Reading about the elderly man begging for money to buy insulin left me almost as heartbroken and angry as reading about young men my son’s age dying because they couldn’t afford insulin.

My son aged out of our health insurance over a year ago, and he was angry and depressed that his country didn’t value his life because he was unlucky enough to inherit a genetic, insulin-dependent diabetes. No retail job he has ever worked hard at has offered affordable insurance or enough pay to cover insulin, and as a returning full-time college student, he couldn’t even get affordable insulin through his student health center.

Then we learned that community health centers offer affordable insulin to those in need, and now my son uses all the insulin he needs to stay alive and healthy.

Health care in America is a mess. Ideally, we move to a universal, single-payer system where everyone has access to all the care they need; where kids like my 15-year-old daughter, recently diagnosed with diabetes, can worry only about taking care of their health and future instead of the overwhelming cost, her main worry. At the least, we must vote to pass expanded Medicaid, allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, limit the profits pharmaceutical companies can make from tax-funded research, demand transparency in hospital and clinic pricing, and keep insurance premiums lower (premiums we wouldn’t pay under a tax-funded universal system).

In the meantime, everyone needs to know they can go to a community health center for needed care and prescriptions. Please spread the word that there is a resource better than begging or rationing or dying from a lack of money. And please find and use this resource if you need it.