Sid Salter: Taxpayers will always pay for indigent care
Perhaps the most frustrating fallout from the ongoing national struggle over “repealing and replacing” the Affordable Care Act has been the suggestion that any outcome is going to somehow relieve taxpayers of the responsibility for funding indigent and/or uncompensated health care. Wrong.
So much of the bile being spewed on social media is couched in the language of “us” or “them” and cheers the notion that there is an outcome on Capitol Hill that makes the issue of health care for the poor and those who can’t take care of themselves magically go away.
There is no such outcome. Much in the vein of the biblical admonition that “the poor will always be with us,” it’s equally certain that the provision of health care for the poor, the elderly, the disabled and children will continue and that in some form, taxpayers will pick up most of the tab.
Clarion Ledger
3/26/17
Magnolia Tribune
