Man Robs Bank For Jail Health Care

[metamorph]

James Verone Robs Bank For Jail Health Care (VIDEO)

Isn't it sad that the only free health care in the US seems to be for convicts?

[SnerpGoodWord]

Excellent evidence our jails are way too lenient.

I bet you if instead of the county jail he got to spend 3 years breaking rocks or on a prison farm, we wouldn't be reading this story as suddenly doing the same labor as a free man to pay his own medical bills would seem attractive.

[ChrisGinsburg]

There's so much that's ass backwards I don't even know where to start. I remember hearing a while back that there was a guy on death row that got an organ transplant and was then executed not too long afterward. Obviously, with any organ there are plenty of people waiting for these things that aren't going to be put to death.

[Le Roi]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

Excellent evidence our jails are way too lenient.

Total lack of compassion here for this guy.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Le Roi

Total lack of compassion here for this guy.

If he comes seeking charity, that's one thing - I've got compassion.

But when he intentionally gets himself arrested to FORCE the taxpayer to foot the bill for his care, I'm not compassionate in the least and I think society should try to extract compensation in the form of labor. It's the difference between a beggar and a mugger.

[Le Roi]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

If he comes seeking charity, that's one thing - I've got compassion.

But when he intentionally gets himself arrested to FORCE the taxpayer to foot the bill for his care, I'm not compassionate in the least and I think society should try to extract compensation in the form of labor. It's the difference between a beggar and a mugger.

Society screwed up health care in the first place, by insisting on all of the tremendous amount of government laws and regulations that have driven up the cost of health care exponentially over the last 50 years.

So, I don't blame this guy, and I feel sorry that he felt so much in a corner and had to give up his freedom to avoid dying.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Le Roi

So, I don't blame this guy, and I feel sorry that he felt so much in a corner and had to give up his freedom to avoid dying.

If in fact he had a treatable-yet-terminal condition, he could get free care at any number of hospital emergency rooms. I guarantee his choices were not freedom vs. dying. More like a choice between free care and housing vs. having to work for it.

Just one more parasite in a society that's already got far too many of them.

[Criseyde]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

If in fact he had a treatable-yet-terminal condition, he could get free care at any number of hospital emergency rooms. I guarantee his choices were not freedom vs. dying. More like a choice between free care and housing vs. having to work for it.

Just one more parasite in a society that's already got far too many of them.

How do we know he can work? He did this for health care, right?

[ZephyrusX]

Originally Posted by Criseyde

How do we know he can work? He did this for health care, right?

I don't really know anything about this guy in particular (I don't want' to watch the video), but the majority of people in Canada who break the law in order to utilize the jail's facilities do so because they are desperate. They may be homeless and unable to work due to mental illness, learning disabilities or what ever. If it is cold enough, if they are hungry enough, they will do anything that it takes to get 'taken away'.

I once had a guy bash our store window in for no other reason so that he could be taken off the streets. It scared the hell out of me. But it was rather sad. He was just pacing back and forth yelling 'phone the police, take me away!'. Though in this case, he was known to have a mental illness and was brought to a hospital. I'm not sure if he ever got charged with anything.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Criseyde

How do we know he can work? He did this for health care, right?

I guarantee he can do SOMETHING. And if he actually provably can't, he could have gotten SS disability.

While the "safety net" in the US isn't as large or as visible as it is in some other countries, if anything we bias way to far on the side of supporting those who could work or don't.

[Asmoday]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

If in fact he had a treatable-yet-terminal condition, he could get free care at any number of hospital emergency rooms. I guarantee his choices were not freedom vs. dying. More like a choice between free care and housing vs. having to work for it.

Just one more parasite in a society that's already got far too many of them.

I humbly disagree...

1) Its not free, they still bill you. A LOT.

2) They are legally required to stabilize you, and nothing more -- not what we think of as "full out treatment".

3) Unemployment is through the roof and he appears to be older, meaning, he might not have been able to find work. Assuming he could find work, wages and benefits are restricted, so it probably wouldn't have cut the mustard, nowhere close really. Finally, assuming he had an awesome, well-paying job, he still probably would have been outmaneuvered/dropped by his insurance carrier, given a high cost long-term terminal condition -- seeing as how the insurance companies gave themselves tons of loopholes in Obamacare, why you don't see insurance companies laying off in droves.

4) It seems obvious that, barring absolute insanity, no one would choose to die wearing orange, surrounded by thugs, with everything smelling like man-booty, as opposed to kicking the bucket working as a greeter at wal-mart, which seems to be your imaginary, almost fairy-tale solution. Hence, the guy must have felt it was the only way to stay alive for a while longer.

