Subsidized Hurricane Relief vs. Subsidized Health Care

[noamnety]

I was listening to an NPR report about people waiting on line for up to 5 hours to get their two gallons of water and a bag of ice for the day, and they mentioned that one woman was willing to wait it out because she needs the ice to keep her diabetes medicine cooled.

Is there a reason the government steps in with emergency aid when a person needs help because of an environmental weather condition, but we don't step in with help when they develop a environmentally related diseases?

What are the ethics involved in everyone knowing instinctively that the hurricane victims need water to survive, therefore we must provide it ... but poor people who need cancer medicine to survive, they get a lottery system?

Are the people that are opposed to "government handouts" (health care for everyone at tax payer expense) staying away from those water lines and refusing to accept help from FEMA?

[mazzarro]

1. I truly don't know

Maybe it is that people will gibbly attribute illness as somewhat connected to the actions/lifestyle of the victims and weather is seen as being something from the "gods" which people don't have control of. Regardless, I see no christ-like empathy in the people that profess their hardcore christain principles that is devoid of understanding and mercy for the less fortunate.

[Kenneth ken]

2. A good question

for which I don't have a good answer.

It probably has something to do with the unpredicatbility of natural disasters vs the predictability of keeping sick people well - a hurricane comes along once in a while, but them sick people just stay sick forever.

I think the ethical canon is "screw them, I got mine, oops, I don't got mine anymore, give me a help, 'k?" :P

ps - if you see people crowding at the water line, or having the husband on line, and the wife two spots back, pretending they don't know each other so they can get twice the water, them's the ones opposed to government handouts, so they could surely give you the correct answer.

[quaker bill]

3. As a civil servant,

I truly do enjoy telling them "You know we used to have the people and equipment to do just what you are asking for, but since the last tax cut, those folks were laid off, the equipment was surplused, and the program was closed. You are welcome to hire a contractor or do it yourself."

[SheilaT]

4. I keep on being told

that most people are don't have health care because they choose to spend their money frivolously, rather than purchasing health care.

How about this: People who live in Florida (or anywhere that gets natural weather disasters) have chosen frivolously to live there and so don't' deserve any help.

That way Californians and their earthquakes, midwesterners and their tornadoes, anyone who lives near a river that floods, EVERYONE is on equal footing here, just like all those who think it's more important to buy food and pay rent than purchase health insurance.