>Why not? As soon as this person spends enough liquid assets on medical care to pass eligibility criteria he/she will receive Medicaid. >One may consider it cruel, but it is exactly safety net in action. Anything better than that would be called luxury. Please, note that >every person with cash in pockets has option to buy health insurance, this is an economic decision when things are Ok. When it gets >worse, then at some very bad point safety net starts to work. Again, it is cruel, but I don't think that the opposite system, one that you >experienced in Romania (extreme case, but essentially realistic) is more humane.

I agree, it is cruel. My problem is that quality of life drops a lot just because one needs to meet the Medicaid criteria. By passing Medicaid eligibility criteria , that person may pass the eligibility for becoming homeless or to live in some form of assisted living.
Even if you buy health insurance when things are OK, health insurance company can drop you right away or increase the premiums when things go bad or do not cover preexisting situations.

In Romania the problem is that a person has been paying all life long for national health care and when it needed it, there was none or minimal..Basically the person had to purchase the medicine (in some cases quite expensive, in some cases paid by gov) and "take care" of the medical staff as well. I still think that there is one good aspect of it though: I met some cancer patients that got chemo treatment for free. Thats probably the single positive thing Ive seen there.
So if the service provided had been lets say decent, I would have agreed to paying for the national health care.