5) He is not a parasite, he is a human being. With all due respect, my noble lord, the peasants can't help but scream and kick as they die, especially when they are scared and desperate. I will try to help them learn to fade without disturbing you in the future. However, I would have much more respect for your position if you would just come out and say, the poor are not my problem, let them die away from me; rather than trying to make it this poor guy's fault and moral failing, when he is obviously just trying to live.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as Capitalist as the next guy, but crony-capitalism, by definition, is in nobody's best interest. I think arguing the other way is being so blindsided as to try to convince everyone that shooting yourself in the foot will be good for your circulation. Simply put, if you're not in the top 1% of income earners, national health care is your self-maximal choice.

[Asmoday]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

I guarantee he can do SOMETHING. And if he actually provably can't, he could have gotten SS disability.

While the "safety net" in the US isn't as large or as visible as it is in some other countries, if anything we bias way to far on the side of supporting those who could work or don't.

I swear to you, if you look into the "SS disability" route more deeply, you'll find it is not that simple, and can take quite some time to roll out.

We like to think people have options, because then we can wash our hands of the issue, without having to deal with looking our own coldness in the face.

[ZephyrusX]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

He is not a parasite, he is a human being. With all due respect, my noble lord, the peasants can't help but scream and kick as they die, especially when they are scared and desperate.

Thank you.

[ZephyrusX]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

I swear to you, if you look into the "SS disability" route more deeply, you'll find it is not that simple, and can take quite some time to roll out.

We like to think people have options, because then we can wash our hands of the issue, without having to deal with looking our own coldness in the face.

This is my understanding of the social security network in Canada (ie. disability pension, welfare etc). The governments make it very damn difficult and time consuming for you to enter. I'm half inclined to think people just give up after awhile. Just because it is there doesn't mean that it effectively deals with our social problems, such as poverty and homelessness. It doesn't.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

I humbly disagree...

1) Its not free, they still bill you. A LOT.

Which is irrelevant since he's broke and won't pay.

2) They are legally required to stabilize you, and nothing more -- not what we think of as "full out treatment".

If there's a life-saving required surgical procedure etc. they do it. It's unclear exactly what his health problems are, but if they're are so bad the alternative was death he would be treated.

5) He is not a parasite, he is a human being. With all due respect, my noble lord, the peasants can't help but scream and kick as they die, especially when they are scared and desperate.

Boo ****ing hoo. He is indeed a parasite - a subset of human beings - contributing nothing to society but his presence in jail, and taking much in return. And this is 100% intentional on his part. He is to the body of taxpayers what a leach is to your leg. I suspect you resort to sarcasm because the fundamental truth of this argument cannot be refuted.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

Simply put, if you're not in the top 1% of income earners, national health care is your self-maximal choice.

No it's not - having my health care run by the same ****-ups that run the DMV is the worst of all possible outcomes. That's true at any point on the income spectrum - the only exception is parasitic individuals, for whom of course anything paid for by someone else no matter how poorly implemented is better.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by ZephyrusX

Just because it is there doesn't mean that it effectively deals with our social problems, such as poverty and homelessness. It doesn't.

The meta-problem is viewing poverty and homelessness as "social" problems instead of personal problems. No amount of dealing with "social" problems will ever fix them because the problem has been mis-understood and the remedies proposed are thus worthless. Witness Europe's losing battle with unemployment. Change your perspective and call it 'sloth' instead, and new solutions would present themselves.

[Mariana Trench]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

Change your perspective and call it 'sloth' instead, and new solutions would present themselves.

Such as?

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Mariana Trench

Such as?

Ask yourself this: in the US how do illegal immigrants who thus cannot legally work and who do not speak English find employment, while numerous able-bodied English speaking, legally employable people are unemployed? What characteristic is different between the two groups?

[Asmoday]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

Which is irrelevant since he's broke and won't pay.

If there's a life-saving required surgical procedure etc. they do it. It's unclear exactly what his health problems are, but if they're are so bad the alternative was death he would be treated.


Boo ****ing hoo. He is indeed a parasite - a subset of human beings - contributing nothing to society but his presence in jail, and taking much in return. And this is 100% intentional on his part. He is to the body of taxpayers what a leach is to your leg. I suspect you resort to sarcasm because the fundamental truth of this argument cannot be refuted.

