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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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: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: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: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.

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.