Man Robs Bank of $1 To Get Health Care In Jail

f1vlad writes "A 59-year-old man has been jailed in Gastonia, N.C., on charges of larceny after allegedly robbing an RBC Bank for $1 so he could get health care in prison. Richard James Verone handed a female teller a note demanding the money and claiming that he had a gun, according to the police report."

Comments

Sad, but I can see doing it too

[elrous0]

If you can't get a job, that's about the quickest, easiest way to get healthcare in the U.S. The healthcare isn't great in jails and prisons, but it beats the hell out of nothing.

For those of you fortunate enough to live in developed countries, let me break down the U.S. system for you. Here are the only ways to get healthcare in the U.S.:

1) Go to prison or jail. Not the best care, but beats nothing
2) Be real poor. This will usually qualify you for Medicaid--which sucks, but is also better than nothing.
3) Be a child. There are usually programs for providing healthcare for kids.
4) Be over 65. This will qualify you for Medicare--which isn't the best by a longshot (many doctors won't accept it) but it's a lot better than Medicaid
5) Get a job with benefits. This means a full-time job (working as a cashier at Walmart won't cut it). Better come armed with a college degree. Quality is all over the map.
6) Join the military. Very good healthcare. But this could involve getting shot at.
7) Become a Congressman of other high-ranking government official. Best fucking care you can get. Expect gold-plated bedpans for yourself and your family, even as you rail against government-supported healthcare for everyone else.

Of course, you can also elect to pay for it yourself. But, if you have ever seen what even basic healthcare costs in the U.S., you will realize this is impractical for anyone who isn't Bill Gates. A single emergency room visit could easily bankrupt even a moderately well-off individual. And don't even THINK about having surgery unless you've got a mansion to mortgage.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[WrongSizeGlass]

1) Go to prison or jail. Not the best care, but beats nothing

No always. Take a look at California's prison healthcare issues. This guy will probably be charged by the state (instead of federal) and the state may even deal with him as a non-violent offender who gets house arrest (and has to pay for his own monitoring). The DA & prosecutor aren't stupid - they'll want to discourage this type of activity.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[Hazel Bergeron]

I'm sorry that it's so tough for you guys in the US. Here in the UK, Cameron (like Reagan's mini-me Thatcher and various oddly-admired gentlemen all the way back to half-American Churchill) is trying his best to turn us into the 51st state.

But it turns out that quite a lot of British people love the NHS. And, imperfect as all human endeavours will be, so do I. And I don't just love it in principle - I, like almost everyone in the UK, have experienced and benefitted from it.

(I also have experienced US healthcare. Oh dear. The US does a few things very right - why must it get some things so wrong?)

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[krazytekn0]

but until then he's still in Jail, you know how long it takes something to go to trial? at MINIMUM 1-2 years.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[Hazel Bergeron]

So what you're saying is that he'll have to commit a more serious crime?

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[DreadPiratePizz]

Paying for yourself not practical? I don't smoke and I'm not overweight, and I pay $150/mo for full coverage. If I stay in the hospital, I'm never on the hook for more than $1500; my insurance pays the rest. Granted I am single and young, but I'm not exactly going bankrupt here. I'm sure if you have a large family or are otherwise unhealthy it can be a a huge burden, but if you can't afford that then it pays to not have kids and just take care of yourself.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[cob666]

While I agree with everything you said I will say that I am currently self employed and paying for my own health insurance, my monthly premiums are just over 600 per month (I'm 45 and in pretty good health). While routine visits are paid for I still have a $30 co-pay for every doctor visit and usually a $25 co-pay for prescriptions (although I have paid higher for more costly medication). Anything other than routine requires pre-authorization from the insurance company and is more times than not declined with no explanation the first or even second time my doctor requests it (such as physical therapy for a knee). Also, every year my premiums increase by 10-15 percent and my premiums are almost to the point where I will NOT be able to afford that monthly cost.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[gl4ss]

breaking a house arrest to get into a real prison is.. well, fuck, it's much easier than robbing a bank of 1$. and doing something to get more time in the prison is easy too, like, getting drugs and then getting caught for them. for a good prison time he should have probably done a finance crime of federal proportions? I guess just showing up naked at the town house wouldn't cut it nowadays..

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[ultramk]

There's another option you're missing.
8) Make enough money to buy an individual insurance plan on your own. It's extremely expensive, and will probably be a big portion of your income unless you're pretty well-off, but people do it.

Otherwise good list, although I would quibble with 7... pretty much all full-time government workers get pretty damn good health care plans, not just the high ranking ones.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[swanzilla]

I suspect you have yet to make a substantial claim. Protip: Don't count on that max out-of-pocket being the end of the story.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[BSAtHome]

Why do you assume he has a house?

House-arrest for a homeless. That'll be nice. Please stay on the corner of 5th and west st. for the duration of your time to be served.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[hedwards]

A lot of people forget about that. What's worse is that for somebody in their 40s, you've got it easy, a lot of people can't get insurance at all no matter how much money they have. I would have been in that position were it not for my state having a pool for anybody that can pay, regardless of health condition. It's much more expensive than the other options, but at least it's there for those that can afford it.

In many states, those folks wouldn't have any insurance at all.

Makes me wonder how ignorant a person would have to be to believe that repeal and replace is a wise move over just fixing the problems in the current reform package. The one which requires at least 80% of individual and small group policies to be spent on things that are actually related to healthcare and 85% of policies for larger groups. Even without anything else, that's enough to justify not doing a full repeal.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[TheGratefulNet]

young.

yes, yes, you skip over the most obvious thing.

I'm nearly 50. I'm not in bad health but things do get worse over time, as you get older. they just do.

enjoy your youth and $150/mo payment. it won't last forever. remember this post in 20 or 30 years time.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[redemtionboy]

I don't really see other countries with universal care as "developed" in contrast to the US. Sure, they provide care to more people, and in the short term, things look great. But the reality is that none of these nations handle the real issue that is straight in the face of the US, rising healthcare costs. Universal care in other countries doesn't fix this. They just make someone else pay for it. In Japan, over 50% of the hospitals operate in the red. In Germany, doctors are forced to take substantially lower wages than in comparative countries, which has led to a number of protests consisting of tens of thousands of doctors and contributed to Germany's immigration deficit.

The US system sucks, but it's a lot easier to fix than in these other nations. Currently we have a corporatist system that favors corporations and restricts the freedom of the consumer. Government has picked winners and losers and restricted the consumer from making decisions on their own.. If you want to get lower prices and better care, you need to take the restrictions off of the individual and give them the same benefits and freedoms that an employer gets. By not endorsing HMOs and taking the restrictions off of HSAs, we allow increased competition in the market which leads to lower prices. We can see this actively working in areas of the medical field where people pay mostly cash for services such as ophthalmology or cosmetic surgery. Increased competition has resulted in significantly lower prices than in comparative medical fields.

With an HSA, I am in charge of my treatment and spending, and it matters. When I had an HMO, I went to the first place on the list that my health insurance provider recommended. I didn't care about the cost, because all I had to worry about was the copay. But now that I have an HSA, I am responsible for paying that first $2500 of my medical expenses out of my pocket. Now, that $2500 + my premium is still substantially cheaper than the HMO premiums I would be paying, but by making me consciously in charge of my medical expenditures, I am going to avoid paying as much of that $2500 as possible. I needed to get a sleep study done, and I called several places and found quotes ranging from $1000 to $3000. That's a huge difference in price. Active competition in the market rewards those with the better offers and punishes those who are overpriced. We don't have that in the US system. we instead run a system of corporatism where there is no direct competition and there are no negotiable prices. This is not capitalism. This is corporatism.

