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> government assistance

That's not charity!

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.

> 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.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with any specific definition, the state of US healthcare is such that half of all spending needs to be subsidized in one form or another. To remove even the paltry billions that may fit under a strict category of “voluntary charitable giving” would be a disaster.

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