I'll give you real world example. My grandmother is 96 and lives with us. She lived with my parents when she got to the point she couldn't live on her own, but they are in their 70s and my Mom is in bad health herself with my Dad basically being her full time care giver. My Grandmothers money ran out a little while back and the $700 a month she gets in social security basically pays for one week a month of part time home health. Fortunately she doesn't need full time care yet, but it's coming. My family, cousins, siblings, etc is footing the bill for the other 3 weeks a month because we want to keep her here as long as possible instead of having to go into a home. She's medicare-pending which means we've applied and are waiting for approval, but since she's destitute that's just a matter of time. It would be nice if we could get a little help with home health. We're lucky we can afford to do it ourselves, barely, but most can't. Thus Grandma ends up in a shitty medicare nursing home and wastes away, basically alone.