My neighbor told me that if it wasn’t for Medicaid, he would have to pay over $2k for his lifesaving medication. He’s a veteran and very much retired, and Medicaid is his saving grace. The federal budget’s recent draft is calling for over 700 million in cuts to Medicaid in exchange for tax breaks for billionaires. This is our current America. The government is chaotic for a reason. They want to be so chaotic that we don’t want to focus on it, while they deny that ADD is real. We can be both exhausted and informed at the same time, as the American government is purposely traumatizing us. People might say that other places are worse, “don’t forget to count your blessings,” but just because we’re not as terrible as some countries doesn’t mean that we can’t strive for better.

Last month, my young and healthy boyfriend discovered that his pancreas stopped making insulin on its own. He showed up at the emergency room frail and with a glucose level in the 900s. The doctors and nurses were astonished that he was even functioning, but they were more astonished that he had no health insurance, as he has a part-time job doing something that he likes. The pregnant pause that came soon after it was announced that he had zero insurance was jarring. I remember the nurse saying, “We have to keep you, but you don’t have any insurance,” and me nodding as I stared at his sunken eyes and the drastic weight loss.

“We’ll worry about that later.” And later, we did as he needed four days in the hospital to get his glucose levels stabilized. The doctors told him to apply for Medicaid as diabetes is a serious disease, and Medicaid would be retroactive when he was approved. He filled out all his paperwork upon discharge and recently got his denial letter to help him carry the load for his life-saving medication. He will need insulin for the rest of his life as his body has just stopped making it. I told him to immediately appeal it because if he wasn’t the ideal person for Medicaid, I don’t know who is. I was infuriated for him when he told me about the rejection, as his 4-day stay in the hospital was $74,000, and if he hadn’t gone, he could’ve gone into a diabetic coma. “What are our tax dollars going to and where is the care in the Healthcare system?” Thank heavens Medicaid changed its mind about his denial, because working just to afford insulin feels like an American Nightmare.

In 2023, after 9 years of working for a healthcare IT company, I was laid off after the pandemic. It wasn’t my first time on unemployment, but it was my first time on the new system. Apparently, after COVID, unemployment changed a bit. Every week, my caseworker checked on everything but my mental health after losing stability and surviving a pandemic. I remember one week forgetting to show proof that I had been applying for jobs, and they held my check for that week. It got to the point where I created a running spreadsheet of my various applications and the stages that they were in, but on the other hand, unemployment is there because we put money into it. It’s a safety net, and what if I needed a breather in between the time I got laid off and the time before my next professional adventure? The caseworker idea in theory is amazing, but in practice, it’s just checking off boxes, and the United States fails in putting the right humans in human services.

This system would be more efficient if this caseworker system covered all parts of the human experience. Imagine signing up for SNAP/Medicaid and that caseworker checking up on you on a weekly basis to ensure that you had financial education, housing education, and that your mental and physical well-being was checked on.

It’s not just a 2025 problem either as my first recollection of human services is my mom telling me the story of how growing up her caseworker told her that she would never find a job with her locs. She did end up getting her SNAP benefits and not just one job but many jobs at the same time. She would do everything to make sure that we were taken care of and I would like to think that I got my work ethic from her. If it wasn’t for safety net programs like SNAP so many families would have to struggle.

The federal budget in its current draft wants to cut 715 billion dollars in Medicaid, cut SNAP significantly and include work requirements that would make it almost impossible for someone just trying to make ends meet have stability all in the name of utilizing our tax dollars to give tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy. It feels a bit dystopian that elected officials are doing this yet also raising the debt ceiling almost as if our tax dollars are imaginary monies.

We were never supposed to become richer. The wealthy got excited because they stoked our hope while they prepared tax cuts to line their pockets. Meanwhile, the Dems sat on the side, too paralyzed to make any moves, too afraid of doing the wrong thing that they’re not doing enough. The Dems are looking a lot like the Pittsburgh Pirates of the political world, as the fans just show up for the hot dogs and the free gifts. It’s appalling that we’re still going high, although elected officials know that does not work, and the Republicans are not afraid to keep going low.

It’s almost as if the elected officials that are for this budget as it stands don’t care about these safety nets. The ultra-wealthy are forgetting, though, that without the middle and lower class, there is no upper class. Capitalism can not run if there is no money, and it doesn’t take an economy degree to figure that out.

“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” -Louis Brandeis