The Reagan administration once eliminated poverty in America
Perhaps it was a think tank that the Reagan WH cited... but in any event, their method was to count healthcare benefits as income and then average income over the life of the subject.
It turned out that even very poor people tended to become quite "wealthy" after contracting a terminal illness, and averaged backward their yearly income wasn't so bad.
See, it turns out you weren't poor after all! Too bad you were only able to enjoy your surprising prosperity while in a coma.
This was, obviously, a disgusting political-stunt accounting trick of the "ketchup is a vegetable," and "if you have air-conditioning how can you be considered poor?" variety
At the same time, though, that cruel little analysis was based on real numbers representing real money.
Most of us scrimp and suffer and compromise for a lifetime with the diminished options and achievments that attend privation. We have times when a few hundred bucks would make all the difference in the world.
Our one luxury is often perscription drugs. Here's a pill... it costs $5, $10, $20. And we spend it every day, out of necessity, even though we would not drop $20 on a nice lunch. We get a $5000 medical procedure and walk home from the hospital, unable to afford or justify taking a $5 cab ride.
And only once do we grab the brass ring. As we lay dying and hundreds of thousands of dollars magically appear to slightly delay the inevitable. Where was that money when it might have made for a better life, rather than merely a better death?
(This is not an argument for "death panels"! Just melancholy food for melancholy thought.)
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