If you want to help people, the real answer is to lower the cost of medical care. This is the only real long term solution. Everything else just delays the inevitable.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[gclef]

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities."
    -- Winston Churchill

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[moonbender]

FWIW, approximately the same amount of money pays for full private coverage in Germany. (Most people pay far less, unemployed people pay nothing.) Visits to the doctor, prescription meds, glasses, hospital stays and surgery are basically all covered 100%. If you don't need the coverage for a full quarter, a part of the fees is returned.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[Sir_Sri]

$1500 is a lot when you're out of work. And more to the point, how often can that 1500 re-occur? Admittedly I'm in canada so we don't treat people like they'll have to pay out of pocket. But my best friend at 29 had cancer. He was admitted, sent home, re-admitted to hospital several times in a week, and 3 times in one day. It wasn't even that the hospital was trying to be rid of him, he just had a lot of different parts of his body failing in different ways and they'd solve one problem, send him home (because the feeling is you recover better at home) and 2 days later something else would go wrong.

He's sorted out health wise now. But that's beside the point. If you end up in hospital multiple times in a month, how often will your insurance re-bill you.

What does "full coverage" mean? Prescription drugs? Do you have a co-pay? If you have a deductible of 1500 in hospital care (or something like that) it's certainly not 'full'. What if you go to a hospital in a different city than where you live? Does your insurance company approve (or not) of places you can go? Also, under what conditions can they drop your coverage. That was the trick with my friend, as he learned through friends in various support groups. In the US the first time you get cancer you're probably covered by insurance. But the moment they think you're cured for 3 months they drop your ass like a rock, and no one else will touch you with a 100 metre, I'm sorry, foot, pole, and then you're in deep shit.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[elrous0]

So, you can get health insurance for your family for 10,000 to 15,000 per year, and not have to pay much else.

Tell me, do you actually consider your words before you start typing away? Do you have any idea how much money that is to the average family in the U.S.? The average household income in the U.S. is $31,000. And that's before taxes, rent, food, etc. Do you really think someone making $31K a year can afford $10K-$15 just for health insurance?

Are you high, or just fucking stupid?

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[MobyDisk]

But, if you have ever seen what even basic healthcare costs in the U.S., you will realize this is impractical for anyone who isn't Bill Gates

This is not always so.

My wife and I have been self employed for years and both pay for our own health care. I now work for a Fortune 500 company, and we still stay with our individual plans because they are cheaper. Here is the key difference: Companies provide high-end health care, while individual care has more gradations. My employer's healthcare has a $100 deductible, a low co-pay, and pays for every random doctor visit, dental appointment, or band-aid. My individual coverage has $1000 deductible but an out-of-pocket maximum. So it doesn't cover well visits, dental appointments, band-aids, and I have a $10 co-pay. But it does cover me if I get in an accident or have cancer. Isn't *that* what insurance is for?

The difference in the premiums pays for that $1000 deductible by the end of the year. Employer-sponsored health care is very expensive because they cannot vary the cost based on your age, demographics, life-style, etc. They do not require a check-up to get the insurance, and sometimes they have to cover pre-existing conditions. So the insurance companies are stuck with whoever they get, so they charge more for those plans.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[ShavedOrangutan]

There's another option you're missing. 8) Make enough money to buy an individual insurance plan on your own. It's extremely expensive, and will probably be a big portion of your income unless you're pretty well-off, but people do it.

40 year old male, Kaiser - $8k deductible - 80% coverage afterwards = $148/month. It goes up to $400/month for no deductible, but a doctor visit is only about $150 out of pocket, so I don't see why people buy cadillac plans unless they're very frequently sick.

Anyways, it's not that expensive.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[erroneus]

Seems we are in good company. Lots of people have observed the same thing. What we need is a kind of group where we can share information and maybe even protest what is going on. It should be exclusive to white males. We can call it some sort of klan.

And while we're at it, let's publish a magazine to empower the white male... let's call it "White Power." If that's disagreeable, let's go with "Ivory."

We should then begin to call ourselves a discriminated minority (which, by now we are) and campaign for affirmative action to be taken.

But you know, you said everything anyone ever wanted to know about you in the last part: "luckily I managed to pull myself out of it and become a breadwinner again..." The other discriminated minority members have a demonstrable history of not pulling themselves out of it. I am not going to speculate as to why they don't or can't, and only state that the history is there and that where others resort to criminal behavior, you continued trying to work and eventually got there.

As long as we [they] are allowed to discriminate based on ethnicity, sex, age or other, they will. Someone needs to "sting" the programs that discriminate against while males seeking to keep things going.

I have similar complaints and experiences. And when asked to donate to the Salvation Army, I refuse and begin to tell the story about how I sought help from them after years of donating only to be turned away while others continued getting help. But in a way, it's good for me... and good for you too.

Nothing makes a person "better" than others unless they actually work at it. It has been claimed by people on both sides of the issue that the programs generally weaken incentive for people to make their own way in life and to provide for themselves. As white males know consciously or unconsciously that they have nothing to fall back on if disaster strikes, they are prone to working harder, taking fewer risks and engaging in less criminal behavior. And in contrast... (Do I really need to spell it out?)

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[pluther]

I'm guessing that's also what he pays after his company, or school, or parents, pay the rest.

Either that, or it's not nearly as comprehensive as he thinks.

Or he lives in a state where there's a good state plan available. (There's a few states doing this now.)

Things are getting better, though. I've been searching to get a plan myself, and have found a couple of decent options in the $300-$400 range. Which is a vast improvement over last time I looked, a few years ago, when the same plans were $1000-$1200 or so. (One of changes with so-called "Obamacare" is they're no longer allowed to reject me because I had malaria five years ago.)

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[Intrepid imaginaut]

That's pretty much it. This has to be one of the saddest stories I've ever heard.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[Hazel Bergeron]

When you're young, be on your parents policy

Assumption of privileged background. I stopped reading here and skipped to the last paragraph, as it's clear you don't live in the real world. My assumption was confirmed:

Everyone I know has health care they're happy with

In the real world, many people don't have a "parents policy" to be on and people can have serious health conditions from a young age which preclude most insurance options or eventually drive their premiums up to unaffordability.

(And I say this as someone who was born into a family with private healthcare in a country where most people don't have it. I was lucky and know it. You are lucky and don't know it.)

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[characterZer0]

What is the average family income after you remove those who already qualify for Medicare or Medicaid? That would be the pertinent number.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[pluther]

Hah, it's not only an amazingly good deal over here, it's so good I doubt he's giving us all the information. :)

The best plan I've been able to find for myself (44, non-smoking, healthy male) is about $300/month, and includes both deductible and co-pay.

And this is after vast improvements were made starting with the Obama administration. It used to be even worse.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[azalin]

For those of you who don't know what "full private coverage" means (eg everyone not from germany):
* Single or double room if you are in hospital (your choice)
* free choice of clinic
* treatment by the chief physician
* full dental care
* glasses, contact lenses
* alternative medication and treatment (eg acupuncture)
* massage and physiotherapie
* psychotherapy
All paid for. You usally get the best your hospital / doctor has to offer.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[elrous0]

Because he's a conservative who's never been unemployed, broke, and sick. He thinks that all we need is a tax-free savings account to save our healthcare system. He thinks there is an unemployed cancer patient sitting out there who would be just fine--if only he could pay for his own healthcare without a small tax on his savings. All we need is for the government to get out of the way; and all the poor, unemployed, underemployed, etc, would finally have the freedom to pay for their own healthcare with the millions of $ that are going to magically appear out of nowhere once we cut taxes on the rich and corporations.

In other words, because he's an deluded ideologue with no connection to reality.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[gutnor]

Anyways, it's not that expensive

Is my sarcasm detector broken or the shittiest, most expensive coverage I have ever heard of is really considered "not that expensive" in the US ?

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[geekoid]

The ones I do, do have this as a priority.

