On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, the new welfare reform law that established the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Under the legislation, the states have unprecedented flexibility to design welfare programs to meet the particular needs of welfare families. In return, the federal government demands new, measurable results related to moving families into work and self-sufficiency.
The Clinton administration in 1992 decided to make healthcare it's top priority. Well as we all know that was a disaster. A lot of states fearing the worst from the Clinton healthcare reform initiatives started working on their own healthcare reforms. The Clinton administration also pledged to end welfare as we know it. That caused many of our states to go into a state of shock. What was coming? Is Washington going to tell us we have to get along with less federal money? Are we going to have to pick up the loss of revenue from the Federal Government ourselves? So the states including my own state the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania initiated their own welfare reforms.
The Federal Government was discussing block grants to the states to administer welfare. That meant a sharp reduction in the amount of federal tax dollars given to each state to run their welfare programs. The Clinton administration's credo was workfare not welfare, a handup not a handout. Sounded good, but proved to be a big mess. States were given a deadline to implement the new welfare reform package. Two years on welfare and off. That meant that all able bodied persons who received cash assistance from the welfare program must go to work. Sounds simple right? Well it seems that Uncle Bill and his cronies forgot that mothers and single parents with children had several problems. One was what to do with the small children while one went to work. Next was a big one transportation. How do we get to work and back?. Well after much screaming from the states to their respective representatives Big Brother Bill and the boys figured out we better make some provisions for these people in order to make this program work.
Few welfare recipients own cars, and mass transit does not always solve their problems due to route and schedule problems. The Clinton administration proposed a one hundred million dollar a year welfare to work transportation plan. The transportation equity act for the year 2000 authorizes seven hundred and fifty million dollars over a five year period to help with transportation.
The Department of Labor made available two hundred and forty million dollars in competitive grants for the fiscal year 1999 to help individuals with language problems, disabilities, substance abuse and domestic violence problems. President Clinton's Budget for the fiscal year 2000 proposes to invest one billion dollars to extend help to long-term welfare recipients and non-custodial parents in high poverty areas. You will have to watch the actions of the House and Senate regarding these proposals.
As you can see from the above information that the welfare reform act initiated in 1996 sure did not take into consideration the vast amount of problems that have leaped into the forefront. While I applaud the Clinton Administration for their new efforts to help alleviate some of these problems, I will still keep a close eye on how the Congress deals with the problems of childcare, housing, transportation etc.
Meanwhile back at the state levels more and more benefits were being squeezed out of the medicade program. No more over the counter medications were to be allowed. (It didn't matter if you could not afford them) You just had to do without. No brand name drugs allowed unless specifically ordered by your doctor in writting with a ton of paperwork to back up his request. Not many doctors like paperwork so once again the poor people suffered as the result.
Now what to do with the homeless people? After all you have to have an address to even qualify for what was now left of the welfare program. The Clinton administration said that their goal would insure that no one would go without health insurance. Well ask any hospital adminstrator and they well tell you that the hospital's are losing money on welfare/medicade patients. We all know that Blue Cross/Blue Shield and plans of that nature still get the best our hospitals have to offer. Medicaid and medical assistance comes further down the ladder. First of all the hospitals have to wait forever to be paid by the medicaid/ medical assistance program and at a rate that is far below the other insurance programs out there. Check out this link for the Whitehouse Position on Welfare to work.