:rolleyes:
Funny. The US has a habit of taxing folks like us in order to hand you a disability check every two weeks, and yet we aren’t complaining.
I find your lack of empathy disturbing - but not nearly as disturbing as your lack of a sense of irony.
I was thinking of taking up a collection to buy curlcoat the custom title of “Eater of Napkins” but it’s not like we can force her to use it, the mods would probably get upset, and on reflection it’s probably a waste of money.
That said - she should have gotten on foodstamps like an honest slacker instead of stealing from a restaurant. Seriously, she thinks it more moral to effing steal than to accept government aid? 
Your land is valuable now. Not so much after the big one causes half of California to fall into the sea.
Hell, she could have stolen from the grocery store - she obviously had no problem with theft. I’m pretty unclear about the situation though - if this was something she did as a teenager, then she would not have been eligible for food stamps, right? But when asked about them before she said it was better than food stamps, suggesting that she had the option. If it was after age 18, she could have gotten food stamps, but has admitted that she consistently had a job at that time. So, she was so bad at budgeting money that she had no food at all?
And, when she first brought up napkin sandwiches, she said she would buy a hamburger and get a cup of water, then go back for napkins and condiments. So she had the money to buy the first burger, which would almost certainly have bought more at the grocery store. She did say sometimes she only ate the napkins, but I can’t imagine any fast food place habitually letting teenagers loiter around eating condiments and not buying anything, so that must not have happened too often.
The whole thing just doesn’t make much sense, but maybe that’s because I’m ‘without brain’, and also apparently a jerk (and she’s not).
Christ, I’m giving this way too much thought.
Yeah, you can easily get into too much thought over this. I mean, if she was 14 her parents should have been feeding her and if they didn’t that was neglect, unless the whole family was that poor in which case yes, they should have been on foodstamps which are allocated by number of individuals in the household so in that sense she could have received them, plus there’s the school lunch program, unless she was a drop-out, but that’s not an option until 16 in most places… or she was past 18 and in her twisted mind stealing is somehow preferable to legal assistance in which case she’s a petty criminal (whether or not she was ever caught and convicted).
I think she’s making this stuff up as she goes, which is the easiest explanation for the lack of consistency and changing stories.
You’re reading her posts, way too much, that’s for sure. Better you than me, of course; but better still, nobody at all. 
I thought it was “When first we practice to deceive” and was from Alexander Pope…?
They could save a lot of money by denying any payments. Then they could cut CURLCOATS premiums . Then all would be well.
No the lymphoma was not a pre-existing condition. But what gives the insurance company the right to deny paying for a person who is supposed to be covered? If I am paying premiums ,I expect them to pay is I get sick. The pre-existing conditions concept is one they came up with to avoid paying. They made it up. It is illogical and immoral. There should be no such clause.
I’m kinda hoping for some beachfront property. I’m right on the faultline.
You’re quite probably right about the Alexander Pope thing, and you’re completely right about the actual second line of the couplet.
What I posted is what is sometimes known as a “riff.” I suppose I should have attributed it to my younger brother Jerry, but it didn’t occur to me that there was any point in doing so.
I hope the napkins were sanitary.
Yeah, but which side? :eek:
We’ll find out!
HHS warns of double-digit spike in health premiums - Raw Story Health insurance companies are cranking up the premiums. I suppose the poor trod upon companies just can’t make it without 25-50 percent premium hikes. This is one of the problems in America. There are no downward forces on the cost of health care. There is almost no competition. They can charge what they want. How is that cost effective? The hospitals charge what they want. What makes them want to cut prices? Nothing. Our system is a boon to health insurance companies and health providers.
Yesterday, I had a job as a hotel housekeeper, which provided surprisingly good health insurance coverage despite having a low salary and relatively short working hours. Today, I still have that job, but the hotel where I work now belongs to a different parent company, one which does not yet have an insurance plan set up for this particular property. The buyout was very sudden and surprised everyone, even upper management. I’m still covered under the old policy through the end of the month, which means I have ten days to get my own health insurance so that I don’t have any gap in my coverage. My options are to get COBRA, which would cost about half of my current monthly salary, or to buy a much less comprehensive policy which would merely cost a fifth of my current monthly salary.
Fortunately for me, I’m young and pretty healthy, and won’t suffer too much hardship if I can’t get insurance right away. Some of my coworkers, such as the elderly night auditor who’s needed ongoing care for a broken arm, are not so lucky.
I eagerly await curlcoat’s explanation of how this is all, somehow, our own fault. :rolleyes:
It’s a vicious cycle. People can’t afford insurance so they go to the ER and can’t pay. Hospital charges everyone more to cover the costs of the uninsured. Insurance companies have to pay more for their insureds to cover the rising hospital costs so they raise their rates. So more people can’t afford the hiked premiums and go without insurance and go to the ER. Hospitals raise their prices to cover the costs of the additional uninsured. See where this is going? The insurance companies will first ensure their profits, then everybody else’s healthcare.
The public option must come back into play. And I understand that several democrat senators are attempting to do just that. Cite!
And WellPoint VP Brad Fluegel energized healthcare reformers by trying to justify the 39% rate increase on Fox News. Cite. Whoohoo!
Yay! Democrats standing up for what they believe in! I guess some of those spines got stiffened in Massachusetts! Yay!
You should have been putting away enough money to cover any and all possible contingencies, and not assumed that your employer would continuously cover you throughout your entire life.
The fact that you did not plan for such an event means that you do not deserve consideration, because any intelligent person who doesn’t plan to be a drain on society will NEVER run into such a situation. They will have ALWAYS put enough money away for all possible options in any given scenario.
(we’ll see how close to the mark I got 
).
Cancer treatment starts at about 250 thou. Better get saving.
Just to add a little fuel to the fire, the five largest insurance companies saw 2009 profits rise 56% over 2008’s, a total of $12.2 billion in profit last year. Meanwhile, Wellpoint, which made $2.7 billion in profits in the last quarter of '09 is planning 39% rate increases to all of their individual policy holders in California. Their “reasoning” for this is because individual policy holders – that is, those who buy insurance themselves and do not get coverage via their employers (10% in California but only 5% of all insured people nationwide) – who are healthy are dropping their coverage because of the recession, and since only sicker people have coverage, they have to pay more.
We have to really stop and consider what it means, especially as our population ages, to continue a system in which someone who requires more health care than the average person is financially penalized for that.