[ceejayoz]

> No one is making the claim that the cost of service would be $0. Quite obviously.

I am making the claim that the cost will be prohibitive to handle via charity, especially as a national healthcare strategy, as proposed upthread.

[foco_tubi]

Do you not agree that charity/philanthropy is already an essential part of the US healthcare strategy?

[ceejayoz]

US healthcare costs are $16k/person/year.

I do not think charity makes up a particularly signficant portion of that cost, no.

[foco_tubi]

That's not the question I asked, but you're still heading down the road to being incorrect. The fact is that charitable giving, need-based aid, philanthropic donations, government assistance, and other forms of subsidy fund *roughly half of the sum total American healthcare costs.* That's trillions of dollars.

[ceejayoz]

> government assistance

That's not charity!

[foco_tubi]

Maybe not according to your personal definition. Government welfare is a form of institutionalized or compulsory collective charity, although it is not “charity” in the private voluntary sense.

[ceejayoz]

> Maybe not according to your personal definition.

Not according to any common definition.

I, too, can win every argument if I get to make up the definitions.

> compulsory collective charity

Compulsory makes it not charity. That's a tax.