Now, while poor people are much more generous than anybody out in those fancy suburbs are, they're unable to give anyone enough to make much of a difference since they're already living hand to mouth, themselves.

Let's see how long she survives. My guess is that she'd crack in under a week if she were ever exposed to reality.

lifetime medical care the church could NEVER afford to pay for it. My daughter alone would break our church and we have several disabled members as discribed above.

This woman knows nothing of real disability and the costs. Without Medicaid all of our disabled members would be dead and M. Bachmann would have to take all her signs about how she supports special needs children. How the teaparty people can be so ignorant is beyond me. Disabled people live in every community in our nation. The truth is they do not want to see.

to begging neighbors for help. Especially when neighbors are usually in the same financial boat.

They'll pray for you as you die. That'll work...

Me? I think I'll go to my doctor, present my Medicare and Supplement cards and get treatment. The church folks can pray for someone else.

Mayyybe they'll have a spaghetti dinner fundraiser to pay for...a few hundred dollars of my bill.

Prayer isn't treatment.

Miserable teabagger shitstain. I've not found a single redeeming quality in any of them.

Right wingers want to be able to judge who deserves help and who doesn't, and have a basis to get people guilted into supporting the church.

help minorities, or gays, or folks of the wrong political persuasion, or whatever.

Though I suppose that's the whole point.

"If there were no govt social aid programs, I could make sure my money went to help The Right Sort Of People."

On Edit: Also, I was treated at a Catholic hospital, but they still billed my insurance company.

neighbors. And a lot of people don't go to a church.

if it weren't for the wicked, wicked socialist govt. Or something.

That's the good old-fashioned way.

It wouldn't work today.

There's not enough social trust to go around and in most communities not enough "community."

If you need help, you go to your support network. That used to be neighbors and your church. Not just any church. You were part of a group. It's one reason that churches and fraternal organizations were so important: As Americans moved, being in the same church or fraternal organization gave you an entree in a new town, a ready-made support network.

This frayed as people found they could take advantage of such networks. It's a kind of "tragedy of the commons". By the Depression, most social networks had frayed badly enough that outside of small towns where you grew up you couldn't count on people. So the response was, of course, to move and hope strangers would help. They didn't.

Some neighborhoods are still more cohesive than others.

Locally some firefighters were killed last May in a hotel fire. Others were maimed. The firefighters are pulling together around them. Yeah, they'll get disability. But one person donated an apt. for one firefighter. One firefighter team is responsible for one of the injured's yard work. They have a rotation schedule to go and take food and do shopping for another. They get regular visitors. As time goes on more is offered and it's more organized. This includes not just the surviving injured, but also the families of the dead.

I was in a fairly close-knit church. We had a special fund for widows. Paid for assorted things for them. If they had a setback, it was undone. Before SS took over, it managed the widows' income and made sure their needs were met. One needed a new roof, and a squad of men, some of which were construction workers, showed up one Sunday and replaced her roof. Another needed a new stove, and she answered the door one day to find it was delivered. One older man had a heart-attack and couldn't mow one widow's property, so a sign-up list appeared. Years later it was still true that every Sunday somebody showed up to mow.

It didn't do much for outsiders. Its funds were taken up by those in the community.