Blog #2 Elisa Ransom

Abramsky talks about welfare, weight loss, and the invisible working class in chapter 4.  He hit it right on the nose when 50 year old Raquel, a mother of two who was laid off from her data entry job in a working class suburb of Los Angeles during the recession.  Her journey to combat the welfare system was a daunting task.  Working for a company that didn't pay into the unemployment program left Raquel without any benefits to care for herself outside of the loss of her job.  She ran through her savings, and borrowed what she could from family members.  Ultimately, she ended up on welfare and had be out of work close to 18 months.  Raquel's to response to it all was "They want you to work, but if there is nothing out there how are we going to do it?"

My response to this is Abramsky points out how being poor can effect health and the psyche.  The war on poverty is real and the stresses that one feels about being poor can take a toll on anybody.  I can use myself as an example:  It was a point in my life that I had been laid off of my job and needed the assistance of public aid.  My stress level was through the roof, and I felt like the invisible working class to no avail, feeling like I couldn't get ahead for anything.  Having a job that is supporting both you and family is a sense of security and without a job you can easily loose sight of what needs to be done.  I don't know what I would've done if public aid was not there to help me in my time of need.  even though it was not enough to really do what I needed to do when it came to my immediate bills it did help in some places.

On page 224 Abramsky talks about how after the Affordable Care Act provisions kicked in, in 2014 most states won't extend Medicaid to childless adults.  They have put even more stricter rules on those who loose their jobs to nearly deplete their worldly possessions such as homes, car, retirement, accounts, and savings to simply gain healthcare.  In order to gain access to medical care through medicaid you have to nearly go broke to get help from the state.  In sociology one of our discussion questions was to give our opinion on rather it is society's responsibly to help the poor and less fortunate or is it there responsibility to dig their way out of it. The point that Abramsky makes about medicaid being hard to obtain in the first place since the Affordable care act came into existence is no short of us being responsible as a society to help others be able to obtain the affordable healthcare.  If we are going to help those in need and those deep in poverty we as a society should pay it forward and do our part in helping them.