Dirt poor?

[Elspode]

Originally posted by Radar
Before social security disability and medicare, an average family could afford to go to a doctor, doctors actually made housecalls, and doctors weren't paid with stolen money from resentful people. Government meddling has raised the cost of healthcare through the roof and made it unaffordable. Medical advances (which are due to private enterprise not because of government) have made healthcare superior now, but unaffordable for the elderly and disabled. If we take government out of the system the cost of healthcare for these people would be a fraction of what it currently costs. Here's a couple of articles for you.

Ah. Charity hospitals. Yeah, they're real plentiful around here. Oh, wait...no they aren't. In fact, there are exactly *none*. And no matter how cheap it gets, I seriously doubt that my son could afford it on $400 a month. Come to think of it, he wouldn't have his job at all, because the whole reason he works there in the first place is because of a tax credit program offered to the employer from the government.

I have reasonably extensive experience with both the health care system and the private agencies available to assist the disabled and indigent. Do you? So far the *only* services my son has been able to get were *all* paid for by State and Federal dollars. I have investigated other avenues, because his need for services is great. There simply are none available that meet his need for an income and for medical care. I have about 12 years of experience with this sort of thing at this point, so I know whereof I speak.

As for the supposed improvement in the current situation if taxation were removed, well, If there is no economic incentive to operate services for and provide financial support to the disabled and underemployed/unemployable, then those services will not increase, they will decrease. Since the unemployed and unemployable have no money, then where is the financial incentive for anyone to operate such a business? Oh, yes! Charity! Once taxation ceases, people will run willy nilly to their local church or relief organization, and make their coffers overflow with unprecedented bounty!

Let's look back about 100 years and see what charity institutions were like. They were dumping grounds, a place where people were parked to die. There were far fewer medical providers, psychiatric providers, physical therapists, etc, because, well...they couldn't make any money doing it for a charity institution. The facilities were overcrowded, and could not serve everyone who needed them. I noted an absence of such information in the articles you suggested, BTW. This is probably because the whole concept you are espousing is mostly concerned with people looking out for #1, and treating the unfortunate among us like #2.

As it is, my son lives a reasonably normal life (compared to what it *could* be), and it is *totally* due to the same programs that would cease to exist were it not for the Social Security and Medicare funds that support them. Even the meager busboy job he works for sixteen hours a week to earn the $400 per month was obtained through a program to employ the disabled.

Without taxation, we become a country where only the strong survive. Is that part of the "better" sociological picture that were supposed to ogling, here?