>>>What the study is showing is that despite the trillions spent on since the beginning of the "War on Poverty", poverty has never dipped below 10.5% and is rising once again despite a dramatic increase in spending recently. The point is that the programs do not work.
>
>The point is that literal interpretation of a slogan is not a proof. Bundling expenditure under the "war on poverty" label does not make it rational to insist that Medicaid is supposed to reduce poverty or that failing to do so means Medicaid needs to be dismantled.

Medicaid and Medicare are part of the "War on Poverty" because they were proposed, legislated and passed as such. Unbundling them from the expenditure totals would be disingenuous.

LBJ State of the Union Jan 8 1964
This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.
...
Our aim is not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.
...
We must provide hospital insurance for our older citizens financed by every worker and his employer under Social Security, contributing no more than $1 a month during the employee's working career to protect him in his old age in a dignified manner without cost to the Treasury, against the devastating hardship of prolonged or repeated illness.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=26787#axzz1zU5bwlpL

The part in bold is my favorite. ;)

The Social Security Act of 1965 was one of the results.

>While it's true that bad health can prevent people improving their lot, it's patently clear that healthcare cannot magically fix the job shortages, so to call it a failure for something that never could have been expected of it, is a giant opportunistic non-sequitur based on a slogan.
>
>>> I would suggest that because Medicaid is such a large portion of the spending (which is not working) it needs to be the first item addressed.
>
>Might be better to review the fate of the mighty US manufacturing sector that used to provide lots of jobs for the poor: almost entirely exported to your good buddies in China in exchange for short-term corporate profits/dividends. And now apparently healthcare is a failure unless it overcomes that? Might as well hang world peace and FTL travel on healthcare while you're at it.

Might be best to review the regulatory, tax and anti-business climate which has led to the relocation of manufacturing facilities. Mischaracterizing the approach as search for "short-term" gain is to fundamentally misunderstand (or purposely misstate) the goal. The object of lowering expenses IS long-term growth.