so that she can pay her medical bills.
I am disgusted that we have such a wealth based health care system.
I am disgusted that she would steal from rich bankers to pay rich medical people.
Surely she would not be turned away from chemotherapy if she could not afford it.
Perhaps she hoped to not leave her family in debt.
I hate to burst your bubble, but who do you expect to pay for her chemotherapy? Usually, the doctors giving chemotherapy have to purchase it themselves and then get reimbursed by the patient’s insurance. Doctors are not so wealthy that they can afford to pay out hundreds of thousands of their own money to treat indigent patients. Granted, many do offer free and discounted care but the American health care system is beyond broken and unfortunately, until you can qualify for Medicaid you often have to come up with money for chemotherapy up front. That doesn’t even include the fact that Medicaid is administered by the states who also have the right to refuse you treatment if they feel is not medically cost-effective.
It used to be that if you needed inpatient care at a large hospital, you could get the treatment first and then deal with the bills later. Now, even that is changing.
That would explain her motive. The article says she “gave back what she still had.” I hope she was able to buy chemo and some more time to live.
Crap.
Physicians buy chemo and sell it to the patient? I have an expensive drug I take for ankylosing spondilitis. The pharmacy has to buy it for a couple of grand and wait for my insurance company to reimburse them. It is a pain for their budget, and they make $15.00 off of my patronage.
It’s unfortunate that the suspect has cancer and that the cost of the treatment for it is beyond her means. But I’m not clear on what your complaint is. Are you bothered by the entire idea of money (wealth) being exchanged for goods and services, but only when the goods and services in question are health-care related? Why is health care unique? Don’t we all need food, shelter and clothing just as much?
Should the poorest among us receive five-star health care at no charge to them? Or should they receive basic, no-frills health care just as they receive basic, no-frills shelter and food?
Whether one lives or dies shouldn’t depend upon one’s income.
I’m thinking a payroll deduction and everyone get health care. But there isn’t enough money to be made with that method. 
I haven’t found any more stories about this sad case.
In most states, cancer treatment for indigent patients* is *available. Of course, they often have a late diagnosis because they haven’t been getting checkups. So that makes a good outcome less likely.
It’s the people with a little money or crap insurance who can go bankrupt. Maybe Obamacare can help.
She looks quite healthy for a Stage V patient. And her full hair makes it obvious she hasn’t had chemo recently. I’d love a saner way of paying for health care in this country. But this particular bank robber might not be the best poster girl.
AFAICT the idea that she has cancer is based on her say-so. Has this been confirmed by an independent examination by a competent doctor?
Regards,
Shodan
Why not?
Is there an upper bound on how much we should be willing to spend to save the life of a person who has not purchased insurance?
Should a person with no income and no insurance be given a heart-lung transplant at the cost of the taxpayers?
Should an indigent MS sufferer be provided with Copaxone injections ($160/day) free of charge for the rest of his life?
Some people put their lives at risk because they can only afford a 30-year-old rusted out piece-of-shit car. Should they be given a brand new one that has a full complement of airbags, electronic stability control, and ABS?
Apparently she wore a wig.
How large a payroll deduction do you want all of us to pay, so that everyone can get all of the health care they want? Free chemo, organ transplants, brain surgery, all prescriptions, no matter how expensive? How much should we all pay so that everyone gets premium health care? 15% of our paycheck? 20%? 25%?
Let me guess… there will be exemptions for people who make less than $X a year.
Health care has to be rationed, whether by cost, waiting periods or denials. I don’t care what country you look at, not everyone is getting uber-expensive treatment in a timely manner. I’m not defending our inefficient and costly system to the nth degree, but every system will have drawbacks. And robbing others is not defensible from any angle.
I’m betting that you have enough money that you can afford very nice insurance.
:rolleyes:
Good point, I’m a pushover for sob stories.
Not all chemo makes people lose their hair. Not all people given the kind of chemo that makes people lose their hair do, in fact, lose their hair. While I have all sorts of compassion for people with cancer who look like hell, never assume that someone who doesn’t look like hell doesn’t *feel *like hell.
Chemo drugs are stupidly expensive in this country. And you know what happens when people with clout ask the drug company to lower their price? They lower their price. It’s sickening. They slap any ol’ huge price tag they think that they can get away with on their drugs, and as long as they get away with it, everyone (but them) loses. Either people can’t afford it and they die or the insurance company pays the exorbitant price, which raises all our premiums next year.
That’s quite an assumption. I wish I could afford “very nice insurance”. I currently pay about 15 percent of my household income for a pretty bare-bones high deductible health insurance plan, plus typical medical payments. Luckily, none of us have serious medical problems, or that figure would be much higher due to deductibles and copays.
Based on my research, that will go up to about 18-20 percent under the new ACA policy I will have to get for next year, again assuming no large medical bills. Based on the deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums I’m seeing, it’s possible we would have to pay out as much as 27 percent of our income for insurance and health care. Health insurance will cost me about $11-13k next year, with huge deductibles. Is that high enough for you?
My comment about exemptions is an important part of any such discussion. It’s easy to talk about what people “should pay”, if you then carve out huge exemptions. It’s easy to spend other people’s money.
And wanting to hold onto your own is quite understandable.
If there was no profit to be made in the medical markets, there would be much less innovation and no new life saving techniques developed. No one would invest in medical device companies, pharmaceutical companies, etc. So we would be stuck with 1920’s health care.
Does the United States produce most of the medical innovation, and countries with state provided health care benefit from it?
He must be rich enough to pay for your “very nice insurance” before his own then, right? I’ll bet he’s guilty of owning a lot of things.
That’s the model for pretty much any market. Car parts, cheeseburgers, medicine, real estate. Why are you uniquely disgusted by pharmaceutical companies for trying to make as much money as they can? Am I a greedy pig for selling my house at a price that only attracts one or two buyers and shuts out people of much more limited means?
If the person dies because they can’t afford the new expensive treatment, they are no worse off than before the new expensive treatment existed.
Your insurer may elect not to cover the new expensive treatment - in which case we all are no worse off than before the new expensive treatment existed.
If you don’t like the elevated premium for insurance that covers the new expensive treatment, you can drop your current insurance and look for a different policy that doesn’t cover the new expensive treatment, and therefore features a lower premium.
The price you are quoting on the CA exchange a 40 something couple with 3 kids and $100k in income can get the platinum plans that pay for 90% of everything. The barebones plans are about half that.
The same 2+3 family @$40k a year pays about $375/month
These plans are designed not to exceed 10% and if they do there are exeptions to the mandate.
I have heard several customers making similar rants and all of them dropped by 25-50% when plugged into the CA exchange.