Oh, Shut Up

The home security company called at 6:24AM. My mother had pressed her medical alarm button. She was in trouble. She needed help immediately.

I pay $308 per year to that private company for 24/7 monitoring. In order to pay their bill, I must first earn $397.29. Here's the breakdown:

Gross salary: $ 387.29
Federal income tax withholding: -45.70
Social security: -21.56
Medicare: - 4.47
State income tax withholding: - 7.56
======
$ 308.00

After getting the phone call I ran next door to my mothers' house. She was having a stroke. Paramedics arrived ten minutes later. Four men. One only slightly smaller than a beer truck. The men lugged backpacks containing oxygen, a portable EKG, an automated blood pressure cuff, and more. They asked me about my mother's medical history. What medication is she taking? Has she been ill recently? Allergies? What is normal for her? Could she walk unaided? Her left side seems weak; is that recent? Lots of questions. Except one: the paramedics never asked about money. Didn't want to know if she had paid some special ambulance fee. Didn't even ask if she was up to date with her property taxes. They focused only on helping my mother.

The county employees put my mother into a county ambulance and drove her to the hospital on county, state, and federal roads. Most of her hospital care will be paid by Medicare, a federal program. Some expenses will be paid by supplemental health insurance that my mother buys.

Here is a tangible result. Cause and effect. We pay taxes; paramedics show up when we dial 911.
And, now I ask all the loud-mouthed, funny-hatted Tea Partiers about their endless anti-tax whining: What is your plan? Seriously. After you innumerate dolts do your masters' bidding, and shrink government to the point where you can drown it in a bathtub, what will be your plan for sweet old ladies who suffer strokes and need medical help quickly? Please tell me.