 Many people speak openly about health matters with strangers as a condition of receiving and paying for health care. For example, a family needing the assistance of a regional mental health/mental retardation agency unavoidably places reams of sensitive information in the hands of government. (Bridges 2017) The same is true of a family which needs to apply for government benefits for aging or disabled kin. The more disclosures a family must make, the wider the circle of confidentiality and the lesser the medical privacy. Questions of distributive justice are raised by mandatory disclosures to government made as a condition of access to care. Poor and disabled persons dependent upon medical assistance from government have substantially less informational privacy vis-à-vis government than wealthy and healthy persons. The risks and burdens of state knowledge of the individual are disproportionately borne by the least well off segments of society.