Frustration....

So, I'm doing my Community Outpatient Pediatric Rotation right now, and I've been working in an office that is in a sketchier part of town with an interesting patient population. Without going into too much detail, I think most reading this will know what I'm talking about. Most patients are black. Most are insured by Medicaid. Most are single mothers with no father figures for their children. (As a disclaimer, when we moved to Richmond, and my wife starting to look for a job, she qualified for food stamps. We used the money then and it was great. I am not against food stamps.)

Well...I was there waiting for patients to show up. I had arrived about 30 minutes earlier, and we still hadn't had a single patient come in. I checked the schedule and saw that by then, we should have had 12 patients come in. I was talking with the nurses about it, and one of them smacked her leg and said, "Oh! I know why no one is coming in today. It's the 1st of the month." I looked at her and at the other nurses, not understanding exactly how this explained things. She said, "They're all out shopping at the grocery store, because their food stamp cards got their money." Really? Yeah...really. We had about 3 out of 25 scheduled patients for the morning show up that day.

So, quick rant, and some quick facts. "The number of food stamp recipients has climbed by about 10 million over the past two years, resulting in a program that now feeds 1 in 8 Americans and nearly 1 in 4 children." Is everyone seeing this? (I used the program HERE to get this info) I can hardly believe that there are this many people in America who don't make enough money to pay for their own food. Seriously? This must be how everyone is able to afford their expensive cell phones and service plans. Oh, but you can get that free from the government too...right?

This leads to my next experience. The next day at the Doctor's office, I was again waiting for patients to arrive. One of the office ladies came in to where the nurses work, and she was holding a large receipt in her hands. She held it up from the top and revealed a receipt that was well over 10 feet long. She bragged that she had gone shopping yesterday and bought a lot of food. She then explained how she has a neighbor who receives so much food stamp money, that she has thousands built up on her card. This neighbor then "sells" the extra money to people at half price. The lady working in our office had purchased $600 of food stamps for $300.

I seriously was having the hardest time sitting there and not saying anything. But what could I have said that would change anything? "That's illegal, you know." Of course they know it's illegal. "You know that you're pretty much stealing that money from yourself as a taxpayer." Oh wait, she mentioned how she only gets $500 on her food stamp card herself, before she bought the $600 from her neighbor.....meaning she probably doesn't pay any taxes either.

So, I sat their and cried inside about how CRAPPY this nation is becoming. This isn't the first time I've heard about stuff like this. (Heck! There's a homeless guy who lives with our friends next door (I guess he's not homeless anymore since they offered to give him a free place to stay) and he makes extra money on top of his disability and food stamps by "arranging" these food stamp swaps and charging a fee.

So, what I'm really ranting and complaining about is the amount that this type of discussion makes me want to vomit all over my computer. How all my young men know how much money you get in food stamps for each kid that you have. How a guy wins $2 million in a lottery, and still is collecting food stamps 11 months later. How we are moving to a country where EVERYONE feels like they DESERVE EVERYTHING. It is a sad state of affairs.

I'm going to spend this next week seeing if there is any data to support the idea that Food Stamps helps anyone to learn to be self-sufficient. I hope I find something. Poor America. Why do we allow this abuse of the system. Why did I just stand by?