Friday, April 12, 2013

Effects of Obamacare?

I have a friend in the southern US who posted something interesting in our group yesterday. I do not know what her political leanings are because she does not talk about that, but I kind of always assumed she was a democrat (if she even votes, I have no idea)... I am telling you this because people will always assume if you are against Obamacare, you must be against Obama and that is the reason for being against the program. That is not true in this case.

My friend works in a high school daycare. She loves her job. She works with the babies of teenagers so that they can go to school and have their child in a safe place right on campus. It is a fully funded program, as in free for the parents. Sounds great right? A perfect social program. This way young moms can finish school and they dont have to pay a cent for their children to be cared for by qualified and caring staff. Great idea for the social program people.

But, with Obamacare, the center may have to close down in 2 years unless they get more funding, or unless they make massive cuts to what they supply and do with the children, staff wages, etc. And the part time staff member's job WILL be cut this fall. And it is possible one full time staff member will be this fall. My friend was the last full time staffer to be hired, so it will most likely be her that gets the axe. The director has been very frank with staff about what is happening because she wants them to be prepared. Even with cutting the part timer and possibly a full timer, the center will not be able to continue past 2 years most likely unless staff get paid a pittance for working there (and who can afford to work in that case?).

She said they do not have a benefit program right now, and my friend of course knew that before being hired, and she was okay with that. She did not take the job because of the benefit package, she took it because she loves working with children and she felt like she was making a difference in their lives, as well as their young mom's lives. She didnt want a benefit program as a reason for taking the job. Now they are forced to do it and it's almost impossible to pay for it. They have some funding rolled over from prior years that they never used, and that is why they may be able to survive for 2 more years. After that, it's not going to happen unless funding is increased, but it does not appear that it's going to happen.

What the hell is going on?? I can tell you right now that if the Alberta govt forced my job to pay for a benefit program, we would close too, so I can totally understand what is happening in my friend's daycare.. But at least we use private fees for most of the income, so we could actually just put the fees up a big chunk and then cater only to the richer families and remain open. But we would not be able to have any low income and probably no middle income families either at those rates, so we would just close. We do not want to cater only to the elite, that is not why the center was opened. But with my friend's workplace, they only get a certain amount of funding from the high school, and the high school has to revamp and increase their benefit program for Obamacare too, and cannot afford to give the daycare any more funding from their coffers either. Well isnt this just peachy? I thought it was supposed to HELP people. Isnt that what supporters have been harping on about?

So basically, in order to 'make sure' that 'everyone has access to affordable health care', an entire high school daycare will be shut down to pay for the program elsewhere (ie inside the highschool itself for staff). All of the moms will have to find somewhere else and seeing as many are poor and of course young, their children could very well end up in sub-par care or their moms may have to drop out of high school and work so they can actually pay for the care, or they may continue with school but have their child in sub par care all day long, and then evenings as well so mommy can work to pay for the care. Hmmm. Isnt that kind of the opposite of what was supposed to happen? If one social program has to close in order to install this new social program, what's the point of that exactly? To me it's a perfect example of the flaws in this plan. Not for profit agencies having to close their doors? That should be a red flag to Democrats and liberals that they overstepped and had a major screw up... but nope....

** for those who may read this and think 'too bad', those girls made the babies and they should be responsible, that's not my point here. think what you want about the high school daycare and free care - what's happening here is the very programs liberals so often champion, like cheap or practically free child care, are being crushed by Obamacare. Was that what they intended to happen? 

1 comment:

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