Topeka, KS — Bed-bound 34-year-old Bill Bucks of Topeka, Kansas, says he’s looking forward to getting back into the workforce when the Federal Government requires people on Medicare to seek employment. Mr. Bucks, a retired auto mechanic who’s been bed-ridden for the past year due to complications of diabetes, only has partial sight in one eye and can only get out of bed with the help of the nursing staff Topeka’s Gentle Care Convalescence Center.
“I gotta tell ‘ya, as soon as I’m feeling better, I’m gonna get back in the shop,” imagined an unconscious Mr. Bucks who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. “You should have to work if you’re getting a handout from the government. These freeloaders are what’s killing this country.”
Mr. Bucks’ health has deteriorated for several years due to his chronic diabetes. According to family members, he couldn’t get health insurance and treatment until the 2010’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, passed, allowing him and his pre-existing condition to receive health insurance. Without it, he would have perished. However, in the past year, his state took a turn for the worse, and he slipped into a coma last week.
Recently Republicans in Congress and the Donald Trump administration have proposed requiring Medicaid recipients like Mr. Buck to work for their medical benefits. GOP leaders have compared this proposal to similar ones in the 1990s that people needed on the government dole to seek employment to receive SNAP [food stamp] and general relief payments.
Critics point out that such a Medicaid requirement doesn’t work because most recipients are children, the elderly, and the infirm like Mr. Bucks. The number of eligible Medicaid workers is conservatively estimated at 13%, but no studies have been performed to determine that.
But Mr. Bucks doesn’t want to hear this egghead “liberal bullshit.”
“Look, Trump was elected to fix America,” said Mr. Bucks speaking to himself in the depths of his coma. “If you’re able to work, you should work, and that’s something I fully plan to do if I wake up. I mean, when I wake up.”
