Social PolicyDomestic Policy Unit

Health & Public Assistance

Domestic Policy

"We can never insure one-hundred percent of the population against one-hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life. But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age. This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built, but is by no means complete.... It is...a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness."-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, August 14, 1935

Social PolicyAffecting the living conditions conducive to human welfare…

Social Security

Social Security Federal Old-Age,

Survivors, & Disability Insurance Program (OASDI) Deducted from your

paycheck (FICA) 22% of the federal

budget went to Social Security in 2012

Social Security Benefits Retirement

You can retire at 62 and take less money or wait until full retirement at 67

Spouse’s Benefit Any current spouse and an ex-spouse of a marriage

that lasted at least 10 years Widow/Widower Benefits Children’s Benefit Disability Benefit

If you cannot continue in your job Supplemental Security Insurance

Severely disabled children may be eligible

Unemployment Insurance Added to the Social

Security law If you are

involuntarily laid off you can claim unemployment benefits from your state

Employers fund this by paying a tax

Medicare Added to Social Security in 1965 21% of the federal budget went to

Medicare in 2012 Provides health care for nearly 48

million elderly people Medicare Explained Video

Medicade & CHIP Supply insurance for approximately 60

million low income children and adults

Medicaid Designed to pay hospital, doctor, and

other medical bills for poor people 49.5 million Americans in 2012

Non-discretionary program What is the incentive to try and keep

costs low?

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Formerly known as “Food Stamps” Attempt to increase the food buying

power of low income Americans Program starts in 1961

1961: 367,000 people on food stamps 2012: 46,000,000

Corey Booker’s Food Stamp Challenge

Stem Cell ResearchSocial Policy

Stem Cell Research

Microscopic cells that are the “building blocks of life”

They can develop into MANY different cell types in the body

They can act as “repair” cells

Why might some groups argue that the government should not fund research using embryonic stem cells?

What might scientists say to these groups?

Social PolicySAME SEX MARRIAGE

Federal Defense of Marriage (DOMA)

Signed into law by President Bill Clinton (1996)◦ Section 1. Short title

◦ This Act may be cited as the "Defense of Marriage Act".◦ Section 2. Powers reserved to the states

◦ No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.Section

◦ 3. Definition of marriage (ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court)◦ In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or

interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.

Geography of Same Sex Marriage

LINK FORCURRENT DATA

Obergefell v.Hodges (2015)

PA Defense of Marriage Similar DOMA laws exist today in PA

◦ July 2013 - Attorney General Kathleen Kane says that she will not defend PA’s DOMA law

◦ July 2013 - Bruce Haines (Montco Register of Wills) begins to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples

◦ August 2013 – PA Department of Health sues Bruce Haines to force him to stop issuance of marriage licenses to same sex couples