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BY ROBERT MANN, COLUMNIST for The Times-Picayune
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<p class="byline__author--noEmail" id="byline__author">BY <a href="http://connect.nola.com/user/robertmann/posts.html" id="byline__authorLink" title="Visit Robert Mann, Columnist's Author Page">ROBERT MANN, COLUMNIST</a></p>
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It's a common delusion among some wealthy people that their success is a product of their industry and ingenuity. They regard poverty, therefore, as a consequence of indolence and ignorance. As the British journalist Walter Bagehot once observed, "Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell."</div>
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I can understand the indifference of so many wealthy folks, particularly Republican politicians, toward the poor. What I don't comprehend, however, is their eagerness to vilify, ridicule and punish poverty.</div>
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That's what Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback did recently when he opposed the expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state program that supports health care for low-income families. Brownback explained he vetoed the bill "because it fails to serve the truly vulnerable before the able-bodied [and] lacks work requirements to help able-bodied Kansans escape poverty." In 2013, then-Gov. Bobby Jindal pushed a similar slur against the poor as he opposed Medicaid expansion.</div>
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To the average person, Brownback's and Jindal's reasoning might make sense. Doesn't giving health care to poor people make them reluctant to find a job with health insurance? It might, if most of those who would benefit were unemployed, which they are not.</div>
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<a href="http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2017/04/medicaid_and_other_antipoverty.html">MORE>></a></div>
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<p class="byline__author--noEmail" id="byline__author">BY <a href="http://connect.nola.com/user/robertmann/posts.html" id="byline__authorLink" title="Visit Robert Mann, Columnist's Author Page">ROBERT MANN, COLUMNIST</a></p>
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It's a common delusion among some wealthy people that their success is a product of their industry and ingenuity. They regard poverty, therefore, as a consequence of indolence and ignorance. As the British journalist Walter Bagehot once observed, "Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell."</div>
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I can understand the indifference of so many wealthy folks, particularly Republican politicians, toward the poor. What I don't comprehend, however, is their eagerness to vilify, ridicule and punish poverty.</div>
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</div>
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That's what Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback did recently when he opposed the expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state program that supports health care for low-income families. Brownback explained he vetoed the bill "because it fails to serve the truly vulnerable before the able-bodied [and] lacks work requirements to help able-bodied Kansans escape poverty." In 2013, then-Gov. Bobby Jindal pushed a similar slur against the poor as he opposed Medicaid expansion.</div>
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To the average person, Brownback's and Jindal's reasoning might make sense. Doesn't giving health care to poor people make them reluctant to find a job with health insurance? It might, if most of those who would benefit were unemployed, which they are not.</div>
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</div>
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<a href="http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2017/04/medicaid_and_other_antipoverty.html">MORE>></a></div>
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