averaged 2.0% per year. Adjusted for…
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Poverty and the Virginia Welfare State
Let’s say you’re a woman living in the City of Richmond. Let’s say you have two children, ages three and seven, but no husband. Let’s say you work 40 hours a week earning the minimum wage, or $15,080 per year. How much can you potentially receive in public benefits? Sean Gorman, the Richmond Times-Dispatch PolitiFact reporter,…
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Medicaid, the Blob that Ate the Budget
Details on that runaway Medicaid budget… Spending per Medicaid enrollee has been relatively flat the past five years, having increased less than 0.4% annually (adjusted for inflation) between FY 2011 and FY 2015. The cost driver has been enrollment, which increased 16.5% over the same period, according to a Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission…
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Chart of the Day: Disabilities in Virginia
One in nine Virginians, nearly one million people, has a disability, according to numbers extracted from the 2015 American Consumer Survey by the Demographics Research Group at the University of Virginia. The incidence of disability is strongly correlated with age — the elderly suffer a significantly higher rate of disabilities. But hundreds of thousands of the disabled…
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Virginia Welfare Trends
I came across some interesting data on the Virginia Department of Social Services website showing the number of Virginians receiving social welfare benefits. I offer the data without commentary. — JAB
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Boomergeddon Watch: Student Debt Relief
by James A. Bacon It should surprise no one that Hillary Clinton is advocating free college tuition and loan forgiveness for millions of students in an attempt to appeal to the Millennial vote. But the pandering of presidential candidates doesn’t begin to plumb the depths of perversity in the American political system. Now industry is joining the cause.…