Who Would Provide Charity Care if the Government Didn't ?

Q: Who would provide charity care if the government didn' t fund it through forced taxation and government -adminstered entitlement programs like Medicaid and Medicare ?

A: ".... As to the question of how those who cannot afford medical care will receive it, we must bear in mind that government is not taking care of them now and is logically incapable of ever doing so, for the simple reason that government does not and cannot produce goods or services.

Insofar as people who cannot afford medical care are receiving it, the care is being provided by productive American citizens, doctors, and hospitals. And we must bear in mind that, in the words of Philosopher Leonard Peikoff, Americans who cannot afford medical care "are necessarily a small minority in a free or even semi-free country.

If they were the majority, the country would be an utter bankrupt and could not even think of a national medical program."

Those unable to afford any particular medical services would have to rely on voluntary charity, not on the empty promises of government.

Individually, Americans are the most generous people in the world, and they have always been so.

For example, American individuals, corporations, and foundations gave $1.5 billion to aid victims of the December 26, 2004, Sumatra earthquake and tsunami, more than double the amount any government provided, including the United States.64

Quoting Dr. Peikoff again:

And such charity, I may say, was always forthcoming in the past in America. The advocates of Medicaid and Medicare under LBJ did not claim that the poor or old in the '60s got bad care; they claimed that it was an affront for anyone to have to depend on charity.

But the fact is: You don't abolish charity by calling it something else. If a person is getting health care for nothing, simply because he is breathing, he is still getting charity, whether or not any politician, lobbyist or activist calls it a "right."

To call it a Right when the recipient did not earn it is merely to compound the evil.
It is charity still—though now extorted by criminal tactics of force, while hiding under a dishonest name.

As shown, charity already abounds in America and would be even more abundant if the government removed its coercive hands from the health care and health insurance industries and consumers.

Even with the government violating rights to the extent that it currently does, many examples indicate the sufficiency of charity in this regard.

Here are just a few:

The Shriners' Hospitals provide free care to children and adults with orthopedic, spinal cord, and burn injuries. St. Jude's Hospital provides free catastrophic care for children.

Pharmaceutical companies provide enormous quantities of prescription drugs to those who are unable to afford them; for instance, they provided free (or nearly free) prescription drugs to about 6.2 million people in 2003 alone, and have been providing free prescription medicines to those unable to afford them for years.

And there are hundreds of other examples...."

full article:

http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2007-winter/moral-vs-universal-health-care.asp