What happened to the free, charity hospitals?

Question

I was born in a charity hospital. I remember, as a small child, that I was taken to the charity hospital for my inoculations. I had a series of throat infections, and when the time came to get my tonsils removed, my parents couldn't afford it. The charity hospitals had closed. I never had my tonsils removed and suffered from infections throughout my childhood. Whatever happened to those hospitals? With all the people who are uninsured, even working people, I think we need them now.

I have no idea who will pay for them. But plenty of the middle class are struggling with paying for medical care. They might appreciate a charity hospital, especially if they have a large family.
Would it be better for people to go without medical care? And hat about those who work, but use the emergency room visits only when they become seriously ill - which costs everyone more in taxes and insurance. Those who can't afford to pay are avoiding medical care until they have some expensive ailment that's much harder to treat. Is it saving $$$ for the middle class when they go on Medicaid, Medicare, or disability?

BTW, I was looking for a real answer, not bad tempered, selfish grumbling. Who paid for the charity hospitals before? Can you answer that?

If charity hospitals are a bad idea and aren't viable, then they aren't viable. I will accept that. But I would like to know if they are a good idea, and why they were stopped. Perhaps i should have posted them in the senior category- I'm hoping for an answer from someone who remembers or who studied the facts.

Answer 1

I too was born in a charity hospital, my parents had both graduated from Northern IL college of Optometry, but it was the depression and people could not afford food, let along something as extra as eyeglasses. My father took a job in the coal mines so my mother could get the instruments she needed to practice. When my Mother died in the 80's, people came to the funeral home and told me about getting a pair of eye glasses for a child or themselves and paying 25 cents a month to my mother, for the glasses.
If you google "Charity Hospital in New Orleans" you will turn up a wealth of information. Charity Hospitals still exist, but the waiting line is for months and even years. It is so strange that the people in America do not want the government in health care, they call it socialized medicine, and say that it makes the patient wait for services, yet people in America, wait too. Some are even going for much needed operations to other countries. Micheal Moore gets castigated for his movie, "Sicko" and yet the movie points out, the fact that we do not have good health care, here in America. (For those Americans, who do not have insurance).
George Bush just turned down a Health Care bill for childrens Health care. I think this is so sad. That little children must suffer. We have the working poor now, families who work days and live in shelters at night, unable to afford health care. Or some of them live in camp grounds, they can stay in tents two weeks, and then must move out for at least three days, before they are allowed back in. In 2007, some children still go to bed hungry.
We have a park, here in my home town, and a couple died, and left money for the park, for a fountain, trees, wrought iron benches. But a couple of months ago, the town removed the benches, it seems homeless people were sitting there. And heaven knows we could not have people knowing the town had homeless people. We try to sweep things like this under the rug now. If you have ever visited Washington DC, in the winter, you will see homeless vets of the Vietnam war, huddled in boxes over heat vents in the Captital.
We need new leadership, we need to care for our sick, help the homeless who are struggling to survive, the ones with children.

If you know anyone who is prescribed a medicine they cannot afford, tell them to go to
www.institutedc.org and download the prescription book from the gov. scroll down to the medication they are on, and call the telephone number under it. You can get free or low cost prescriptions, from the Pharma companies, call the number, request an application, take the application to your doctor to sign saying you need the medication, turn it in and get the medication free or at a greatly reduced cost, the Pharmaceutical companies use this as a write off at the end of the year.
You know dear, a nation is known, by how well it treats it sick, young, and elderly.

Answer 2

And just who is going to pay for these hospitals? The struggling middle class?

The only charity hospital I know of is St. Jude's Children's Hospital which is supported by charity.