By Marcus Williams

Ronald Reagan created the welfare queen in 1976. Thirty years later, my mother became one of these queens, but it was a far more grueling and humiliating process than the anecdotes Reagan told about women smoothly living off the government.

Last April, my mother was discharged from the hospital with over $28,000 in medical expenses. She did not feel like royalty. She had no insurance, no job, and no hope of paying her bills without help. As I applied for assistance on her behalf, I thought that no reasonable person could deny her application. No reasonable person ever judged her application. Instead, getting assistance meant navigating a maze of legal requirements that are most complicated for those most in need.

With all of her paperwork in front of me and my new degrees from Stanford University behind me, I thought helping her apply for government assistance would be easy. The endless forms proved maddening. After six hours, I had answered over a thousand questions. Multiple visits to the emergency room multiplied into endless questions about procedures and treatments and doctors. For each job she had held, they asked “how many times in a work day did you reach over your head?” The forms were a labyrinth. For her, simply filling them out would have been an impossible physical feat.

A week later, her application was rejected. We were told by hospital staff that every application is rejected at first and we were expected to appeal. Waiting for the appeal meant that the hospital still refused to treat her late stage of cancer unless she had coverage. If she had health insurance before then, she might have had a routine check-up and uncovered her cancer early. But she was unemployed and, without insurance, put off hospital visits until her health deteriorated. Now, she could not see an oncologist without proof she could pay and the hospital would only admit her to the emergency room.

My mother’s health has improved dramatically, but what should have been the least of her concerns proved to be a harrowing, sometimes desperate process. She was rejected for common reasons: to get social security disability or Medicare, one must have no savings or IRA and have reached one’s credit card limit. Over her lifetime she had responsibly saved an IRA, which was still smaller than her debt, and she had available credit. Despite an outstanding balance over $17,000, credit card companies had pushed up her limits after fifty years of paying on time. Despite being deep in debt, she could technically borrow more.

Even though it was obvious she was unable to work and could not pay her medical bills, getting approval was not so simple. Asking for help was belittling and she felt punished for a lifetime of hard work.

She could not get approved unless she took out her IRA, losing almost 30% to major penalties and taxes, and consolidated her debt into one credit card at a higher interest rate. She had no assets left, but now there was a chance she could get treatment. She had to be approved within three months for her hospital bills to be covered. We were persistent and she made the deadline. Many others are not so lucky.

I had access to her complete medical and work history, a reliable internet connection, and years of verifiable financial data. Applicants without a permanent address, let alone the hundreds of pages of documentation required, must feel like Sisyphus, endlessly pushing paper only to be repeatedly rejected.

If welfare queens ever existed, they do not anymore.