Yes, I should have specified.
Speaking of equipment, I use Medicare funds to buy at-home equipment for our aging clients. There’s hardly “negotiations” - for bathing and toileting equipment the supplying vendor provides the manufacturer’s msrp list and we pay 80% of that, end of negotiation.
The 80% figure is what would have been negotiated with industry. If any negotiations had been done, which they really weren’t. This has driven me crazy my entire career. I’d love to get my hands on the MediCare purchasing system. Waaayyyy too much tax money is being funneled off to Wall Street. Meanwhile, some services are nearly impossible to find because the reimbursements are too low. Doctors in expensive markets treat MediCare patients like charity cases.
It would be a high volume of work, but so easy to fix.
Over in the Celebrity Death Pool thread, it’s noted that Mary Lou Retton is battling pneumonia and that her daughter is raising funds for her treatment, explaining that Ms. Retton has no insurance. The campaign, originally for $50,000, has already raised more than $78,000
Meanwhile, Mary Lou Retton’s net worth is supposedly $8 million.
On what basis is that website making that estimate? I suspect there is no basis in reality.
So, since we’ve kind of accepted that the wealth estimates are likely bunk, we’re back to the issue of multiple individuals having no insurance, by which I suspect they have Medicare (by age) but no supplemental coverage. So I grabbed a site of the web which gives us a bit of an idea of actual costs depending upon coverage:
Now of course, this probably varies depending on all the other factors in insurance, and it varies quite a bit depending on how much of the possible gap it covers.
The average cost of a Medicare Supplement plan is $139 per month for 2023. However, rates can vary widely from about $50 to more than $400 per month.
For Denny Laine, the killer issue -seems- to be rehab. As for Mary Lou Retton, unknown as of the linked article. I don’t know how much if at all of rehab would fall under Medicare normally, but I would have expected that most conventional pneumonia treatments would be covered minus of course, any gap/co-insurance.
Still, assuming they both signed up for Medicare when normally eligible and didn’t have to deal with any health issues that might have excluded them from full coverage outside the protected enrollment period, I’d be guessing solid extra coverage would have been around $150 per month with something like Plan G.
[ yes, big assumption, but I don’t have access to their Medicare details! ]
Now that isn’t cheap by any means. But it’s probably bearable IF one assumes even 20% of the net worth estimates were correct. Unless most/all that net worth is in unusable assets, such as their home (as @TruCelt pointed out) or retirement accounts that by tapping, they’d be crippling their own current and future monthly cost of living. IE sell your house (not a great idea right now) at a possible lowball cost for the immediate funds, and then having monthly costs of paying for an apartment, all the taxes, etc etc etc. Or liquidate a large portion of retirement savings, and find you have hundreds of dollars less in monthly income going forward, on what may already be a limited budget.
So either way, I’d bet that 1) the net worth estimates are bunk, and 2) that any assets they do have are in such a form as to be risky to tap. So the crowdfunding may be a less than ideal, but effective shortish term option while they consider what future option is the least of evils.
Probably the same basis that “casual Googling” prompted the OP to start this thread. The point being we can’t trust them.
I don’t know her net worth - but Retton is only 55, not old enough for Medicare. And she’s probably not poor enough for Medicaid.
Thanks for the correction, I was mostly trying to dig up details on the Medicare supplement costs based on Laine, and didn’t even think to check my assumptions. I won’t speculate on why she then did not carry insurance past my earlier comment on how I know people young and old who are super fatalistic about health issues until they have a scare.
It could be Retton lives in a state where the cost of a policy isnt tenable. If she’s still in Texas, which didn’t allow for the Medicaid expansion of the ACA, “Texas has the biggest coverage gap in the country, with an estimated 771,000 residents ineligible for Medicaid and also ineligible for premium subsidies to offset the cost of private coverage in the exchange.”
“Non-disabled, non-pregnant adults only eligible if they have a minor child and earn less than 14% of the poverty level”
Careful, we’ll have another “Screw Texas” thread going if we ponder that too deeply. 
Well then, absolutely ties back to our expectations that the net worth estimates are absolute bunk.
Sadly, Texas has 9 other states as company in the non-expansion of Medicaid for ACA.
I sometimes think those websites add up everything the person has grossed in their life with no regard to business expense these people can incur, or assume that they invested it all wisely, and do not take into account that people can lose a lot of money for various reasons. Sure, if you only count the money coming in (and don’t even use reliable sources for that) anyone can look rich, but we all have bills to pay and make mistakes with money.
^ Good points all.
