The straw man is that I've assumed ' the poor in America aren't working hard' and that I implied 'that poor people should just work harder and make more money!'

Of course if you compensate providers for health care through the fruit of your labor and investments, you've earned it and it hasn't been provided to you on a silver platter; I don't think anyone is disputing that.

>This exactly implies that if only those poor people worked a "better part of a week to pay for it" like you did, they wouldn't be getting their health care served on a silver platter.

See my response below:

By handed on a silver platter I was referring to someone capable of working, but who requests (and is handed) health care for free without performing any labor at all at the expense of someone working and paying an involuntary tax. I never said that was all or even most poor. I'm not referring to the poor person making 7.50 buying their own private health insurance. There's probably an argument from some perspective that 'equitable' could mean everyone works the same amount of labor (20 hours or whatever) per month to pay for healthcare, although I'm not sure even that would precisely be equitable. One able bodied person of equal insurance risk pool to another working BOTH more hours AND paying more for same insurance would certainly sound inequitable.