Families from my home state would use EBT/food stamps while struggling during the last recession. Under these social programs they always had enough money to buy basic needs from the grocery store. There is a cultural issue in the U.S. where a lot of people refuse to accept any help from those kinds of programs but never to the point where they would actually starve to death.
the problem with these programs in the US is that you gotta jump through hoops with beaurocracy and not every person has the mental stability to do that. same with healthcare. i need to register somewhere and meet some income quota to get free healthcare. to me that's ridiculous and not the case in many other countries. I personally experienced German healthcare without showing any paperwork when I had fallen on hard times in my life and it was very refreshing.
I personally know a poor guy in the States that was waiting to get to the psychiatrist for 4 months with his bipolar disorder episode because he simply wasn't able to get on the Medicare due to his anxiety. The task was too taxing for him at that time.
