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solipsist comments on Stupid Questions September 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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In the U.S., what happens to people who cannot survive without assistance (like people without the dexterity to feed themselves, or even people without the ability to keep a job or fill out paperwork) who do not have a family or the means to trade for help? What, physically, keeps them from starving to death?
Most are elderly and are in nursing homes paid for by the federal government.
Some combination of Social Security Disability payments, caring friends and family, private-sector charities, and hospital emergency rooms that aren't allowed to check for ability to pay before providing treatment. It's a bad system with a lot of cracks to fall through, and a distressing number of poor people suffer miserable pointless deaths.
There's some sense of a social safety net that catches people. Sometimes it doesn't catch them and they die.