Bureaucratic nonsense

Today I see this guy who has cancer, diabetes, and a host of other chronic conditions. He is weak and pale, he has no ride home. He is estranged from his family, has few friends, was living at a nursing home for a couple years but managed to get out and live on his own, to his credit. He makes about $925 a month about $250 of which goes to back child support for his children who are now adults. His rent is $500 a month which around here is cheaper than cheap. He then has co-pays from Medicare for about 10 different meds. He has no car and lives in a rural area which has no public transportation. He will need followup doctor visits. One day he was desperate to get his meds from the drugstore so a friend lent him his car so he could get them. The guy, though previously a truck driver now lacks a drivers license. He gets into a fender bender and gets charged and now has to appear in court. He has no idea how he will get there.

This man is not eligible for Medicaid for some bizarre reason. He is so sick most of the time that he is virtually unable to follow through with getting the child support changed, and work with his state worker so that he can qualify for Medicaid. At this point he literally has to choose whether to take his meds or eat. He can't get to most of his doctors appointments due to his lack of transportation but is getting weaker and weaker. He is not yet sixty so he doesn't qualify for protective services, so we get him a visiting nurse. He wonders why he even bothered to work and try to get out of the nursing home since he is so much worse off financially and medically than before.

Granted, this man has probably made some poor decisions, he has likely burned a ton of bridges but at least he has tried to become independent. Why do we reward those who stay in costly nursing homes and never try to fend for themselves and cause those who attempt to be independent become more dependent in the long run because they lack the resources to maintain their independence? How is one to survive on less than $700 a month when one has a chronic disease, is in already cheap housing and has to pay out of pocket for transportation. How is a sick man supposed to schlepp into state workers offices to fight over bureaucratic nonsense? We need universal healthcare.