I just meant giving "food stamps" instead of just giving people the coin of the realm to spend as they see fit is a moralistic type thing that makes it more palatable to folks who loathe the idea of "welfare". It's built on the idea that  these folks are unfit to run their own lives and need guidance, that they are incapable of allocating money for food. So now we have built a system where the grocery industry is subsidized by this that would be hard to dismantle without raising everyone's prices, because the profit margin is notoriously slim in the business. And the supermarket cashier jobs all over the country are shrinking daily. Basically just that it's all a shell game, did  politicians come out and say at the start: we're going to subsidize the grocery industry and a majority agreed to it logically, no. It's "using psychology" to get people to go along with what Europeans just naturally accept. We've got this Randian thing where we think capitalism win/lose will always work out if everyone "works hard". Delusional, as in not realizing that means there will be some losers and they could be starving on your streets

Oh really!? Then how come the program is labeled "Medicare Part D"?! It's exactly one of those trick things I'm actually talking about in my comment on food stamps above. You fell for it, you don't realize that Medicare really is subsidizing the private companies to provide prescription drugs! As if it's executed by private cos., psychologically you think it doesn't cost taxpayers a cent, so it's okay. Can I sell you a bridge?

It's all strings amd mirrors to fool people into providing common good with their tax dollars. I think we may waste a lot doing it this way, but that's not what I am pointing out at the moment. Rather, it's about not even knowing what policy choice we made.. We are subsidizing those private companies as well as providing the drugs. Do you like the idea of the government providing more jobs at private insurance companies? Because in effect is what Medicare Part D is doing. Instead of using the funds to exclusively pay for the elderly's drugs, we have decided that some of it should go to make more insurance company jobs. That is in effect what we have done.

I am not advocating for one thing or another here. It just drives me nuts that we can't seem to make good policy decisions without fooling people into it. That transparency about what's really going to go on doesn't work!