You're expending a lot of effort to see this as anything but a cost of living problem. You've walked back from calling the poor stupid or lazy, but you still seem to believe that if only those poor benighted souls could get some book learnin' about budgets and whatnot all their problems would be solved. This link is for you.
You honestly think everybody just knows how to handle personal finance ? I very clearly pointed out that America seems to have ALOT ( I even wrote it all big and stuff ) of problems to work on which I wasn't fully aware of. Many Americans love trying to point out that their health insurance isn't actually a lot of money and it's waaay better than the system we have in Canada. So even though we are told about these programs to help the poor pay for healthcare in America apparently that was mainly BS. I very clearly explained that these are problems which are apparently much bigger than people like to admit (although I think that's just how they respond when Canadians get smug and they want to say no no it's not that bad). The thing is as much as I can see a cost of living problem I can't really ignore the people who have no idea wtf to do seeing as they are my peers. If they weren't I probably wouldn't see the problem but holy shit it's a problem.
Who are these people? Most of the people I know admit that healthcare is jacked up around here, and they're paying a lot without getting a lot back because of Big Pharma, government subsidies, etc., and sure don't comment on (dis)advantages compared to the Canadian system when most of us are just trying to figure out how the hell our own healthcare system (doesn't) work...Many Americans love trying to point out that their health insurance isn't actually a lot of money and it's waaay better than the system we have in Canada.
I sometimes get the impression it's a response to outsiders when they criticize the system. Like how people will critize their own family but when somebody else says something all of a sudden their family is amazing. I've had people talk about how terrible waiting times are here and how their monthly payment isn't that much. Or the common bit about how we pay all our money in taxes. How there is programs that help the poor so it's not actually that bad. Personally, I always think our system is better since I know my family wouldn't have a roof over our heads without it but just how bad the American system is has been downplayed a decent amount over the years.