The problem is the media no longer calls out BS. So when some gets yup and goes on about the cost of health care, invents thing that are not in the health care bill, goes out of there way to scare seniors, no major agency calls there bullshit.

To not have federal level health care is the most stupid and expensive way to have healthcare.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[j-beda]

I don't really see other countries with universal care as "developed" in contrast to the US. Sure, they provide care to more people, and in the short term, things look great. But the reality is that none of these nations handle the real issue that is straight in the face of the US, rising healthcare costs. Universal care in other countries doesn't fix this. They just make someone else pay for it. In Japan, over 50% of the hospitals operate in the red. In Germany, doctors are forced to take substantially lower wages than in comparative countries, which has led to a number of protests consisting of tens of thousands of doctors and contributed to Germany's immigration deficit.

The US system sucks, but it's a lot easier to fix than in these other nations.

I don't agree. The types of problems that places like the EU countries and Canada are experiencing for example in their health care systems are ones of supply issues (wait times for example), payment formulas (hospital and physician payments for example), and coverage policy debates (what should be covered? IVF, sex changes, experimental, etc.) While these are significant issues, fundamentally the systems are working to provide reasonable care to the majority of the population without undue hardship on the individual or the society as a whole. Additionally, the potential changes to the existing systems to address current and future shortcomings are not mired in political difficulties in the way the politicization of healthcare in the US has made it virtually impossible to craft any significant reforms. In contrast to pretty much the rest of the "developed" world, the US is spending huge amounts on a per-capita basis, with large fractions of the population getting inadequate care at a very high cost to the individual and a very high cost to the economy. It is a very real challenge for a US company to provide health coverage to its workforce while still being competitive with a non-US company operating in a country with a more workable health-care system.

Not that I disagree with all of redemtionboy's points. Greater competition, removal of conflicts of interest, better consumer knowledge, and all sorts of other tweaks could result in huge increases in efficiencies to the whole health care system. Fundamentally however I feel that healthcare is probably not something I want to be completely "market-driven" - particularly since I find it hard to believe that the market will inevitably be manipulated to the determent of the patient/customer.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[stdarg]

The median household income in the US is $44k. The mean household income in the US is $60k. Where did you get $31k?

I'm also not sure where the other poster got $15k for health insurance after saying an HSA would be $4k. It might get to $10k or $11k if you had to pay the maximum out of pocket expense every single year but that seems pretty unlikely for most people.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[martyros]

my monthly premiums are just over 600 per month (I'm 45 and in pretty good health)

Have you considered catastrophic health insurance? Catastrohpic health insurance has a really high deductible, like around $6000. Then most of your run-of-the-mill health care is just paid out-of-pocket, but if you end up needing a $100k operation, you don't break the bank. It's significantly cheaper, and (I think) is probably a better way to go if you're reasonably healthy.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[tbannist]

In no small part, American health care is too expensive because of how it's paid for. Estimates consistently show about 30% of all health care spending goes into the billing system. I've heard horror stories about how the average doctor may have to deal with over 100 different insurance companies each of which has it's own long forms that need to be filled out exactly correctly. Most apparently have staff who's only job is filling out that billing paperwork so the doctor actually gets paid and that many insurance companies will reject claims for inconsequential errors.

That's just the direct costs for the way they do things, there's also the fact that the U.S. system encourages people to let issues fester until they become emergencies. Medical issues which could have been easily treated in their early stages can become extremely expensive to cure because the patient was encouraged not to get it looked at by high deductibles and the fear of having coverage canceled because a potentially minor issue.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[geekoid]

" Universal care in other countries doesn't fix this. "
Yes, in fact it can.

Remember, much of are cots are acquired because we DON"T have UHC.

Poor women go into ER to complain about 'Chest pains' and then mention they might be pregnant to gt a pregnancy kit. So they get 2000 in tests when all they really needed was a 15 dollar pregnancy kit.

People go to ER to get treated for something that would have been substantial cheaper if they had access to a doctor to get treated right away instead of having to wait for an emergency.

Dental issues are seldom considered an emergency.. until it's so infected that have to go to the ER because the infection is spreading to the brain.

People get minimum they needed to get to treat the emergency, not the underling problem, so they come back every time a chronic problem becomes and emergency.

And so on..

We do pay for this, with higher Dr. and hospital costs, higher insurance rates.

This doesn't even get into how not having UHC strangles many small and growing business.
Get to a point where you need senior people? you will need to provide health care for those employees. This costs business a lot of money. If we all paid with taxes, then there would be less of a burden an small business.

UHC lowers the cost of health. The market, by it's very nature, will not help people. There is NO competing for 50% of the population. given a free market, they have no choice.

You're solution leads to great and cheep healthcare for the most well off people only, because insurance is about offsetting costs. SO it's in the business best interest to insure you until you leave the optimal area. so if your re 18-30, and make 150K+ a year, the 'free market' will be happy to help you.

This is shown in history.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[TheSpoom]

The irony of him robbing the Royal Bank of Canada cannot be overstated.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[KermodeBear]

One thing that people often forget is that you can get very individualized plans, and these can cut the costs dramatically.

Instead of general health insurance, ask for catastrophic health insurance. As in: You pay out of pocket for all regular doctor visits and medication. Get insurance for things like "I cracked my head open and my brain is exposed." Telling doctors that you are paying in cash, out of pocket, will often reduce your costs as well.

One reason that insurance rates are so stupidly high is the free doctor visits. This causes people who get the smallest sniffle to run to the doctor because, oh my god, surely I cannot survive a few days with a minor cold! There are people out there who are like this. I know many of them.

Car analogy: You don't get car insurance for a burnt out headlight. You get car insurance for a major crash.

Insurance is costly but it can be less so with a few changes in the contract.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[Mongoose Disciple]

Your sarcasm detector isn't broken. That's not considered expensive here.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[madhatter256]

It happens a lot in the US. People who've been in jail for a long time get used to it. Three meals a day, a bed. It is a lot like living in a good homeless shelter with a shower and clean clothes, there's just the occasional riot and shanking and raping, but that's everywhere in the US, too.

People get so used to it, that when they are put back on the street they have no where to go, no posessions, no nothing. Sure they have programs to let ex-cons re-enter the society, but even they are limited in space and limited funding and don't pick up people who did hard time. Living outside of prison usually ends up being worse than being inside, so they often do crimes to get back in.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[JWSmythe]

    There was probably more evidence to gather regarding the kiddy porn case. They'd have to carefully track down everything relating to the case. I'd assume that the defendant was pleading "not guilty", which will stretch out the time required. There's a chance of unidentified victims, so they'd have to follow down every lead to make sure the case was tried appropriately.

    This case is a lot simpler. He *wants* to go to jail, so he'll plead guilty. The evidence will consist of the physical evidence from the scene, and the witness statements. That would most likely be wrapped up in a nice package with a bow for the courts in a few days.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[RogerWilco]

Sorry, but a lot of developed countries pay a lot less for their universal health care then the USA, per capita. Sure it means that medical specialists might earn a little less. They're not going to earn millions, most people in the semi-public sector are limited to the amount the Prime Minister earns, which is about 250,000 euro. Still pretty decent in my view.

Go look up the numbers http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_hea_car_fun_tot_per_cap-care-funding-total-per-capita
United States: $4,631.00 per capita
Netherlands: $2,246.00 per capita

The Dutch government has defined a "standard healthcare package", which all insurance companies must cover for a fixed amount (just over 1000 euro a year). They can compete on service and extra options. They also can't refuse you the standard package, so anyone can get this basic set of healthcare and it's mandatory to be insured. Only people like the homeless aren't insured, jobless people and those on minimum wages are helped by the government to pay for their insurance.
And for what's covered: Currently the discussion is if support for giving up smoking should be covered. That should give you an idea.
There's optional extra packages for things like modifications in the home, electric wheelchairs, TV and newspapers at your bedside in the hospital.

