US man stages $1 bank robbery to get state healthcare

[MikePizzoff]

Props to this dude. This is what I should have done when I tore a ligament in my ankle. Instead, I now have credit agencies hunting me down for nearly $4,000 I owe to the hospital. $4,000 to sit in the ER for 3 hours, get 1 X-ray, have a doctor look at me for about 2.5 minutes, and then have a nurse put a half-cast on my ankle (which only lasted 2 weeks).

[JDFP]

Props to this dude. This is what I should have done when I tore a ligament in my ankle. Instead, I now have credit agencies hunting me down for nearly $4,000 I owe to the hospital. $4,000 to sit in the ER for 3 hours, get 1 X-ray, have a doctor look at me for about 2.5 minutes, and then have a nurse put a half-cast on my ankle (which only lasted 2 weeks). While I think it's absolutely insane for you to be charged $4,000 for the x-ray and your wait in ER, and I don't think it's right you should have to pay that much, I can't give this guy any kudos at all. Would it have been better for all the rest of us to pay for your bill? I don't think so. The medical cost should have never been that high to begin with (and I'd be sore about it as you are too) -- even so, it shouldn't be my responsibility and the responsibility of other taxpayers to front the bill for someone else. Indeed, we certainly need some MAJOR reforms on medical practices and bills - the expenditures are entirely too high for the services. Likewise, should doctors be making millions of dollars every year? Or having to pay thousands-upon-thousands of dollars every month for malpractice insurance? j.p.

[darth los]

Then there's this point too. There are a slew of things that my taxes go for that i have no control over and that I am adamantly against. For example, everyone hates New Yorkers and thinks we're arrogant, blah, blah,blah. However, did you know that last year 5.7 billion dollars of our tax payer money went to fund the wars, by far the most in the country. I hate these fucking wars and don't think it's right that my tax money goes to fund them. How is that right? So if we're going to make this an issue then we have to review the whole tax system, not just the things we don't agree with.

[AcesandEights]

While I think it's absolutely insane for you to be charged $4,000 for the x-ray and your wait in ER, and I don't think it's right you should have to pay that much, I can't give this guy any kudos at all. Would it have been better for all the rest of us to pay for your bill? To be fair, if more Americans worked and paid taxes and we started to actually come up with a way to legalize worker status for those working illegally in the US (doing the jobs we consider beneath us) and tax them, we could definitely all chip in for healthcare, assuming we could reform the current healthcare system. I think we could swing it if cool and uncorrupted heads could ever prevail (read: not in a bajillion years), but don't see that happening anytime soon. I remember seeing a report that over 40% of Americans currently pay 0 or negative federal income tax dollars. I don't know if that's true, it was published by a government agency after all, but if it is that's scary as hell. I would, however, like to go on the record and say I would have gladly chipped in the .000000001 cents that my share would have cost me for Mike to get his leg looked at. Big of me, eh?

[Trin]

Unfortunately, Society tends to focus on the most obvious ones and that in turn obfuscates the others. (What? Only aces, kraken and trin can use 50 dollar words now? ) That's just inflation Darth. You've moved up to the 50 dollar words, yes, but we've all gone to the 100 dollar words.

[MikePizzoff]

While I think it's absolutely insane for you to be charged $4,000 for the x-ray and your wait in ER, and I don't think it's right you should have to pay that much, I can't give this guy any kudos at all. Would it have been better for all the rest of us to pay for your bill? I don't think so. The medical cost should have never been that high to begin with (and I'd be sore about it as you are too) -- even so, it shouldn't be my responsibility and the responsibility of other taxpayers to front the bill for someone else. I completely understand where you're coming from with this. However, it really doesn't cost them $4,000 to do something like this, therefore if they were to give me the same treatment behind bars, the amount of money coming from the tax-payers would be miniscule (compared to $4k, anyway). I would, however, like to go on the record and say I would have gladly chipped in the .000000001 cents that my share would have cost me for Mike to get his leg looked at. Big of me, eh? I shall remember this!

[DeadJonas190]

What surprises me in this is that nobody mentioned how much of our tax money actually does go towards paying for healthcare for the uninsured and how in relation to that cost, if we had a healthcare plan similar to the one Danny mentioned it would be much less of a burden on our tax dollars as costs would be controled (no $4000 3 hour ER visits) for said hospitals instead of the hospital being able to charge absurd amounts for basic treatments. I understand the costs in running a hospital are large, but does it really cost $1200 for a anesthesiologist, $20 for a few slices of bread and processed meat, $8 for a single Tylenol 3 or $300 for my personal doctor to walk in, say "How are you" and walk out (actual costs from my bill when I had an appendectomy)... I'm pretty sure it doesn't. If I hadn't had health insurance at that time my visit would have cost me $25,000 instead of the 5,000 that my insurance wouldn't cover (even though it was supposed to be covered in my policy). I find it sad that we have the ability here in the USA to provide the best quality medical care yet we allow our people to die becuase they can't afford even the basic medical care. A tip I have learned recently for the uninsured. If you find yourself at a hospital with huge bills, most hospitals will lower the bills if you tell them you are uninsured and have no way of paying the large bills. A friend has seen bills reduced by thousands of dollars and even some of them completely taken away due to "grants" the hospital had recieved for just such things.

[bassman]

A tip I have learned recently for the uninsured. If you find yourself at a hospital with huge bills, most hospitals will lower the bills if you tell them you are uninsured and have no way of paying the large bills. A friend has seen bills reduced by thousands of dollars and even some of them completely taken away due to "grants" the hospital had recieved for just such things. I had that happen to me once when I was younger and uninsured. I tried to set up a payment plan with the hospital, but when I showed them my bills(to help determine the amount I would have to pay monthly), they punched in the numbers and then handed me a paper labeled "paid in full". Not something I would recommend to everyone, but it was a nice surprise. They'll definitely work with you. Although I don't know if going in to set up a surgery like this guy needed could produce the same result...

[Andy]

Peeps, this is the state of things in the mighty United states. And there's no defending this. Supposedly the richest country in the world has citizens resorting to this. Who needs universal healthcare right? THIS GUY! http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...ery-healthcare I know its late and this post was weeks ago but i just read this and i gotta say, richest country in the world? your either in denial or living in 1940 in terms of wealth, america (like us in europe) has been surpassed many times over by most of the middle east If you had said largest debt in the world.. you would have been alot closer to the mark

[MikePizzoff]

I know its late and this post was weeks ago but i just read this and i gotta say, richest country in the world? your either in denial or living in 1940 in terms of wealth, america (like us in europe) has been surpassed many times over by most of the middle east If you had said largest debt in the world.. you would have been alot closer to the mark This is very true. I don't know how I didn't catch this!