He’s not standing behind any cash registers. He’s asking the cashiers who are to give him a little bit of their paychecks because he’s figured he’s worked enough at this point.
But, hey, if this story has you so torn up, nothing’s keeping you from cutting a check yourself.
Let him stay in prison of course. Seems pretty simple to me.
Hampton Inn Charlotte-Gastonia
1859 Remount Rd, Gastonia, NC, 28054 United States
average nightly rate $89
Yeah, he was just rolling the fucking dough! :rolleyes:
CMC fnord!
I’m not torn up, I just don’t put any stock whatsoever into your armchair diagnosis.
Subtle.
$89 x 30 = $2670 That’s more than enough to rent my apartment($1100), cover the utilities($300), buy groceries($400), and get good health insurance($700). (Note: I live in MA, insurance estimate pulled from here, other costs also likely higher than a single person with a tight budget would need/want.) Even enough left over to get a monthly pass that will get me from my house to anywhere in the metro area ($90).
I wouldn’t want to live on it, but I could. I certainly wouldn’t need to go to prison to get better health insurance.
Also, note that the plans I linked to aren’t the MA subsidized plans. I didn’t want to mess with that part of the site.
Red flags for what? A guy who drives truck and hauls cases of soda for 17 years can’t have legitimate pain issues? It’s got to be a mental issue? What about the chest ‘protuberance’ says mental health issue?
Besides, losing your job security and not having access to even basic medical care, let alone for chronic pain, can have significant repercussions on one’s mental health. To be sure, it can make one quite desperate, which is exactly what this sounds like.
How could you know how significant his health problems are? You couldn’t possibly diagnose him based on his lay description of symptoms. What benefits program was he on?
Can you be sure he was planning to stay longer than a night or two? It sounds like he was planning on procuring alternative accommodations, given the fact that he took the cab to scene of the crime. Presumably, public transportation was impractical. As to his furniture, could it be he gave it away because it didn’t have any value? Take a look at the furniture you find at Goodwill, it’s not that great. Believe me, I’ve been trying to sell my stuff and it’s not easy when your stuff is crap. I made $85 on last Saturday’s yard sale and that won’t even cover being seen by a clinic doctor, let alone diagnostics and labs.
So what we have here is someone who just wants to take it easy and have the state tend to him as a prisoner. What should we do in such a case?
[/QUOTE]
Take notice that he’s already tried replacing his 17-year trucking job and hasn’t been successful for whatever reason? Couldn’t possibly be because he’s in pain and needs medical care. Must be because he’s lazy. Guess we should just leave him in jail and take him back once he’s committed another robbery for $1. Until he just up and keels over, which will likely be sooner rather than later if we deny him the medical care that could possibly make him at least as productive as he was for 17 years of his life.
Where do you get the impression that he stayed there for 30 days or was even planning to spend $2670 on a hotel room when he just paid his rent in full on his previous residence? I’d be willing to bet anywhere near that much in rent.
To put it most simply: on the basis of all these things, no one of which is damning in itself—the inability to stay employed (NB: not “find employment,” but “stay employed”) in low-skilled, low-wage jobs (which are not known for being especially demanding); the non-specific, entirely subjective nature of his complaints (back pain, foot pain, neither of which is attributed to an anatomical or pathological process); the fact that he had money for a hotel and a cab, but wouldn’t go to the low-income clinic or the ER; his mental and physical ability to orchestrate this little stunt; his apparent non-interest in finding another job, to the extent that he will repeat these “robberies” before, say, enrolling in a job-seekers program; his exhaustion of earlier benefits (he was at least on unemployment and food stamps according to the article I linked to) . . .
I have to say, yes, the preponderance of the evidence points to malingering, not a disabling condition. I presume his application for SSI/SSDI was denied on the very grounds outlined above.
You do realize that you are going to die eventually, right?
I think you know that’s not what he’s saying.
I imagine he has two points:
No reasonable interpretation of is figures could allow one to believe that he was saying that 45,000 is too small to bother with.
“With 45,000 people dying every year in the United States who would have otherwise lived if they had health insurance”
Prove that they would have lived if they had insurance.