We also struggle with rising costs for medical care, but as you can see, we're in a much better place than the USA which pays about twice as much.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[schlachter]

Young and stupid that is. You are very very naive. Being healthy is not always about taking care of yourself. Some things are beyond your control.

I work for a large well respected company that prides themselves on their benefits, and for my good (PPO) health insurance, my premium alone is $150/month, and yes I'm young without kids as well. Actual insurance cost is $600/month. My company pays the additional $450/month. If I had kids and a family plan, it would cost me around $400-500/month and my company would pay the extra $1,500/month or so. And shit, in addition to my premiums, I'd pay another $10K/yr or more out of pocket to providers because my insurance didn't cover it.

My total medical expenses are routinely $5K/yr including premiums and that's with good insurance heavily subsidized by my employer

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[Grishnakh]

Here's what he needs to do: when he's at his sentencing hearing, and they sentence him to house arrest, he needs to grab a pen, go over to the DA/prosecuting attorney, and stab him with it. Take out his eyes if possible (he's a lawyer, he deserves it). Then put his hands up and say "send me to prison!"

There's no way they can avoid sending him to prison after brutally maiming a lawyer (since hurting a lawyer gets you the same penalty as hurting a human, even though lawyers aren't human).

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[h4rr4r]

Which may still be worth the healthcare. Of course the police would get away with it, but that is the normal state of police in the USA.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[fyngyrz]

He *wants* to go to jail, so he'll plead guilty

I don't think so. He's already in jail. The key issue is, he wants to stay in jail, so he'll plead not guilty, forcing them to schedule him for trial. Then he'll use every method he can to delay the trial, and to blow it up as large as possible, forcing it out of the small initial slot in the judge's calender. When they offer him a plea (and they will), he'll just make it clear that the plea needs to include jail time of the desired length, otherwise, it'll be a full-on trial. See, since he wants jail time, he's in the stronger bargaining position here. The only thing they can threaten him with if he won't take the plea is... jail time.

Since the only cost to the judge pays is trial time -- he doesn't bear the cost for incarceration or care -- the judge will likely negotiate the plea in order to clear the calender, his only significant concern. The prosecutor gets another notch on the old gunbelt, the judge gets a clear calender, the "criminal" gets his jailtime (and likely, some aspirin... I don't think this is a great plan on his part) and there you go.

Welcome to the US legal system.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[s73v3r]

And as its unpopular to actually verify citizenship in border states for elections, millions of illegals vote every year.

[Citation Needed]

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[Sir_Sri]

Covering everyone seems to work pretty well everywhere else. Don't see why it wouldn't work in the US. Ever been a single 28 year old man living alone with a job, gotten cancer, twice, and in while you were on disability had your employer shut down (this was a 200+ employee outfit too)? Ya, those bums have no right to healthcare, you can work while you're on chemo, just keep a barf bag in your office. Or maybe you should be using that fat 900 dollar a month disability/unemployment cheque on eharmony to find yourself a wife with healthcare so you can be covered. What *right* does anyone have to anything? What right does a black person have to demand that a majority white country treat them equally? What right does anyone have to an education if their parents don't pay taxes? Stop leeching off the rest of us right? Get a clue, people have a right to not be exploited by their fellow citizens, and they have a right to not be faced with crippling disadvantage in life just because they were born black, or born poor, or got cancer or hit by a car. It is the point of organizing a society that we can take care of people and help them not just die horribly in the street. Now if you want to say 'if you smoke you shouldn't get healthcare' that's a very different problem than helping people be functioning members of society but who couldn't possibly pay to keep themselves alive without healthcare - hence, it is a form of insurance. Why, as an adult, should your parents specifically be expected to chip in for your healthcare? Maybe they're poor too. That notion of 'only look after your family and not your neighbour' is why in india people still have 8 fucking kids (including I will note my charming cousins, who are engineers, doctors, an army Major, and professors... ), because if you can't count on your neighbour to help you out, you don't want to roll the dice with just 2 or 3 kids, one of them might not chip in to support you when you get old or sick.

The US system in that regard is outright odd. The most expensive healthcare patients, those over 65, *are* covered by the government already. Most people who die are over 65, and most healthcare dollars are spent right before you die. As long as you live to 65, the government coughs up the money to pay for you, no matter what you've done to yourself before that point. And it covers people who are too poor (and generally the also expensive on healthcare for a lot of reasons) already. The marginal cost of adding coverage for the 16-65 year olds who aren't already covered is pretty low. That's also the most important group to protect, because if you can fix whatever is wrong with them, they can continue to be productive, and if you can prevent problems building up, they won't be so expensive when they hit 65. Overall it's just a poorly thought out or constructed system.

Other countries provide healtcare for the whole population for ~8% of GDP, france is up around 11. The combined government healthcare spending in the US is *already* about 7.5% (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/budget_pie_gs.php) using a GDP of 14.12 trillion. And that excludes defence department healtcare spending. Covering everyone, especially given who already *is* covered shouldn't be all that hard, or expensive overall. Yet your politicians like to make it more difficult than it needs to be.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[Grishnakh]

There's far too much bloat and graft in the system, and having the US government -so well known for it's fiscal efficiency(sarc)- pay for it isn't likely to fix that, if anything, it'll exacerbate it.

I'm not so sure. The problem with US government spending is that they waste it on a lot of stupid stuff, like the Department of Defense, foreign wars, poorly-designed welfare systems, etc.

I can think of one agency of the government that actually does a really good job fiscally, providing a good service at a low price: the US Post Office. There's no way I can send a 3-ounce package across the country with Fedex or UPS for $1.75, yet I do this all the time with USPS. Of course, some libertarian moron will probably chime in here and say they're not allowed to, but 1) that's BS, there's nothing keeping Fedex from dropping their prices on small parcels (my price quoted above is for a parcel, not a letter), 2) with privatization, there'd either be no delivery at all to rural areas, or it'd be insanely expensive. Of course, libertarians don't care much about farmers, or getting food...

The only problem with the USPS these days is too much interference by Congress, such as not allowing them to cut back on service days to save money and keep prices low, but the USPS in my mind is a good example of how a government agency can be successful when it's separated from politics and run as a separate, autonomous, but government-owned agency without a profit motive.

If healthcare were run the same way, cutting out the insurance companies, and being run as an autonomous government-owned company, I think it could provide good-quality service at a very good price for all citizens. Citizens who want top-quality service can always go to private doctors, just like they do in the UK, but for the rest of us, the total cost of healthcare nationally would be far, far less with care being much better than the average is now.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[Hylandr]

Welcome to the US legal health system.

FTFY.

- Dan.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[mdielmann]

If your aren't working, or have a family member who is, what right do you have to expect anything given to you? It's not practical to save everyone.

Yes, it's far more practical to have these people engage in criminal activity, live on the streets, or just slowly die knowing there's a place not far away where they could be saved if they had enough money.

First, that's a lovely world you live in. I'll take crappy Canadian healthcare over the "best money can buy" American system, any day.

Second, think of the social cost, known and unknown, that such a system entails. I think we're all fortunate that Stephen Hawking is British.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[jo_ham]

You're talking out of your arse.

I have lived in the UK (I'm British) and in the US. If you think the poorest American (or even a modestly paid American, say one working in retail for minimum wage) has anything *like* the quality of healthcare that is available to *everyone* in the UK then you are delusional.

Just because Glenn Beck told you that does not make it true.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I'm not sure I understand why the federal government is more efficient and/or intelligent than any other method... What makes the federal government more capable/cheaper/efficient than the ability for providers to compete and offer their insurance to anyone across the country instead of being limited by state?

