| > Medicaid asks a LOT of questions, the food bank does not. Not sure what you're talking about. Medicaid is extraordinarily generous. The only questions that are asked are in determining whether one qualifies to enroll in Medicaid, but once you're in, you pay almost nothing. Even prescription drugs are capped at $75, no matter how rare or fancy. > Food differs from health care significantly I disagree. Both are examples of critical goods/services without which humans die. They both factor into long-term health and quality of life. > Secondky, that we have food banks at all is deplorable and embarrassing. I completely agree. While I've been extolling the virtues of pricing systems to provision goods and services, I've also made it clear that welfare is extremely important. The US currently extends welfare to low income people, through SNAP/EBT food stamps, Section 8 Housing vouchers, and EITC. In my opinion, there's still room to further expand the generosity of these systems, and even consolidate them into a basic income. It's worth disentangling welfare from public vs private, because it's easy to conflate the two. It's entirely possible to rely on private markets to bring down prices and increase availability, while using publicly funded welfare to enable access for those less fortunate. |