Take it up with Harvard. <-PDF
Assuming you actually wanted evidence.
Those guys aren’t high on transplant lists.
Not demanding in what way? Typically, those low-skilled, low-wage jobs tend to be more *physically *demanding than white collar jobs, which can present a problem for someone already suffering from pain and health issues.
I don’t understand how you would expect a trucker to diagnose the cause of his pain symptoms. Kind of hard to determine cause without medical care, no? Why is it so hard to believe that 17 years of physical labor could result in chronic pain. As to his foot, it could very well be a simple sprain that will eventually heal on its own or it could contribute to overall weakness that results in a broken hip. He’s no spring chicken, ya know. Or its related to something serious like diabetes and he ends up losing the foot. That ought to enhance his employability, no?
I’m with you here. Hell, go to the ER and let everyone else eat your bill if you can’t pay. IMHO, everyone’s entitled to medical care. This poor guy thinks he ought to pay for it, if not with his non-existent wealth, than with his freedom.
You mean he’s got the wherewithal to realize that prisoners receive medical care and the physical strength to walk into a bank, demand a dollar and sit on the couch waiting for the cops to arrive to take him to jail, right? That’s impressive.
Let’s see, laid off after 17 years of loyal service, suffering chronic pain that likely makes physically demanding jobs difficult, living off of his savings and food stamps, in an area suffering from 10-11% unemployment, without medical insurance. And he’s damn near 60 years old. Prospect look great, don’t they? I can understand why the guy has a distinct lack of hope.
You sure jump to a lot of conclusions. The article you linked to neither mentioned unemployment benefits nor that he has exhausted his SNAP benefits. Neither of which, mind you, would have paid for even basic medical care for an uninsured older patient presenting with several symptoms, in addition to basic living expenses such as rent, utilities and transportation. The poor are truly fucked, I assure you.
Thank you, Professor Gibbler, MD. Some people wait years to get their SSDI benefits. In the meantime, if that can afford it, they eat a lot of medical bills on their own. Could be this guy has already exhausted his limited funds and is truly up shit creek without a paddle. It’s not like that’s such an unlikely scenario. People do all sorts of fucked up things when they’re desperate and looking for a lifeline. This is one of those least fucked up desperate things to do.
Show a little compassion, FFS.
So 45,000 is not that large, when one takes into account the size of the United States. So that’s exactly what he’s saying. 45,000 deaths in a country of 300 million is too small to bother with. However as another poster pointed out, it would make it into the top 10 causes of premature death.
That’s a different argument. He did not bring cost into it. At any rate, UHC in Canada costs LESS per capita than under the US system, and it does so with better health results, and everyone covered. (cue American Exceptional argument - The US couldn’t do it even though UHC works in many other countries)
Jesus, you’re even better than the Republican politician that was diagnosing a patient on the basis of a videotape. All you need is a newspaper article to see what’s wrong with him. You should apply for Randi’s million dollar challenge!
As an aside, Randi definitively showed that Dowsing doesn’t work. That Randi, he’s so honest and a provides such a rock solid and fair test, that I don’t think anyone on Earth could question him in sincerity.
Dives for cover!
Didn’t mention moving out of a house (the word house doesn’t even appear on the page) so that he could live in a Hampton Inn or taking cabs to rob banks, but that didn’t slow him (I think) down either.
Compassion is for the weak . . . oh wait. :smack:
CMC fnord!
I predict that no matter how many examples are provided there will always be something to nitpick the example into unworthiness, i.e. this person doesn’t deserve subsidized access to healthcare therefore people don’t deserve subsidized access to healthcare.
“Are there no prisons are there no [del]workhouses[/del] emergency rooms?”
Confronting the misery of people who fall through the cracks in a society is to be avoided at all costs.
“…because no one was really poor - at least no one worth speaking of.”
He moved out of the dwelling where he formerly resided (or as most people at least occasionally call such a location, even if it is an apartment: his house) and took up at the Hampton Inn.
But you know what, I’ll give you this one. He moved out of his apartment into a hotel. NOW IT’S TOTALLY DIFFERENT GUYS!!!
You know some people move out of their apartment when they can’t make rent. What are you even suggesting?