Poorhouses could return without a net
Readers of the article on the system and conditions of poorhouses (“Crowded, cold and harsh: Sad legacy of poorhouses,” April 24) —with all their horrors of destitution, sickness, starvation and servitude — may be asking themselves why we no longer have, or need, poorhouses.
The answer starts with Social Security and continues with Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, the Affordable Care Act, the supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, and a host of programs designed to provide a social safety net that keeps us from becoming paupers and wards of the state.
But readers shouldn’t get too comfortable. A recent plan unveiled by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., calls for all federal legislation to sunset after five years, leaving every federal program at the mercy of whatever party or ideology holds sway in Washington on the date legislation expires.
If a political party succeeds in dismantling fundamental components of the country’s social safety net, poorhouses could once again become the places where we and our children go to die.