i don't think charity is the answer. charity is what the rich and super rich use to get tax breaks while looking saintly. the data ive seen indicates that well-run, gov't funded health care gets the job done for less $$$, with greater benefits for the masses. an acquaintance from the netherlands told me that everyone is his country got a basic level of health care, and then jobs sometimes provided additional stuff as part of the package. his dad was some kind of corporate dude, so his extra coverage thru his position paid for my acquaintance's mother's botox, for example. meanwhile...
here in the us, even those with adequate or "good" coverage are paying out massive $$$. my parents have what's considered "very good coverage"--good copays, access to specialists, etc.--and when mama was about to have her colonoscopy, she 1st had to sit down the office people and talk $$$. seriously. what's that about?
that doesn't cover people with -major- problems who end up in bankruptcy court or harassed by collections agencies, etc. or...the people who go without and die or end up seriously harmed. i remember...back when the economy tanked, around the big bailout time, the mainstream media was -surprisingly- sympathetic to some people who ended up dead because of relativley minor things, like a tooth that needed to be extracted leading to widespread infection and death, that kind of thing. i guess they got all their white, "liberal" guilt out of their system...I don't see many articles like that now.
i just...well, personally, im not complaining. because my parents are now on the "comfortable" end of things, I've been granted disability, i have much needed breathing room, etc. but...if my parents were still (to quote a former counselor) "rinky dink middle class," then...yeah. good luck with that, kiddo.
America in the mid-40s-70s actually had all kinds of upward mobility (it helped to be white and male, not disabled, but...still...), an extensive middle-middle class, and something of a safety net. The US also had reasonable college tuition, well-funded social services, and the incarceration was not anywhere near as crazy as it is now. and then...
its not just that the safety net has largely been ripped to shreds or that the middle class has been decimated. its also the social ill effects of out of control inequality, poverty (including growing -deep- poverty), the privatization of...well....everything....
i don't think of europe or the uk as utopias, but...when i talk to my acquaintances who are over there, i get a bit...jealous. and scared for the us, too. while they're moving towards creating a more live-able, humane society, and they talk openly about social class and the problems associated with uncontrolled inequality...
here in the us, they're talking the death penalty for drug dealers. they want to shrink funding for subsidized housing. there's growing, palatable hatred for: poor people, disabled people, immigrants, the mentally ill. many church people want to shred assistance+aid to the poor, out of some distorted sense of "compassion" or...I don't know. I don't get it, clearly.
as someone who -was-, most definitely, on the discard heap of society until recently...i get a bit nervous. where to go? what to do? at a personal level, I think+believe I'll be OK, but...I'm something of an exception to the rule. when social darwinism has not only infiltrated the church, but its often -worse- in -some- segments of Christendom than in the non-believing parts of society...
as a Christian who was a "weakling" until Jesus moved so mightily in all aspects of my life, I get very, very concerned. David Wilkerson wrote a bit on America as Babylon, and...sometimes, I think he may have been on to something. Its not that -Americans- are bad, its that the elites who are running the place are ruthless and they apparently answer to no one.