Won't pay versus Can't pay is a broad distinction. You're assuming the guy can work, and is able to find work. More importantly, without insurance, the guy is likely facing a bill that runs into 200k plus, for something life saving. So, lets say you're right, at an average wage level, he could eat raman noodles for the rest of his life and never repay it. This doesn't include medication and follow up treatment. The demand for life-saving health care is perfectly inelastic, we will all agree to any price to stay alive. Charging someone that much for a good they must have to live is immoral. There's no getting around that.

Secondly, you're wrong on the required treatment. I used to think that too, until I looked into it myself. They are simply required to make you stable, and nothing more. Really, you can check this out for yourself. In major hospitals, patients without "sufficient coverage" are stabilized, released, and consequently die all the time. Many times, more proactive treatment would have saved the life of the patient, but as the situation was allowed to worsen, treatment at time of critical failure, when they are obligated to do some things, but you might be surprise as to what they can opt-out of doing, is often ineffective.

So, it is likely that he couldn't pay, and his inability to pay barred him from legal means of staying alive. Forcing your survival on taxpayers is less immoral than those taxpayers expecting you to die because no one can profit from letting you live. This is important in the case of this guy, because you're arguing that he had other options to receive care in an appropriate timeframe.

It is very likely, he did not. This means he is not a leech, but a victim.

Again, you're ignoring -- common sense dictates, if this man could have worked and received the care he needed, this would have been a better self-optimizing choice, a better quality of life than prison, across the board.

He can't be considered a leech in this case.

I think if there was a hypothetical tribe, for example, that gave the chief so much of the food, that a handfull of members were left starving would be immoral, especially if they had no ability to get work and earn food. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind some having more, especially when it creates incentives and serves the greater good. But, we have gone way to far. In this scenario, you're calling them parasites when they raid the grainhouse to get what they need to live. Its not like the guy did this to get an x-box or something...the chief is the leech for not letting the guy work for food.

In any case, this man probably worked and paid taxes for some part, if not the majority of his life. Does this entitle him to nothing? If we go your route, and demand that people work continuously to receive benefit from society, then what about those who do nothing productive but claim benefit merely by inherited ownership? Do you think they are equally parasites? Likewise, under your route, we are obligated to provide full-time employment at a living wage for anyone who desires it. But nah, that's socialism, right? Under your path, if I am unemployed and unable to find work, I have no right to anything. I'm damned if i do, damned if I don't. A clearly faulty, catch-22.

I would support your argument if this guy was "stealing" for luxury, but not for trying to live. Its unreasonable to demand that people simply accept death because of their resource position. Again, to use food as a metephor for medicine, its one thing to let someone starve when there is just not enough to go around, but if there is plenty of food, letting this guy die is just murder, no getting around that. Frankly, there's more than enough medicine to go around for everyone.

Remember, the cost for medicine is high for a lot of reasons. Artificial personell shortages, laws which protect big-pharma from competition, laws which allow insurance companies to charge high and disburse low. Its all crony-capitalism, where I buy off the government and it makes me rich.

There is no getting around the fact that our current resource distribution is morally wrong. It is wrong to let people die when you have the means to save them, wrong to let them starve when you can feed them. All of us would rather work and eat than not work and die. Point blank, we have a right to that, a birth-right, to argue otherwise is to simply defend exploitation.

In any case, I do feel I refuted your argument. Hence, my sarcasm is just me being me and reacting to a view that is based on unbridled greed.

I mean, come on man, can I ask you, are you in the US, are you one of the top 1% of wage earners? If the answer is no, then open healthcare actually makes financial sense for you, if you take the time to look at it.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

Won't pay versus Can't pay is a broad distinction. You're assuming the guy can work, and is able to find work. More importantly, without insurance, the guy is likely facing a bill that runs into 200k plus, for something life saving.

You do realize that poor people don't actually pay their emergency room bills, right? They either ignore them or file for bankruptcy. One can argue he SHOULD pay, but let's not pretend that's actually what happens. Point being, this guy isn't actually optimizing anything. There are reasons he did what he did, but some sort of homo economicus optimization is not one of them.

[Asmoday]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

Ask yourself this: in the US how do illegal immigrants who thus cannot legally work and who do not speak English find employment, while numerous able-bodied English speaking, legally employable people are unemployed? What characteristic is different between the two groups?

This is inaccurate. We can't estimate it concretely, for obvious reasons, but unemployment for illegals right now is definitely higher than the national average.

