You're only partially right.

You are correct in that yeah, if you've got stable employment you've almost certainly got relatively easy access to healthcare. For some, like myself, it's built into my compensation along with my salary and the like.

For the elderly and disabled, we have Medicare. My father is retired, on a fixed income, and he's got Medicare. That's what paid for his ambulance ride and surgery. He paid very little out of pocket.

The distaffbopper is disabled, and is eligible for Medicare, but she hasn't bothered to sign up because she's covered under my insurance, along with the lifterbopper*. If I were to die right now, she could easily switch over to Medicare.

Back before we adopted the lifterbopper, he was a ward of the county, and I couldn't put him on my insurance back then because he was only our foster child. He was covered by Medicaid, which is like Medicare but it's for people with very low or no incomes. It paid for his medications, and even to have tubes put into his ears because he was getting constant ear infections.

Funny story about that, though: Because he was a foundling left under New York's Safe Haven law, he didn't have a name or social security number. Officially, until the adoption, he was known as "Boy Doe". That's who his Medicare card was made out to. But to the doctor's office, he was known by the name that we called him, but that wasn't made official until the adoption and issuance of a foundling birth certificate.

One day I'm at work and the distaffbopper calls me crying because the pharmacist accused her of trying to commit Medicare fraud, because the name on the antibiotic prescription didn't match the name on the Medicare card. He was new, and didn't know about our unique situation. A call to the head pharmacist at his home ended up clearing that one up, and the new guy apologized, but I could see where he was coming from.

Anyhoo, once we adopted him he went on my health insurance.

Oh, and we also lost WIC (I made too much), and Social Services no longer paid for daycare, nor did we get the monthly checks or clothing allowance.

And it was worth every penny that we lost.

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*Formerly the littlebopper, he's gotten into weight training. And he's in college, so "littlebopper" doesn't seem to apply anymore. Teenybopper doesn't seem right also.