Free markets will work only when the consumer makes rational informed choices. It would work if everyone is paying for their own healthcare with their own money. Everyone thinks "this treatment costs X and the benefit is Y, do I want it?". This will drive down the cost and give you all the benefits of competitive marketplace.

What we have instead is NOT even, "I pay a fixed amount to some health insurance company. Then I get to the all-you-can-eat buffet of healthcare". First problem, everyone feels entitled to Lexus level care because they have paid the premium. Second most wont buy insurance till they are sick.

But what we have in USA is "your employer pays the insurance company to pay the doctor and the pharmacy to deliver healthcare". The ultimate consumer is not free to shop for the best health service. It is bundled with a even bigger issue employment. Once the consumer is constrained, the other party will exploit their advantage to the hilt. That is what going on right now. The insurance company's customer is not you. It is your employer. It will deliver just enough care, so that people don't quit en masse. That is all the service expected from them by your employer.

Remember two days ago there was a thread here about State government paying for tourism advertisements? Though most merchants would benefit by it they would/could not create a voluntary pool to do the advertising. Some free loaders will game the system by not contributing to the pool, figuring they will get the benefit anyway, why pay for it. The only way to fund it is through a tax. This is corporate welfare if the tax is on general public. If the tax is on the likely beneficiaries of the advertisement pool, it is a mandate to participate in a forced pool. Got it?

Now go back and show me what part of the current system in USA is really free market striving its best to deliver the best care at the lowest price to the ultimate customers?

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[jo_ham]

By the person themselves - that's what he was saying. For the cost of the shitty insurance in the USA, the same money in Germany pays for coverage that costs thousands and thousands more in the US, and you get it partially refunded every quarter if you don;t use it.

That's because *everyone pays into the same pot so the cost goes down for everyone*. This is what the anti-universal healthcare people seem to miss (or deliberately ignore).

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[Nethemas the Great]

The pertinent number would be how many people live in poverty but do not qualify for government healthcare. The pertinent number would be how many people would become impoverished should they take on one of these "reasonable" health plans. The pertinent number would be how many people would become bankrupt should their "reasonable" healthcare coverage fall short after suffering catastrophic illness/injury.

You are either myopic or a cold-hearted, selfish bastard who'd sooner step on everyone else's back if it meant a bigger slice of the pie for you. I suspect you are a card carrying member of the SEP.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[suutar]

"Okay, bud, here's the deal. You plead guilty and get 90 days, or we dismiss the charges."

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[funkylovemonkey]

About six years ago I developed a kidney stone that refused to pass. I was right out of college, had just lost my health coverage and did not have a job with insurance. The pain was chronic and possibly dangerous (I won't go into the details but also fairly rare). Finally I went to my local hospital and paid out of pocket. After four or five visits along with a CT scan and a trip to the emergency room (and about six hundred dollars in hospital bills) they finally told me that I needed lithotripsy to destroy the stone. Because I had no insurance the cost of them blasting the stone in an out patient operation (basically going into the hospital that morning and being kicked to the curb by lunch) was roughly 8000 dollars. Instead I flew to Germany where a weeks stay in the hospital and two lithotripsy operations (because the stone did not break up the first time) along with x-rays, ultrasounds and other tests cost me 3000 dollars. Add in a plane ticket that cost about 600 and I paid less then half to fly across the world to get the operation done then I would have paid here in the states (even worse, if I had to have two operations in the states the total would have been 16,000, whereas the German doctors only charged me a few hundred more for a few more days in the hospital). I had grown up hearing all my life about the horrors of socialized medicine. About long waits and incompetent care. What I experienced was the opposite. I had longer waits in US hospitals (including a two hour wait for a CT scan, I never waited more then half an hour for anything in Germany). What shocked me more was how brazenly I was treated by the doctors here in the US, who seemed almost uninterested in what I had to say and were more interested in getting me out of their office. I also had the unfortunate experience in the US during this time of having one of my samples switched with someone else's and had the doctor (erroneously) call me into the office to tell me I had Hepatitis C. I wasn't amused.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[hazydave]

There are several reasons... and that's ignoring the fact that state run healthcare, everywhere else in the world, has proven more effective, more universal, and about half the cost of the US system today.

The first big problem is profit motive. A government organization filled with government workers (eg, like Congress, the Senate, the Military, etc) is not expected to turn a profit. And no multi-million dollar CEO salaries. So, as long as it's well run (yes, that's an argument, but it applies equally to private enterprise), most of the money going into the system is used for healthcare. Not profits. Not advertising. Not lobbying... and generally, lobbying against the best interests of those served by the insurance industry. This is one big reason so much money is spent in the US for lower quality healthcare, versus more civilized countries.

Another issues is price negotiations... countless smaller healthcare companies cannot as effectively negotiate on the price of medicine and other supplies as can the entire country. And even if you did open up healthcare insurance to competition, there's no real guarantee it'll be actual competition. Other types of insurance are openly competitive on the surface, but they're really practicing artificial competition -- they bring you in at a discounted rate that looks great next to what you're paying, but a year later, you're paying more or less what you did at the old company. And they spend hundreds of millions in advertising to grab each others customers on a rotating basis. Geico alone spent over US$900 million last year in advertising... and they just do car insurance. That's over 10% of their expenses right there, before a single car is repaired. The health insurance business is an order of magnitude (at least) larger. You really want to see tens of billions in healthcare money going into these kinds of campaign?

The US healthcare system is also rabidly anti-business... unless you happen to be in the insurance business. I've even heard Righties saying this about "Obamacare" recently... but the main flaw in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is that if left this as a problem... it didn't create it. In all these other countries, businesses are not funding healthcare. So they have an immediate competitive advantage over US manufacturing. Universal healthcare gets the business out of the picture, and the hand out of their wallets on this. If the right were actually pro business (they're "pro" donation, primarily, which is why they've sided with the insurance lobby and against every other business in the USA... all those other guys are spending their lobbying money on other things), if the left actually had the balls to not cave in to the right before the negotiations even begin (could be a medical problem, but ball exams are probably not covered). And of course, all of the people actually making the laws, both those caving in and those rising up against any notion of public healthcare, enjoy the best public healthcare system in the country... all Senators and Congresscritters get this.

And finally... healthcare as insurance is fundamentally the wrong answer. The insurance companies can insure things that are properly insured. My house and car, for example... something bad might happen, but chances are, no. But each and every person on the planet will eventually have a health issue of some kind. If that issue isn't immediate death, they will need medical treatment. Insurance is the wrong answer for something so guaranteed. And for something that needs constant treatment. Actual health care includes a strong prevention component... stress health rather than medicine, and you lower costs AND increase the quality of life. US healthcare is largely about fixing what's already broken.

 

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[timeOday]

Breaking news. You are more likely to get sick and die as you get older. More at 11.

And yet, that is precisely the problem that is not fixed with a voluntary insurance system. By the time you're old enough to need health care, you're not productive enough to pay for it any more. Thus the need for an insurance mandate or tax. It really is that simple.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[hazydave]

The single largest cause of bankruptcy in the USA? Medical expenses incurred by people who were "fully covered". That's about half of all bankruptcies.

And chances are, you'll never know if you're fully covered or not. And even if you are, you may have some hours of taking at your insurance company to ensure they agree. There seems to be a standard policy at most insurance companies to just randomly reject claims, even those they know are covered.

I do know from where I speak. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in April of 2010. She had very good health insurance for someone in the US these days... at least a one-time advantage of being a teacher in New Jersey. Six surgeries, 16 weeks of chemotherapy, 6 weeks of radiotherapy down, and one surgery left to go, we haven't spent a great deal out of pocket (but some financial fallout from her missing summer school in 2010). But again, this is about as good as it gets, and you'll find millions of people who thought they were just as secure, but weren't.

