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EFF Co-Founder Announces Benefit Concert to Pay His Medical Bills (twitter.com)
An anoymous Slashdot reader reports:
"I was dead for about 8 mins. on Wed. eve," EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow posted last year on Facebook. "total cardiac arrest...sad to report, no Ascending Light." The cyber-rights activist told the San Francisco Chronicle that he had gone "down the tunnel of eternity and it turned out to be a cheap carnival ride." He paused for a moment. "Probably not cheap, though."
Yesterday Barlow posted a Twitter update announcing a big benefit concert in Mill Valley, California to help pay his mounting medical bills on Monday, October 24th. Performers will include Bob Weir (also of The Grateful Dead), Jerry Harrison (of The Talking Heads), Lukas Nelson, Members of The String Cheese Incident, Sean Lennon and Les Claypool, plus 85-year-old folk singer Ramblin' Jack Elliott, as well as "special guests."
Barlow's family describes the last 18 months as a "medical incarceration" with "a dizzying array of medical events and complications" that has depleted his savings and insurance benefits. They've also set up a site for donations from "his fellow innovators, artists, cowboys, and partners-in-crime, to help us provide the quality of care necessary for Barlow's recovery."
Yesterday Barlow posted a Twitter update announcing a big benefit concert in Mill Valley, California to help pay his mounting medical bills on Monday, October 24th. Performers will include Bob Weir (also of The Grateful Dead), Jerry Harrison (of The Talking Heads), Lukas Nelson, Members of The String Cheese Incident, Sean Lennon and Les Claypool, plus 85-year-old folk singer Ramblin' Jack Elliott, as well as "special guests."
Barlow's family describes the last 18 months as a "medical incarceration" with "a dizzying array of medical events and complications" that has depleted his savings and insurance benefits. They've also set up a site for donations from "his fellow innovators, artists, cowboys, and partners-in-crime, to help us provide the quality of care necessary for Barlow's recovery."
In America, we put the dollar sign before EVERYTHING else.
> I won't outright object to a single-payer tax supported medical system, but it's pretty obvious that we'd need to put some rules into place as it's not financially viable to provide the unlimited care that people are capable of consuming.
And yet countries like Canada where I live have a lower healthcare spend per capita, we have a longer life expectancy, and nobody here goes bankrupt from medical conditions. The problem in the US isn't that the people will "consume too much healthcare", the problem is you have a system built where several levels of companies have their hands out to gouge as much as they can. In the US the hospitals and the insurance companies negotiate prices for everything and with several companies in the mix everyone wants (and gets) their piece. In Canada, we have a single payer system where the government runs a board of doctors who determine what a procedure should cost and that is what a doctor or hospital will be paid for that procedure or visit. Period.
>The most obvious are that taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize the consequences if your unhealthy lifestyle.
Hello slippery slope. What's an unhealthy lifestyle? Obesity sure, same with smoking and drinking. But what about other things? Play football, hockey, basketball? Go skydiving, rock climbing, biking or kayaking? Skiing? Construction? All of those activities and more can lead to very expensive injuries. If premiums go up for unhealthy lifestyles, why not risky ones too? Hell for that matter what about using a car, driver or passenger? Statistically the average person will be in 2.7 significant car accidents in their lifetime. So really if you use vehicles it's not a matter of if, but when you will become a burden to your healthcare provider. Better bump those peoples' premiums too....