There are many different criminals we see in everyday life. We view the convicted criminal, the criminal that escaped the law, wealthy and poor criminals. However, there is one criminal that almost every person knows about, complains about and does nothing about. These are the unseen criminals that we see daily and disregard them in order not to interfere with our own preset lives. Such criminals exist because we allow them to. These people commit their crime with ease knowing that the chances of their discovery are minimal. The people I am talking about are those who commit Welfare Fraud. People who commit welfare fraud make it difficult for the people who truly need it. In all cases it is the system that is to blame. The system that establishes who meets the requirements of welfare is outdated and should be revised to fit today’s lifestyle and needs. I tested the system and through personal experience I found that the requirements for the system were unjust and far too easy to manipulate. Any person over the age of eighteen can apply for welfare. You simply fill out a form and give information about yourself, your financial and household background. This information is entirely too easy to manipulate. Many people not only lie but also produce false documents to back their story. The caseworkers simply take their word and do no further study. The people in charge of determining who is eligible have become so lazy and overwhelmed with requests that they simply do not care anymore. The simple standards that a person must meet are as follows: if you have a child (something I like to refer to as the “child clause”) under the age of eighteen or if you are pregnant you automatically get assistance no matter what your financial status. Through luck, I was able to get an interview with a caseworker. She stated that if I was pregnant or had a child I would be eligible. If I did not approve of her decision, I could take it to court. Then she pointed out a book of rules and regulations that I could take if I wanted to read them. Also through luck I talked with a family that is currently receiving welfare. This family consists of a husband, a wife and a small two-year-old child. The father has a good steady job, drives a 2000 model car and the family lives in a two-story home. I wondered how this family was able to receive help and when I asked the mother she simply replied “ I have a child and I do not work so they gave it to me. It was easier than I thought.” Such a remark made me wonder about other families gaining help through this sort of technicality and the families who are not. There are many simple and easy ways to improve the system. If the caseworkers would pay attention and read more into a case, there would not be as much fraud as there is. A simple phone call or letter could quickly determine the honesty of a person’s information. Allowing someone to be on welfare simply because they have a child is not only unjust, it is ethnically wrong. There are many people, men and women alike, who have no children but are in need of medical help, which can only be supplied through welfare. Due to the fact that a person must be at least sixty-five to even be considered for Medicare, many are denied. The system should be revised to fit almost every aspect of potential necessity. There are many scenarios in which a person may need assistance. A very good example would be that of a young girl no older that twenty, who has no children and who is not pregnant, that has a chronic illness that forces her to constantly be put in hospitals, take medication and have blood tests every week. This girl can scarcely afford to live due to the fact that every single cent she has must be used to pay for medication so she can live until the next day. She is denied Medicaid assistance even though she truthfully filled out the forms and has no way to support herself. Now I ask you is such a thing considered justice?
The Board of Human Services is taking some steps to stop current fraud. According to the Office of the Inspector General they are “Examining people or businesses suspected of illegally using DHS resources or services, actively seeking prosecution of flagrant violators, returning money to the state treasury from the restitution of fraudulently obtained benefits and establishing non-fraud agencies error claims.” As the saying goes “To little to late.” The DHS should have thought about this many years ago instead of just now trying to clean up its mess. The DHS should consider issuing a limited amount of time a person maybe on welfare for every state as they have done in some states already. By doing so, it will encourage people to get a job and help others who need assistance while lowering the rate of fraud. Case workers should be allowed to visit the assisted at anytime to follow up on their case and check their financial background information. Allowing case workers to do so would be an effective way to prove if some sort of fraud is taking place or to prove if a person is truly in need of assistance and not taking advantage of the “child clause.” A few simple actions and a little effort could make a world of difference. One would wonder why such things were not done sooner. There is a perfectly good explanation for not correcting such mistakes in the system. A person would wonder if perhaps there is not enough funding to provide the equipment needed to perform such corrections or if the DHS is under staffed to allow the few workers they have to be spending an extended amount of time on one case. The simple explanation is that no one wants to bother to do anything that will disrupt his or her everyday lives. People would rather live with such corruption and complain about it than to dirty their hands trying to fix the system especially since those people who fix the system will never use it. Why should someone fix someone else’s problems if it does not benefit the person who fixes the problem? That is the question that a person would ask you if you asked them why did they not try to fix this system. Perhaps the person would turn to you and ask you the very same question. Then at that point when you are asked “Why don’t you do something to fix the system?” what will your answer be? With such narrow-mindedness of the human race today, people would rather go about their own business than to care about the wrongs that are being inflicted to some poor, insignificant person that they will probably never see and could care less about. That is simply the way the human population is. After all isn’t the population of the world focused on themselves with a “Think about number one” state of mind? Some people are trying to make a difference however, not enough people care to actually make one.
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