And diseases like this are curable, but extremely expensive to cure. We're probably over $50,000 on surgeries alone, probably in the same ballpark on chemo drugs... just Adriamycin (Doxorubicin) costs over a million per kg just to produce (expensive to administer too -- only by infusion).. and there are some cancer drugs over 10x that price. And once you have the cancer drug, there are a half-to-a-dozen additional drugs just to mitigate the effect of the cancer drug. That's also part of the problem -- such things are done just as well in other parts of the world, but the expenses are much better controlled.

But we did receive thousands of dollars in bills that should have been covered, and had to argue about them. And honestly, this insurance company was amazingly well run compared to others we've both dealt with.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[hazydave]

Incidently... thanks to big fat Chris Christie (Jersey governor), my wife's insurance, formerly a benefit (teachers have typically had great benefits and lousy pay... as an engineer working at startups for the last few years, I'm usually dealing with good pay and lousy benefits), may cost as much as $6,000 this next year, to cover our family of four. As with many of the Republican governors, Christie has been working hard to effectively increase taxes on teachers, firemen, police, and other public employees, so he can afford the tax breaks previously given to the richest in the state.

Of course, what he's effectively done is killed an untold number of small businesses. It's an on-going thing... we lost a couple locally already this year (Woodstown/Pilesgrove), even a liquor store. Those are supposed to do well in bad economies...

The rich are already the richest (compared to the average) they've been since before the great depression -- additional income does nothing. Same with businesses -- additional income does absolutely nothing to grow a business. Additional demand for a product or service is the thing that grows a business. And these new sideways taxes have just ensured that a big chunk of the New Jersey middle class will have thousands less to spend this year and next.

That's important to understand -- the poor and the middle class spend all of their income; the rich don't. So additional lower end income boosts an economy, additional higher end income alone does nothing to the local economy. Boosting everyone's income boosts the economy, but only for a very short time.. things do ultimately stabilize around supply and demand... the price of things in short supply go up, and eventually, no one sees that income boost any longer. But I digress...

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[elrous0]

hurting a lawyer gets you the same penalty as hurting a human

It used to technically be a "cruelty to animals" charge, until the animals complained.

Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too

[justin12345]

I always found it a bit silly that we take better care of our criminals than we do of our homeless. Sure, some homeless refuse help and just want to get their next fix, but they are far from the majority. Those are just the ones that you will see most often due to their drug dependency.

A lot of the homeless people that you would assume are drug addicts are actually schizophrenic or have other debilitating mental issues. They also don't have access to health care. Some might also be drug addicts as well as crazy, as self medicating is common (for instance schizophrenics tend to smoke a lot as the nicotine helps them keep it together a little).

Yeap

[ciderbrew]

That's the way to do it when you've got nothing. How awful must his life have been to think that prison is a step up.
I love the NHS.

Re:Yeap

[sgtrock]

From Gapminder.Org for 2006:

UK life expectancy 80 years. % of GDP spent on healthcare: 8.4%

US life expectancy 78 years. % of GDP spent on healthcare: 15%

In fact, the ONLY country in the world who spends more on healthcare as a percentage of GDP than the US is Timor-Leste at 16%. Most of the so-called 'socialist' medical plans are MUCH MUCH cheaper than the US and provide FAR better results. In fact, Every. Single. Country. who has a longer life expectancy than the US has a nationalized healthcare system that costs much less than ours. Why the HELL aren't the Dems hammering on this point?

Posted by a somewhat bitter US citizen who knows the answer but still doesn't like it. :-(

Re:Yeap

[shish]

A minute on google can't find a specific number, but taking the total NHS spending bill and dividing by the population of the UK it comes out at ~£800 per person per year (about $1300). So $110 per month for an average person. Someone higher in the thread said that as a healthy young low-risk individual their insurance was tiny, only $150 per month, and several older higher-risk people said they were lucky to be that low -- so going by these napkin-numbers, we in the UK have it pretty good.

Re:Yeap

[Multiplet_Higgs]

That's sort of hard to work out (it depends how what you mean by the average - the average of the taxed population or the average per capita, for example and the NHS's bill isn't separated off from the rest of it on your payslip). Interestingly however, it's probably less than a US taxpayer pays. According to the WHO in 2006 (latest figures I could find with a quick google) the US government spent $3,076 per capita, whereas the UK government spent $2,457 (using price purchase parity). For reference the total per capita healthcare (i.e. both public and private) was $6,719 for the US and $3,332 for the U.K.

Re:Yeap

[TheSpoom]

Why the HELL aren't the Dems hammering on this point?

"Campaign contributions" by insurance companies. That's the thing, in order to get universal healthcare, we need to enforce ethics rules that would eliminate the corruption in Congress and the Senate. In order to do so, we would need a majority of the Congress and Senate to vote for them...

Re:Yeap

[jovius]

Interesting metric

In Finland the same number would be 1254€ / person / year. (1806.35$, 1113.45 GPB). Basically everything is free for that sum, and you can always go to private health care services too as much as you wish (and get little compensation from the state too). It's also possible to insure yourself against all health care expenses, but that's something extra (practically all insurance companies offer some kind of version of it).

The total for healthcare in 2010 was 13,550 billion euros (7,6% of GDP), but state and counties pay about 48% of it (from taxes), so maybe the total in UK / citizen is less than you stated too. The biggest single contributor to the sum are companies and employers.

The total social expenses were 30,9% of GDP (54,95 billion euros) (healthcare, unemployment, housing, family/children, invalids, elderly etc).

Re:Yeap

[Kjella]

Every. Single. Country. who has a longer life expectancy than the US has a nationalized healthcare system that costs much less than ours. Why the HELL aren't the Dems hammering on this point?

Probably because it'll get worse before it gets better. Our system works because it's one system covering everyone, period. The US finally decided to take up one of the good sides - to cover everyone - but ignored the most important part, nobody's playing hot potato with the sick patients. It's not a game to get rid of the unprofitable insurance holders or deny or delay their claims. Patients with relatively small issues get evicted and so grow to having serious conditions because they lack treatment. In short, treatment is given on very different reasons than what would be medically and socioeconomically efficient. Right now the US is picking up burning hot potatoes and it'll be a wild shuffle not be the one stuck with them.

If the US was to get anywhere, like really get anywhere, they would have to nationalize basic healthcare, put all the medical insurance companies out of business - or at least into the much smaller, private extra care market that covers maybe 5% of the market. And that won't happen, the public support isn't there. Sadly I think the republicans got this one right where they want it, they had to let it happen but made it happen in a way that will fail spectacularly and so make sure the US doesn't try it again. That would at least be my prediction of where this is going as soon as the Republicans take over in 2012, unless there's been a major improvement in the economy.

The US unemployment figures are lying badly. What you should be looking is the employment-population ratio. In normal years it should be 62-63%, in December 2009 it hit a low of 58.2% of the population was employed, last month 58.4% in other words the US hasn't recovered at all. I don't think any president could manage to sit through that. And after they take over, the health reform is getting buried. Or turned into an even worse abomination to really drive the point home.

Re:Yeap

[hazydave]

Yup. I expected the Republicans to be idiots about healthcare. After all, they're well paid by the insurance companies, they're rich (and so, they already can afford it), and they can pull out the "don't trust the government" thing when it suits them. And ignore the terrible effect of employer-paid healthcare on every US business that's not an insurance company.

But it was the Dems who caved on single payer this time around, and they did that even before they got to the table with the Republicans. Both sides are for sale.

Sounds like The Onion

[Relyx]

When I saw this story appear in my feed, I thought it was an article from The Onion. My god...

Re:Why bother?

[Thiez]

Wouldn't that just force him to commit increasingly serious crimes to get the health care he needs?

Dollar Menu?

