here's a letter from the state of Texas telling me I'm too poor to get unemployment compensation:

anyone who's had to deal with this shit knows it's absurdly difficult to get in and stay in. these programs are designed to shove as many people out as possible, and only people with the technical knowhow and energy to fight them on the phone and by mail endlessly will ever see most of what they're legally eligible for.

my lover has three health insurance policies, all either run by or mandated by the state. to get something as simple as nutritional supplements, which are necessary for their condition, they have to be rejected by the first two before the third will accept it. they are routinely denied medications that they depend on to survive. they spend hours every week on the phone, filling out forms, persuading medical staff with connections, just to get the things that keep them from dying, that they are already legally entitled to receive.

they only have it so good because the laws guaranteeing these benefits were passed when the life expectancy for people with this condition was in the teens. it was a cheap "for the children" stunt for a few political points one election cycle. fortunately, medical science has outstripped the Texas legislative process.

my conditions, on the other hand, aren't covered by any insurance. they're in the fuckin literature, I've been diagnosed by multiple medical professionals, there's a standard course of treatment, and meds come out of pocket. I expect I will never have surgery.

thanks obama.

food stamps, disability, shelter programs, etc, all have similar processes.

even the NGO side of things is fucked up, I've worked there and seen the insides. gatekeeping bullshit all over the place. get over yourself food banks, nobody is scamming you. nobody's going to sit in your waiting room all day during work hours just so they can try to return an expired bag of rice to Fiesta.

blow it all away. give me single payer healthcare, universal basic income, and a sharply progressive income tax. or full communism.

for now I steal.

edit:

in reply to person below who's blocked me,

I recognize that they both go into your pocket but the question of whose pocket they come out of is the question that keeps all this shit complicated and ornery.

this is why I'm a proponent of single payer and UBI, it removes all of that ambiguity and the means-testing that plagues us currently. healthcare becomes a right and the bureaucracy for everything else is replaced by the existing economic infrastructure. these solutions have their own problems but the current system is just pure nonsense.