text: What an opportunity for the US to have the best health care and social assistance in the world. It already has  the best medical system - people travel from all over the world for treatment in the US.  Assistance for the poor is variably poor. So all the US needs is to tie their medical system to the poor. . Ideally this would be done  with a Guaranteed Annual Income for the poor. 
  
  That would do away with all the varied support programs including Medicare and Medicaid. Further the poor would not have to live in government run housing, they could select housing the same way that we all do, namely, in a neighborhood that we could afford. 
  
  The cost? Probably no more than what all the social programs which would be replaced. In any event the US would be a better country. The best health care. The best social assistance.