[jdkramar]

Did the police return the $1 to the bank? Or did one of them pocket the dollar for his snack later that day? Better yet, do you think the bank is going to file an insurance claim? After all, they lost some unknown amount of business during the robbery, the insurance should cover that vague amount.

O' Henry short story

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I think there was this short story by O' Henry, written around 1900 about someone breaking shop windows to go to jail for the winter every year. The Cop and the Anthem. http://www.classicreader.com/book/1757/1/

Re:DUH

[rjstanford]

You can get immediate treatment at any hospital ER. You can not get ongoing, expensive, "voluntary" treatment without insurance.

Re:Why bother?

[hedwards]

It never ceases to surprise me just how OK Americans are with rape, so long as the person being raped isn't a woman. Perhaps before we start lecturing other nations about human rights abuses, we might want to remember that there is a prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and only the most narrow minded of people would consider prison conditions to not be a part of the punishment.

Re:Not a troll, just curious

[pluther]

It depends on the state. Being white has nothing to do with it - it's not a factor. But many (possibly most? Maybe all, I haven't investigated most states) have different programs available for women, including pre-natal, post-natal, and breast cancer funds, much of which can be stretched to cover other things. If you go in for one thing, treatment may, in some circumstances, be extended to everything that could affect it. It's not always easy, and it's not the greatest, but it is, as the original poster mentioned, better than nothing.

Re:Sad state of

[sqrt(2)]

Then I have some really bad news for you.

You're ALREADY paying for all those people you are so don't like. Yes, it's true, you pay in form of taxes which cover ER visits that never get paid by poor people (who are often also unhealthy, go figure); you pay in the form of higher insurance premiums so that health care can be profitable (and because the pool of people is much smaller); you pay in the form of your business having less healthy employees; you pay in the form of a more dangerous society, as more people get pushed into crime because they cannot afford to care for themselves even working full time.

The jokes is really on you, because if you'd give up your ideological hatred for those people and for the idea that some social problems can be best tackled collectively through strategic actions by government, you'd end up paying less in taxes to cover Universal Healthcare than you currently pay for private insurance and all the unseen costs of having the terrible system we have today in the US.

I understand your frustration, but you're advocating a position that actually ends up being counter productive to your stated goals.

Re:What about other needs?

[The Moof]

Think of food, housing, clothes, everything you need to live. Don't you have to pay for those?

Actually, we have plenty of programs to provide those as well if you cannot afford them.

Food? Food Stamps and WIC vouchers

Housing? Section 8 is specifically designed to assist low income housing. There's also those stimulus housing tax credits they offered when people couldn't afford their mortgages anymore (some had to pay back, some did not).

Clothes? Plenty of clothing drives for that (more apparent in regions with harsher winters). Government either pitches in by sponsoring, or offering organizations that run them tax breaks.

You could also argue that welfare money could go towards any of those as well.

However, your comments on tort reform are dead on. As a resident of Illinois (one of the worse states for medical malpractice insurance), I completely agree that the first step toward fixing any healthcare system in our country is malpractice tort reform. I feel that an acquaintance of mine put it best: "You expect a bunch of lawyers to fix tort law to make it harder to sue? Ha!"

Re:Sad state of

[sqrt(2)]

Because universal heatlhcare or not, he will be treated. Right now, he gets sick and goes to the ER which you pay for indirectly. That's currently how we handle things. We could have been giving him preventative care which usually ends up being cheaper in almost all cases. And you can solve the smoking problem by increasing the taxes on cigarettes, and making the tax money be only or mostly used for funding the treatment of smokers. Have them pay for their own health care that their habit causes (and probably a little extra, subsidizing others who don't smoke).

I guess we could even save more money by kicking him to the curb when he shows up for smoking related illnesses and he was too poor to afford to pay taxes or buy insurance, but I don't want to live in a country that does that. Do you? I know there are a lot of people who actually would say yes to that, which is why there is an ethical divide about this topic that makes debate impossible beyond a certain point. It's not possible to have a real discussion about healthcare with someone who thinks it's acceptable to let people die who can't afford care.

Re:Sad state of

[TheSpoom]

Now how are your strategic actions by the government going to help me end up paying less in taxes to cover that person's lung cancer?

Because the US is (at least in theory) a civilized country, meaning that the person with lung cancer is going to be covered every time he goes to the ER anyway, as hospitals cannot refuse to give life-saving care. You're almost certainly paying more for the emergency care as they die than you would to give them the care they need to live.

If you are in fact arguing that hospitals should refuse life-saving care on the basis of a lack of insurance, you're a horrible human being.

Re:Why bother?

[geekoid]

For the record. I am an american, and I ahte the prison gang rape meme.

It's barbaric but the inevitably result in Reagan killing the rehabilitation programs and the new-cons succeeding in privatizing prisons.

SO now they are about warehousing with the minimal level of monitoring. It also has the side benefit of creating more prisoners which is exactly what a private prison would want.

the tea party and libertarian view of the usa

[circletimessquare]

is haiti, somalia

meanwhile, evil socialist countries like denmark, uk: they live longer than us, and pay less on healthcare, and are just plain happier and less stressed

universal healthcare is just insurance, that's all it is. there is no one who can opt out of healthcare because if you break your arm, we're not going to let you walk around with your arm dangling, we're going to treat you. THAT'S what makes it mandatory: simple human morality. you're going to hold it against your fellow citizens that we want you to be healthy. it's your "choice" not to be treated? or is it your "choice" to be treated AND NOT PAY FOR IT, freeloader? the freeloaders are not the stereotypical welfare queen, the freeloaders are the young "libertarians" who break their arm, go to the hospital, and then avoid the bill because they can't afford it!

why are some americans so fucking deranged on the obvious benefits of universal healthcare, and how "choice" is MORE EXPENSIVE, the REAL freeloading, and less healthy? who don't people understand the obvious?

Re:the tea party and libertarian view of the usa

[bussdriver]

nope. Americans are suckered by propaganda; its all about emotions and not about facts and results. Just like global warming, for too many citizens its about their personal identity as a conservative or whatever and they can't be what they want/believe they are (and what is best) if they hold opposition positions-- its like the issues were made part of the definition of what they are... and they have been and it has been done under their nose--- instead of having them define their group they wish to belong to they define themselves to fit within the group. Ironic they are also such individualists...

Re:the tea party and libertarian view of the usa

[purpledinoz]

It boggles my mind to no end, how the richest country in the world can have such inhumane healthcare. All while yelling at the Chinese for their human rights violations.

Re:the tea party and libertarian view of the usa

[circletimessquare]

wow, my very own pet stalker. i feel so important. i'm worthy of a stalker!

what do i do with you stalker? do you dance on cue?

Re:Sad state of

[NMerriam]

It must be tough to live your whole life worrying that someone, somewhere is having something good happen that they didn't "deserve". And of course if something bad happens, fuck that person, they obviously did deserve it. got cancer? Fuck you, here's a free bullet, grandma. Go suck some dick in a back alley if you want chemotherapy. Also, we need tort reform so that grandma can't sue the company that told her Asbestos was safe to eat in her breakfast cereal every morning for 30 years even though they had proof it was deadly. I don't want ambulance chasers affecting my 401k.

Fuck you sick people, if you weren't such lazy and immoral people you'd be healthy and rich like me!

God bless America.

Re:Very sad

[batquux]

it is a shame that wanting to live cost him his freedom.

We all make this trade every day.

Re:Not a troll, just curious

[Broken scope]

Yet, in my experience as a white, middle class college educated male, many things are easier for me, than they are for my friends from similar backgrounds who are of a different sex, a person of color, or someone who doesn't conform to heteronormative standards.

In my experience, when the system fails, many rather insulated white folks assume its reverse racism, when in actuality, it's because the system sucks for everyone. However they have two very flawed assumptions.

