[randombit]

18992.1(b) excludes UBI for anyone "receiving benefits under the Medi-Cal program, the County Medical Services Program, the CalFresh program, the CalWORKs program, or Unemployment Insurance" so if you are currently receiving any form of welfare, f you, otherwise here's your free money? Seems like a really strange approach for something that is trying to improve economic security. Does anyone know what the reasoning here is?

[the_watcher]

The most resilient case for UBI (by that I mean that it blunts more criticism) is that cash transfers are cheaper to administer and arguably more effective than welfare programs. I thought it was odd that this wasn't proposed to entirely replace those programs with a simple to administer system (no verification of income, no verification that you're looking for work, etc) that still "delivers" the benefits already received by people covered by existing programs. This proposal definitely seems framed poorly...

[heavyset_go]

If you look at the individual market for health insurance, premiums, deductibles and co-pays will exceed the total UBI benefit. Medicaid sets group rates that it will pay, so it is more efficient at reducing costs. I can't imagine that using UBI benefits to pay for health insurance on the individual market would be more effective than such a program.

[the_watcher]

I think the proposal is by far weakest in tying it at all to healthcare. Maybe UBI could be used to improve our health insurance headaches, but I was speaking specifically about things like unemployment benefits, CalFresh, etc. Things that are already just cash transfers but require an (arguably) bloated and too expensive bureaucracy to administer.

[notatoad]

Isn't this a core tenet of all UBI proposals - it's an alternative to other aid programs, not a supplement to it. That's the only way it can possibly be economical.

So either they kill off medi-cal, calfresh, and calworks, or they keep them around but disallow any "double-dipping". It seems like they've chosen the politically safer option of not killing the competing aid programs completely.

[heavyset_go]

> Isn't this a core tenet of all UBI proposals - it's an alternative to other aid programs, not a supplement to it.

It's a core tenet to some UBI proposals. I'm aware of proposals that are supplemental to, and not replacements of, other benefits.