American charity is setup to punish anyone that needs it. The issue isn't one of market, it's one of choice and availability. Whenever you need to rely on an institution operated by or on behalf of the government you are often dealing with something that has gone through 1000 rounds of reaganomics to trim it to the bone and then some.
A prime example of this is what happened to our mental health institutions. We used to have flawed, but fairly robust institutions to take care of individuals with extreme disabilities. Under reagan that all got yoinked away and people with severe disabilities were left with just about nothing.
But it doesn't end there, we do provide SSI and Medicare for people with extreme disabilities, but it's setup in the most draconian way imaginable. I have a child with severe autism, in order to not have them lose out of medicare I've had to get a law firm involved to setup a trust to ensure that my child never sees a dime of inheritance. My child can never own their own home, that'll kick them off of medicare. They can't own their own things, that will also eject them. It was an open question at one point if you could use trust money just to eat a restaurant (you can now, but this is certainly something that can be reversed as it was an IRS decision, not a law). This is all because if I want to give my child the best life possible after I'm gone, I have to make sure they have health coverage, and I simply can't save enough money to ensure that happens.
This isn't a question of what markets are available, but rather what quality of life should someone be entitled to? Should we all be entitled to have our needs met such as health, housing, clothing, and food? The current answer is no. I disagree. A good government is one that protects the most vulnerable.
The overall situation where we, as a society with the most abundant resources in all of history make living a decent life a puzzle for people facing difficulties, is quite the indictment.
I have dual citizenship so I plan on leaving the US at some point. EU is much more reasonable when it comes to cost of healthcare and living.
I do thing every American should have access to at least basic healthcare, some kind of affordable housing, food and clothes. Unfortunately, that is far from reality.
I myself have used food stamps at some point and everything about it was awful. The facilities were sad, employees rude and lines long.
Is that Medicare, or Medicaid? My understanding is the home is excluded for medicaid. I thought Medicare was determined by the SSDI that wasn't concerned with income/assets except for fees (covered by medicaid potentially).
I don't think Regan was the one to close all the mental health hospitals. I believe that started closing in droves in the 60s-70s.
The large institutional mental health hospitals were closed and supposed to be replaced by smaller, in-community health centers. Reagan repealed the funding for the successor systems and left it up to the states. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of...
A prime example of this is what happened to our mental health institutions. We used to have flawed, but fairly robust institutions to take care of individuals with extreme disabilities. Under reagan that all got yoinked away and people with severe disabilities were left with just about nothing.
But it doesn't end there, we do provide SSI and Medicare for people with extreme disabilities, but it's setup in the most draconian way imaginable. I have a child with severe autism, in order to not have them lose out of medicare I've had to get a law firm involved to setup a trust to ensure that my child never sees a dime of inheritance. My child can never own their own home, that'll kick them off of medicare. They can't own their own things, that will also eject them. It was an open question at one point if you could use trust money just to eat a restaurant (you can now, but this is certainly something that can be reversed as it was an IRS decision, not a law). This is all because if I want to give my child the best life possible after I'm gone, I have to make sure they have health coverage, and I simply can't save enough money to ensure that happens.
This isn't a question of what markets are available, but rather what quality of life should someone be entitled to? Should we all be entitled to have our needs met such as health, housing, clothing, and food? The current answer is no. I disagree. A good government is one that protects the most vulnerable.