1: They believe the systems works in the first place
2: If they just do everything right, they will succeed.

I will admit that a lot of diversity training stuff is absolute shit, many of the teachers are absolute shit. Many people responsible for teaching the stuff don't bother to actually understand the issues in play. That being said, there are many people who take any suggestion that we still have issues with discrimination as a personal attack.

Of course, I'm not sure why I'm arguing this on slashdot. Many a user here it seems can't even wrap their heads around why street harassment is a problem.

Re:Sad state of

[Artifakt]

I don't want to buy a thirteenth aircraft carrier for a country that already has twelve, especially since the only other nation with even two is Italy, and I don't think it's rational to spend that kind of money just in case we get into a war with them again (Yes, I know we had a bit of a dustup with them seventy years ago, but still, I'm an optimist. For that matter, the UK has a single carrier, and we did fight them in 1812, so maybe the reason we have 11 deployed, 1 reserve and 1 in the oven is in case we have to fight England and Australia too while we're dealing with carrier owners France, Russia, India, Spain, Brazil, and Thailand, plus non carrier owners 'Best Korea', Libya, Afghanistan, Sealand, and the frelling Martians, all at once). No way going totally overboard on national defence should ever be a right. I'm not a paranoid idiot, why should I pay to humor paranoid idiocy?
Both providing for the common defence and promoting the general welfare are in the Preamble to the US Constitution, together. You're certainly free to argue that health care is not what the 'promote the general welfare' clause was meant to cover and so the promote clause doesn't imply a right, but I'd argue that we are at least eight carriers above providing for the common defence, as well as 100% outside of the provide clause in funding the war on drugs, and 80 to 100% over in many other areas lumped under Homeland Security. Every single person who supports overspending my taxes on defence has already trampled my right to keep my own income to help pay for my own health care. Every single person who supported taking separate tax money out of the Social Security and Medicare funds and making it available for the general fund to spend on such other things as defence projects has already trampled on my quite legitimate rights. I'd be comfortable with the government either just giving me all my non income related taxes back, or using those taxes where they said they would. Your position seems to rule out the pay it back into the system option, but that leaves pay it back to me, not just keep it for more carriers. So, what's your opinion? If I don't have a right to government health care, do I have a right to keep some money so I can buy my own? Or does the common defence clause have no limits, while the general welfare clause does?

Oh, and a plastic surgeon is one who restores function and not just cosmetic appearance. People who only do cosmetic surgery can't be board certified plastic surgeons - that takes them being able to do functional repairs, such as making a broken wrist joint have more range of movement, or applying skin grafts to fix major burns. The guy who removed my ex-wife's melanoma and transplanted skin from her abdomen to cover a baseball sized area on top of her head with it, then did three more minor procedures to eventually draw the hairline back into place, all while still leaving her able to move her facial muscles, close her eyes, and move her jaw normally, was a board certified plastic surgeon. Yes, he gave her back a good cosmetic appearance as well, but that was the most trivial part of what he did. He learned in Vietnam, repairing mostly limb damage, and can count over a thousand people where he at least preserved some parts of the damaged limb, and a thousand more where he successfully reattached hands or fingers, or got a full range of motion out of a rebuilt elbow, wrist, or knee.

Reintegration -- a sop

[fyngyrz]

Sure they have programs to let ex-cons re-enter the society

These are sops; ex-cons are flat-out unemployable. Heck, even if you're *not* a con it's tough to find a job for most people. But if you are... you're done. You're never, ever going to re-integrate with society unless you have resources of your own that make getting a job unnecessary.

The US is in the active process of creating a permanently unemployable underclass, consumed by rage and resentment, with a constantly increasing pool of criminal skills. The next "war" will be against this self-inflicted injury to society, and you can bet your last red cent it will consume the tattered rags of liberty remaining to non-felons today... felons are just a little ahead of the curve.

Re:Reintegration -- a sop

[elrous0]

Releasing the sex offenders in most states is the cruelest punishment of all. Most of those guys can't even legally live almost anywhere in the state. Saw a story a while back about a group of them who had took to living under a bridge because they couldn't legally rent any apartment in their city. Not much of a chance for those who legitimately want to go straight and lead a crime-free life. The state is basically guaranteeing that its released criminals will have to turn to crime, just to survive. If that's all that awaits them, the state shouldn't be releasing them (it's cruel to the prisoners and endangers the public).

Re:Reintegration -- a sop

[Rakarra]

This is primarily because the sex offender laws are almost uniformly ridiculous, basically a legislative expression of hysteria on the part of the media and those who drink the media kool-aid, and malfeasance and oath-breaking on the part of legislators.

It seems like almost any law named after a child is going to be over-arching, sweeping, and amazingly punitive. See: Megan's Law, the Jacob Wetterling Act, the Adam Walsh Act.

Re:I call BS

[elrous0]

That pretty much pisses all over your lame argument.

Yeah? Try walking into an ER sometime and asking for heart bypass surgery, or long-term diabetes treatment, or chemotherapy. They'll be pissing all over themselves laughing.

Re:Why bother?

[FatAlb3rt]

I can rest easy now that the blame for prison rape has been placed squarely on the shoulders of a Republican. At one point in Reagan's tenure was it invented?

Re:Not a troll, just curious

[Jumpy]

Here is something scary I experienced...

My ex GF was kicked off medicaid because her son turned 18 or 19.(Can't remember exactly which) About 3 months into dating her. She is still now trying to get on SSI, which will automatically get her back on medicaid, because she says she can't work ever again. But for now she is employed under the table sometimes and in and out of mental institutions. So she just goes to the emergency room a lot and throws away the bills. Her teeth are rotting out. No insurance. Its sad that the state won't help her (N.C) but I also wasn't going to stick around for her decent into crazyness. I gave this woman thousands of dollars paying her rent and buying her food. In return she attacked me one day and lost out on my support system after that. Her Mom does help her some with work. I only dated this woman for like a year. Its not like we were married or something... When I first met her she had a job / seemed normal. But then she got fired. I guess shes been having mental problems long before I met her. Through all this the state pays for therapy and meds for her Psychiatric care. To you know, keep her out of the underfunded mental hospitals. But not for like, say cancer or an infection in her mouth. Um.. Why? In some states like North Carolina you are fucked if you need the safety net though... I think shes been denied 3 times for SSI. I NEVER knew it was this bad...

On the other hand... Check this page out:

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/11/the_terrible_awful_truth_about_1.html

I've seen some people in that same apt. complex totally game the system. But I guess they had no choice.

"in the active process of..."

[Benfea]

Are you [bad word] kidding me? In the process of creating a permanently unemployable underclass? As in present progressive tense? No, you should use the past tense. Try "have created" instead.

The conservatives and libertarians threw much of our rights under the bus in order to elect "tough on crime" candidates. Not only did this undermine our constitutional rights and create a giant prison industry that rivals the military industrial complex (why didn't anyone hold their feet to the fire for massively expanding government while campaigning as the "small government" crowd?), but creating a permanently unemployable underclass was the whole [bad word] point.

Conservative/libertarian economic philosophy has been undermining the middle class since the days of Reagan. One of the ways conservatives and libertarians have been able to mask this fact was by transferring large numbers of the working poor into prison, thus reducing job-seeking competition for people falling from the middle class into the upper reaches of the working poor. Without this part of the strategy, those riots you see in Wisconsin, Michigan and other places would have started happening a long time ago.

and the truth comes out

[circletimessquare]

" If you can't afford it -- you don't get treated. End of story. Yes, if you have something fatal, then you will die. Tough. You have no right to rob the rest of us to prolong your life."

you're a social darwinist. the poor should hurry up and die already. that's what you believe in

i'm glad you're finally coming around to admitting to yourself what exactly you are: evil and immoral