I can also throw in that not everyone is eligible for medicare even when old enough. It’s a tad unlikely (unless you’re Amish - they don’t pay into social security so they can’t get that or medicare) but it might be an issue with people who might have been artistically successful but never made much money and/or didn’t report their income. There might also be instances when the phrase “don’t have insurance” might really be “don’t have insurance that covers this”.
In 2008 my spouse and I lost all our health insurance because I was out of work and we didn’t have the money to buy a policy on our own. It wasn’t by choice and it wasn’t because we were “super fatalistic” (in fact, my late spouse had serious health issues all his life, in his twenties he maxed out a Blue Cross policy and had to be covered by a different company for quite awhile). Some of these people might have been out of work for an extended period which eventually led to a loss of all insurance. In some situations (if they’re not working for a large company that offers health insurance) they might not qualify for an affordable policy. Even if it was a situation where they think they don’t need insurance and still have a stack of money, if they then got a serious enough illness or accident it’s amazing how fast a million dollars can evaporate.
I have never heard of Denny Laine. However I have heard of Mary Lou Retton, 1984 Olympic Gold gymnast winner, and something similar is happening for her:
Just out of sheer kismet, I’ve been reading about the production of Marvin Gaye’s and Tammi Terrell’s last album together, 1969’s Easy.
Fans will know that Tammi Terrell was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1967 that took her life in 1970. What they may not know is that despite white-hot success on the late-60s charts, Terrell having no songwriting credits meant that she had almost no income when the tumor progressed to the point that she could no longer tour.
Motown founder Berry Gordy paid for Terrell to have six operations on her tumor through early 1969. Despite Terrell’s deteriorating condition, Gordy convinced an initially-angry Gaye that producing one more album with Terrell would help her family with both medical and funerary expenses. Terrell would go on to have two more operations before passing away in March 1970.
Songwriters/producers Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson (later successful performers) were financially comfortable for the first times in their lives, getting royalties from the four R&B Top-Fives they had already written and produced for Gaye and Terrell. To produce Easy with Terrell in such bad health, Valerie Simpson herself did much of the “grunt” singing duties around the studio that Terrell would have done – guide vocals for Gaye, extra tracks of backing vocals, etc. Simpson also arranged to work slowly and deliberately with Terrell to get the final versions of her lead vocals down. Simpson and Terrell worked one-on-one in the studio, with Terrell singing phrases or short lines one at a time and taking breaks as required.
♪ My baby left me my mule got lame
Lost my money in a poker game
A windstorm came just the other day
Blew the house that I lived in away ♫
You’re absolutely correct @Broomstick, there are far, far too many unknowns for subject of the thread, and quite literally, each person’s circumstances are very different. When I was talking about a fatalistic attitude, I was referencing my earlier post, which I’ll actually quote this time:
The part that’s probably key for my POV, which I didn’t mention in the section you quoted (which is my own darn fault) is the “look at the costs”. It ain’t cheap. And different people put priorities in different places. I know several older individuals, for whom the answer would be $150 a month (using the number I mentioned in my Medicare supplement above) is unworkable, because that money would be coming out of uncuttable living expenses (food, power, etc). They’re fatalistic because of a damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
I of course know younger people who are in the same boats, but there’s a non-zero subset that would rather throw $200 a month towards something slightly less practical, with the unspoken assumption that 1) they’re young and healthy 2) if something bad happens and it’ll be someone else’s fault 3) if it does happen, so be it [ back to fatalistic ].
The most amusing being the one who didn’t have health insurance but did have a very nice new motorcycle… which he laid down a month later and was unspeakably lucky / young / good leathers / thank god wore a helmet. I saw the helmet later, and it had been sanded down almost an inch on the side/top.
I don’t know if he changed his coverage at the next open enrollment, but I knew he didn’t buy a new bike!
We have ObamaCare in California. Insurance is anywhere from free to around $1100/month depending on your income. It’s the income for the year that you are in so you have to guess your income at sign up and you may get a refund or pay more depending on what ended up actually happening. For very low income we have Medical which is a different beast. Both have fairly decent coverage.
It is also possible to have insurance and reach the “lifetime maximum benefit.” I don’t know what the regulations are now, or what the amount is, but a friend had that happen in the 90’s. Her cancer treatment had to be curtailed until a fundraiser could be arranged.
Disgusting society we live in.
There is no pay-in requirement for Medicare, the ten year thing is for Social Security. If you’re 65 and legal resident, you get it (assuming you can afford the $169/month premiums).
So who knows what the hell is going on with him.