Desperate measures

Another tragic story of an American with no health insurance who resorted to desperate measures to get treatment for all his ailments.

James Verone of North Carolina needed help so urgently he robbed a bank of one dollar so he would be arrested and qualify for free health care.

He was duly taken to jail and is now getting the medical attention he needed for his slipped discs, arthritic joints, a foot problem and a growth on his chest.

A few years ago he lost his job with Coca-Cola, and with it his health insurance. Since then he has lived on his savings, part-time jobs and food stamps. He can't afford to get his own health insurance.

I don't know if Barack Obama's watered-down health care reforms will eventually help people like James. If not, then they're pretty useless.

They say a civilised society is one that looks after its most frail and vulnerable citizens. In that case, the USA, with its reluctance to provide free medical treatment for anyone who needs it, is far from civilised.

Millions of hard-up people are expected to endure painful and disabling ailments indefinitely because they're seen as too feckless to provide for themselves and therefore undeserving of help from anyone else.

There are cats and dogs that are looked after more generously and humanely than human beings. There are rare plants and endangered species that are cared for with more diligence.

But human beings are expendable. If James should drop dead of some untreated illness, there are plenty more Jameses to fill the gap. Why waste cash on society's flotsam and jetsam?

Pic: a very desperate-looking James Verone

Empty plates

More and more Britons are now so hard-up they're resorting to charity food handouts to avoid starving. Often embarr-assed and apologetic, having tried desperately to fend for themselves, they ask for the handouts to feed themselves and their children.

The number of people getting emergency food boxes has risen from 25,000 two years ago to 60,000, which includes 20,000 children. If the trend continues, by 2015 there'll be half a million people being fed.

The handouts are provided by the Trussell Trust, a charity that manages over 70 food banks around the UK.

Despite what the government says, this is a wealthy country crawling with billionaires and multi-millionaires, yet the gap between rich and poor is still widening and Rolls-Royces glide past those who don't know where the next meal's coming from.

It's no longer just the homeless who need food handouts. Now it's also working people whose incomes are so low they simply can't pay all the bills. Increasingly they're having to choose between heat, light, food and clothing because they can't afford all of them.

Parents are skipping meals to feed their children. Tiny portions are the norm, if there are any portions at all. Whether food is cheap and filling is more important than whether it's nourishing.

It's a shocking situation. And what's worse is the fact that people are less and less sympathetic to the plight of the badly-off. Just 27 per cent think the government should spend more on welfare benefits and only half think it should provide a decent standard of living for everyone.

The rest presumably think it's your own fault if you're poor and struggling to survive. You're probably poor because you've been feckless, reckless and bone-idle, so why should anyone else help you?

I despair of the selfish, hard-hearted, indifferent society I live in, where comfort and good fortune is taken for granted and the problems of the less fortunate are pushed out of sight. So few people recall that wise old saying "There but for the grace of God go I."