# Who are these so-called "young men on Medicaid" that Republicans are obsessed with? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 27, 2025, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836 "2025-05-27T01:04:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836/41 "2025-05-28T18:25:45Z")
Crawdads. And if not crawdads, sand. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836/42 "2025-05-28T18:46:46Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > As Veeger said “Must sterilize!” Ahem… that was Nomad. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836/43 "2025-05-28T19:48:23Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Even if you assume it costs $6000 per year to insure an able bodied adult per year, that is 30 billion a year. I’m more than happy to help pay 30 billion a year in taxes to make sure 5 billion people have health insurance. But does it even work that way? Is Medicaid paying itself (or someone else?) to “insure” people? Or is Medicaid just paying the bills of the people who qualify for coverage, and actually use it? If a healthy person uses $0 worth of medical care, and another person uses $12,000 worth, it averages to $6000, but that doesn’t mean the healthy person “cost” the system $6000. The cost of adding a healthy person shouldn’t be much more that the marginal administration costs of registering the person. ---
**Author:** ![Fugazi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f08c70/32.png) [@Fugazi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fugazi)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836/44 "2025-05-28T20:14:45Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I’m sure hating the USA is already in the works as the USA has cut off aid that was previously provided Well, they never said “Thank You” ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836/45 "2025-05-28T20:17:59Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > > > Even if you assume it costs $6000 per year to insure an able bodied adult per year, that is 30 billion a year. I’m more than happy to help pay 30 billion a year in taxes to make sure 5 billion people have health insurance. > > But does it even work that way? Is Medicaid paying itself (or someone else?) to “insure” people? > > Or is Medicaid just paying the bills of the people who qualify for coverage, and actually use it? If a healthy person uses $0 worth of medical care, and another person uses $12,000 worth, it averages to $6000, but that doesn’t mean the healthy person “cost” the system $6000. The cost of adding a healthy person shouldn’t be much more that the marginal administration costs of registering the person. Medical costs tend to follow distribution curves. About 1% of people use 20-25% of all medical spending. About 5% use 50-60%, and around 20% use 80% of medical spending. So 80% of people use 20% of medical spending, and 20% use 80% of medical spending. But it also depends on year. You may have virtually zero medical spending for years, then have one year where you get 150k in spending, then go back to very low numbers again. A lot of the expensive people are elderly and disabled, who are already on medicare and medicaid. However this chart implies it costs around 6k a year to insure an adult on medicaid, after excluding the disabled and elderly. The disabled cost about 18k a year to insure. [![](https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/oJJNK/full.png) ](https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/oJJNK/full.png) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836/46 "2025-05-28T20:31:53Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > > [@LSLGuy](#): > > > > As Veeger said “Must sterilize!” > > Ahem… that was Nomad. Eh … you seen one Star Trek berserk murderous AI space thingy, you seen 'em all. 😉 Seriously, thanks for the correction. But what _did_ Veeger want to destroy if sterilizing just wasn’t its bag? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836/47 "2025-05-28T20:36:56Z")
Somewhat off topic, but V’ger basically wanted to catalog _everything_. It did that by essentially destructive scanning. I don’t think it was malicious, just uncaring. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836/48 "2025-05-28T21:03:43Z")
So: The parable of the AI and the paperclips. Back to the topic, this DOGE _et al_ nihilistic destruction amounts to kinda the same thing. Pick one goal: destroy the Federal government, ignore all other goals & consequences, then press [START]. How’s that working out for everyone? Just great if the goal is one’s single-minded focus. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2025, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836/49 "2025-05-28T22:32:17Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > And we should not allow Mr. Johnson to continue to tell the lie How would you stop him from telling any lie? What generally keeps people from telling harmful lies is their own sense of right and wrong, and if that isn’t strong enough, it is the fear of being shamed by being proven to be a liar. Neither of those apply in Johnson’s case, nor in any other MAGA politicians. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836/50 "2025-06-13T15:09:53Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > The poor _are_ fraud, waste, and abuse. By definition. They’re useless and therefore in the RW dystopia perhaps to come, they will be “dealt with”. Of course, why don’t they just pay for their million dollar surgeries with a check? Duh? Why should we pay for it. I don’t need health insurance because I have a backup of a billion dollars, why does anyone need health insurance? These are the people that they are paying minimum wage to clean their golden toilets. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2025, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836/51 "2025-06-14T11:58:56Z")
There is zero incentive for anyone in the Cabinet to show any consideration whatsoever for disadvantaged people. They got their’s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-these-so-called-young-men-on-medicaid-that-republicans-are-obsessed-with/1018836.md?page=2)