"I just hate to ask them."

As I typically do on a Sunday evening, I turned on Sixty Minutes. One of the stories concerned a group of volunteers called RAM (Remote Area Medical). I was fascinated with the idea of a traveling medical facility providing all kinds of care for individuals unable to afford their own doctors' fees. This care included eye, dental, and regular medical services. Once more, as Americans, we are reminded of the high cost of medical care for those least able to pay it.

Many of these people who were interviewed were not what are typically called "the freeloaders" of our society, but they were hardworking people who had regular jobs. One was a truck driver, his wife, and his daughter who had driven two hundred miles, arriving at the mobile medical facility in the middle of the night. He and his family had brought snacks and blankets and slept in the car in order to get an early number for admission into the facility. He said he had been suffering for months with an infected tooth but simply had no other choice other than to endure it. His wife and daughter had other medical needs.

Another woman was on Social Security Disability but needed new glasses to be able to see. Eye care was not provided by her insurance. When she finally got into the building to see a doctor, she was told that area had just closed. She said, "The Lord will provide; the Lord will provide." When the interviewer told her He would not provide today, she replied, "Not today, but He will provide." She then went on to say, as she cried, that she had a good church to which she belonged but, "I just hate to ask them."

We come back to the question that has dogged us for years, and that is, "How much should the government provide for those in poverty, and how much should charitable organizations provide?" Many would say the choice might come down to the Presidential vote in November. Democrats have traditionally supported government entitlements while Republicans have supported the idea of charitable help more. Another consideration, obviously, is the recession we have no doubt entered into. Will we need some type of large program such as Franklin D. Roosevelt's in the 1930's?

Regardless of the choices made by the new President and his or her cabinet, all of us reasonably expect medical care to be available to all. How can we expect to live and pursue happiness, as our Declaration promises us, without it?