But, to go where I think you're going -- its the standard of living they are willing to accept. They cram themselves into apartments like sardines, and will accept ridiculously low wages and horrible working conditions.

That's the difference.

And why? So the guy who owns the drywall company can take that saved expense and buy a yacht.

Look, I WANT the boss to be rich. I WANT to reward the boss.

But that goes too far. Its wrong to go that far, and I'm tired of pretending otherwise on the off-chance that one day I will be in the top 1%.

This whole idea that we just let the rich do whatever they want because it is optimal, is plainly, obviously, just not working.

Even if it works sometimes, looking at the dude in the apartment across from mine, who is clearly getting thinner and thinner, who hasn't been able to find a job for over a year now, and wasn't eligible for unemployment because he hadn't worked at his job for 6 months before the layoff -- yeah, the cost is unreasonable.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

I mean, come on man, can I ask you, are you in the US, are you one of the top 1% of wage earners? If the answer is no, then open healthcare actually makes financial sense for you, if you take the time to look at it.

Yes I'm in the US, no I'm not a top 1% earner but am top 10%. Top 1% in the next 5 years is a distinct possibility. And even if I made $25K a year (which was the case within the last decade) having the same people that run the DMV run my healthcare would be the worst external thing that could happen to my health. Bureaucratic incompetence is not a solution to health care costs.

[Criseyde]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

You do realize that poor people don't actually pay their emergency room bills, right? They either ignore them or file for bankruptcy. One can argue he SHOULD pay, but let's not pretend that's actually what happens. Point being, this guy isn't actually optimizing anything. There are reasons he did what he did, but some sort of homo economicus optimization is not one of them.

I don't think that having to file for bankruptcy counts as "getting things for free." The penalties for bankruptcy are quite harsh.

[Asmoday]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

You do realize that poor people don't actually pay their emergency room bills, right? They either ignore them or file for bankruptcy. One can argue he SHOULD pay, but let's not pretend that's actually what happens. Point being, this guy isn't actually optimizing anything. There are reasons he did what he did, but some sort of homo economicus optimization is not one of them.

I realize we probably won't agree here, but I think we're having a communication problem that is making why we disagree not connect...

No, I definitely understand that. And, unless you're shot or definitely dying on the spot, they can turn you away from an ER after you ignore one bill.

What I'm trying to communicate is that I think you think they will do whatever it takes to fix the underlying problem and let you go. I'm trying to explain that this is not the case, so you can go to the emergency room, be stabilized but not "fixed" and released, with a huge bill.

In this case, if not being "fixed" means death, then crime which comes with healthcare that gets you "fixed" is self-optimal. And that's not really a debate, that's just game theory logic.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

This is inaccurate. We can't estimate it concretely, for obvious reasons, but unemployment for illegals right now is definitely higher than the national average.

But not 100%. Why is Jose the Guatamalan day laborer employed while Bob the out of work Detroit machinist is not?

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Criseyde

I don't think that having to file for bankruptcy counts as "getting things for free." The penalties for bankruptcy are quite harsh.

What penalty are you referring to? While some aspects of chapter 11 bankruptcy could be seen as mildly punative, chapter 7 bankruptcy (which would be the result of an indigent person with a $200K medical bill) has nothing even vaguely punative associated with it. Unless you're worried about his credit score

[Asmoday]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

Yes I'm in the US, no I'm not a top 1% earner but am top 10%. Top 1% in the next 5 years is a distinct possibility. And even if I made $25K a year (which was the case within the last decade) having the same people that run the DMV run my healthcare would be the worst external thing that could happen to my health. Bureaucratic incompetence is not a solution to health care costs.

Well no, in that case, and I swear I don't mean this in an offensive or snarky way, then you're arguing the exact way one would expect.

You will be able to afford whatever you need, when you need it. Insofar as you stay at that level. Except to say that, it takes all of the pleblians down here to make you wealthy. If our standard of living keeps falling, we won't be able to make you rich, eventually. That's why this kind of resource-spread is ultimately short sighted.

[Criseyde]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

What penalty are you referring to? While some aspects of chapter 11 bankruptcy could be seen as mildly punative, chapter 7 bankruptcy (which would be the result of an indigent person with a $200K medical bill) has nothing even vaguely punative associated with it. Unless you're worried about his credit score

You can't even rent an apartment without a co-signer on your lease when your credit is ruined by chapter 7.

[Asmoday]

Originally Posted by Criseyde

You can't even rent an apartment without a co-signer on your lease when your credit is ruined by chapter 7.

I don't think he's familiar with the changes.