Man Robs Bank of $1 To Get Health Care In Jail 950
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."
Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too (Score:2, Informative)
If you have a job that does not provide health insurance, they can probably still get it for you through their payroll processor and deduct it from your paycheck; then you do not even have to pay income tax on that money. You can get a family policy for under 10,000 USD per year. Have some money taken out pre-tax and put into an HSA to cover what you have to pay to cover your deducible. This will be about 4,000 USD per year for a family of four.
So, you can get health insurance for your family for 10,000 to 15,000 per year, and not have to pay much else.
Oh, you would rather have two cars, cable, and a big house than health insurance? That is your choice, stop whining to me about it.
Re:DUH (Score:5, Informative)
You can get immediate treatment at any hospital ER. You can not get ongoing, expensive, "voluntary" treatment without insurance.
Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
* 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 (Score:5, Informative)
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:Yeap (Score:5, Informative)
From Gapminder.Org [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 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sad, but I can see doing it too (Score:4, Informative)
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 [nationmaster.com]
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 state of (Score:5, Informative)
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:Yeap (Score:4, Informative)
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.