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And giving basic health care to the poor saves everyone money. Damned greedy medical fields.

Those in medicine are not so greedy. It is the damn insurance companies that are raking in humongo profits. And drug companies charging outrageous prices. I talk to people all day long about hospital charges, insurance, and where the money goes. Deductibles, copays, coinsurance, and the like. Insurance wants to pay as little as possible, and the CEOs are making millions.

The majority of hospitals are non-profit, and they provide significant charity care. But it’s really not the responsibility of the “medical field” to provide care for free. That’s like saying that grocery stores should be giving free food to everyone who needs it.
Nothing is “free.” It’s the responsibility of society to make sure that it’s members have their basic needs met.

@HippieChick58 , I stand corrected. Poor choice of words. But on my itemized hospital bill the charges for a bag of saline were twenty dollars each. Tylenol were three dollars a pill. And that was ten years ago.
And the CEOs of the hospitals do very well for themselves too.

@freeofgod I work for a specialty hospital which I am happy to say is not for profit. I also work in billing so I have seen first hand how we help families with catastrophic medical costs. I've also seen huge deductibles and copays on bills. I can set up interest free payment plans and send people to websites to apply for Medicaid. Insurance is a racket in the US, and Americans are suffering for it.

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Yes, there is some evidence that it’s actually cheaper to give people housing than leave them on the streets with all of its social costs. But even if it’s merely a break- even prospect, shouldn’t we be working toward housing for all because it’s the right thing for a civilized society to do?

yeap, but in most of the cases people live on the streets because that's what they want, it's a hard situation when they decide to live on the streets.

@Esojotrebla This has been true. We had a woman, clearly mentally ill, who slept under a bench at the super market, who refused to go into a shelter. As it turned out, she had been abused and raped in a shelter. Shelters require supervision and professionals to keep everyone safe.

@Esojotrebla Um no. That is an excuse people make for not addressing the root causes of homelessness. It is very rarely a choice - and choosing to sleep on a bench instead of in a shelter isn’t choosing homelessness, it’s choosing among the bad options available once you become homeless.

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The real problem is greed..taking care of the homeless is a huge money making Industry..by city governments and the "Non-Profit Charities" that operate shelters. Having been homeless and living in shelters I got to experience, and witness, that greed.

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Sure but then we wouldn't have that feeling of superiority when we see a homeless beggar on the street.

@altschmerz I saw a video of Trump's daughter Ivanka being interviewed. She said when was much younger she was walking to Trump tower in New York with her father and there was a homeless beggar sitting on the pavement. Trump said to his daughter " That man is better of than me. He has $8 million dollars more than me". relating to the fact that he had debts of $8 million dollars. She thought this was very funny.

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There's a lot of communities in SoCal who need to figure this out...

[americamagazine.org]

@altschmerz I'm "agnostic" on that. I tried googling your comments...got no returns. Can you validate that with anything?

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