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In June in Camden, New Jersey, two-year-old Matthew Mikel slipped while reaching for a cat on a balcony. He and the cat fell three stories. Doctors said Mikel survived because the cat cushioned his landing. The cat, however, did not survive.
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In 1993 the Social Security Administration office in Fairbanks, Alaska, rejected Athabaskan Indian Altona Brown’s application for Medicaid benefits because she wasn’t poor enough. Brown, 90, owned only a $3,000 coffin, a $700 plane ticket (reserved for flying her body home to her tribe when she passed away), and various rugs and clothing that she planned to pass on to her survivors–her tribal duty. The Social Security office said Brown’s coffin was too fancy to be counted as an exempt “burial receptacle,” and later said that the ticket and rugs were worth more than the $1,500 burial-expense exemption. In December 1994 the office changed its mind and ruled her eligible for Medicaid.
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