Let me be clear. The people who maintain charities to help children who need hospitalization, and the people who donate to them, are not shameful. What is shameful is that some children have no other way to get needed medical care.
When I went to the supermarket today, there was a table outside collecting for (what at least claimed to be) a charity for children's hospital care. It made me think more about this.
Whatever one's beliefs on the issue, whether (non-disabled working-age) adults should be guaranteed medical care regardless of their ability to pay isn't as serious a question.
Similarly, whether children should be guaranteed certain other services isn't as crucial. But especially in a nation who's top court claims the sacred right of fetuses to be brought to term, one might think it would also guarantee hospital care for children after birth.
But we really have to ask: What kind of country will sit back and let children suffer or die if nobody is able to pay for their medical care?
OK. As I indicated above, I can't say for sure that the table outside the supermarket wasn't a scam. But what are the possibilities?
It could be a scam. Suppose, every child in the U.S. is actually guaranteed whatever medical care they need and are given that care whether or not there's any chance of getting paid for it. Maybe, the commercials you see for St. Jude's, Shriners and such are all scams - and they can appear on mainstream radio and TV stations without the broadcasters refusing the ads because it has to be a scam because no child requires such a charity. And these ads can be frequently broadcast without the government authorities going after what has to be a scam. The willingness to allow obvious scams would be shameful. The willingness to allow public statements trying to convince the American people that they live in a country that would rather let child die than to guarantee them health care is shameful. And, if they are scams, allowing places like St. Jude's to have a tax-exempt status would be shameful.
On the other hand, if one country guaranteed hospital care to all children, but also allowed scammers to have fake charities for sick children, and a second country did not guarantee hospital care for all sick children, I'd say the second country was more shameful.
The U.S. can't even claim it has the best healthcare for those children who can afford it. See this story from the Washington Post:
U.S. health-care system ranks last among 11 high-income countries, researchers say
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/05/global-health-rankings/
"The United States has the worst health-care system overall among 11 high-income countries, even though it spends the highest proportion of its gross domestic product on health care, according to research by the Commonwealth Fund."
Think about that. We pay more and get less. That's shameful.