Man robs bank to get jail healthcare

[Dr.Who]

I'd like to know what your opinion is of the Republican plan for the future of elderlies, disabled, and anyone who doesn't fit on the upper echelons of the "survival of the fittest" ladder?

Save your money, be kind to your kids and friends and relatives as they will be your partners in old age. Be a part of a church or other civic kind of organization all your life so that you can share in the benefits later. And if all else fails there is charity. Give generously in your youth so that systems are in place in your old age.

 

[Dr.Who]

The plan is that when those people are old, they will be told: "You should have saved your money".

Does everyone know that Republicans have webbed toes?

The plan is first to tell them that when they are young so they will actually do it. Then when a few have failed they may or may not be told that just before they are helped.

 

[dogtowner]

Yes there is a lot we do not know. But as you said, we do know that he would have qualified for medicaid insurance. There was no need for him to rob a bank to get medical care. The whole premise of the article and the thread is unfounded.

Hmmm three squares a day, a roof over the head, free cloths and healthcare ? THATS A SWEET DEAL ! Hopefully the judge dismisses the case.

 

[Dr.Who]

And does anyone knows how a person who has made an average salary of $30,000 to $40,000 a year thoughout his 40 year work life, raised 3 kids, and sent 2 to College, supported a spouse through his/her battle with terminal cancer, was let go at the age of 57, and was cut off from unemployment after 6 months of unsuccessful job search ("over qualified" is the typical reason given to people over 55 to not hire them). . .
How is that person supposed to have saved enough money to live for another 20 or 25 years on "savings?"

And we think that it is expecting a lot from our wealthiest 1% to dish out another 3% of their $5 millions annual net income!

At that kind of salary he could have easily saved quite a lot. And if there were problems saving money then he could have done what my parents did - and had me pay for my own college degrees. Wait, did you just say that he has two kids who have college degrees? Why are they not taking care of dear old dad? And he should consider himself lucky to have collected unemployment for 6 months. Yes he could have easily saved a lot of money and he can in all likelihood rely on his sons.

I have no objection to the top 1% helping this man. But they should not be forced to do so and there is no good reason they should be either.

 

[Dr.Who]

If people were allowed to save their own money for Social Security etc, they would see a vastly greater return on their investment than Social Security currently gives them.
.

One would also not need to wait until the age at which the gov pencil pusher tells you that you can withdraw it. Save your own money and you can take it out whenever you need it.

 

[Dr.Who]

I admire your confidence. I have worked with people who were extremely motivated to work. Who did work very hard. And still, they could barely make ends meet. There is NO WAY they could ever save enough money to guarantee any living "wage" once they stopped working, sometime 2 or 3 jobs.

If you make $25,000 a year, and your FICA is 6% of that amount, this represents a $1,375 per year of "potential" saving. Now, the average return on CD's is about 3% per year. This means that, by placing that $1,375 "saving" into a 5 year CD, that amount would go up after 5 years by a whole$50 for the first year. After 5 years, that investment would have grown to a maximum of $1,600!.

Please note that that 3% return on CD is about keeping up (if you're lucky) with average inflation!. . .which means that, if your "saving" earns just enough to keep up with inflation, once you retire and begin to withdraw from your saving, and you plan on making your saving last for 20 years (about 1/2 the time of your work career), you may expect to have about twice as much to live on each year as what you put away each year (the "interest on saving," as we already established will be eaten up by inflation!).
So, this man, who made $25,000 the first year, and put $1,375 in a saving, could expect to have $3,750 to live on for his first year after he retires.

Can you live on that? Sorry, I can't.

bad math.

 

[Dr.Who]

I believe that there are some people in this scenario, but I simply cannot believe (based on what I have seen) that this is the norm.



Don't get me wrong, I certainly am not advocating that a low yield CD is a good investment right now...but remember, it would be FDIC insured, meaning you won't lose the principle, and additionally, it will beat your return (even at a horrible 3%) that social security gives you by well over 200%.

Which would you rather have? A negative return, 1% or 3%?

Let us look at your example again.

Assume 4% interest (rates will not stay low forever) on a starting balance of $1,600 with compounding interest and a monthly contribution of only $150 a month.

After 30 years, you will have a balance of over $80,000 saved up, and that assumes very low contributions, no pay raises, and low interest rates...in reality, you would have more after 30 years.

How many people would turn that down?

Better math. But even that could be beat without too much trouble. This man and many others could do pretty good by saving their own money. And they would also have their loving college educated sons to help them.

 

[Dr.Who]

I am well aware of compounded interests. And, once again, it may benefit those who are able to invest large amount of money (i.e., interest rates go up fairly signicantly if you can deposit $100,000 instead of $3,000!).

However, think about what you are saying: You are now 65 years old, you are no longer employable (probably even true at a younger age, but let's say 65) and you have NO INCOME at all, but you have $80,000 in the bank, your life time savings.

You should expect to live another 20, maybe even 25 years. This means, you would be able to withdraw an average of about $3,000 a year. That's it.

You MIGHT be able to make it. . . if you own your home outright, if that home doesn't require maintenance, if you don't have utility bills, if you don't have to pay for your own insurance. . .however, medicare no longer exists. Instead, you receive $8,000 from the government, and you BEG a private, for profit insurance to insure you. Your medication are no longer covered (no more medicare part D), and they cost you about $150 per month (you're all together pretty healthy, so you are not spending the $500 that many elderly spent on medication . . .if they choose not to take medicare part D).

That leaves you with about $100.00 per month for food, transportation and anything else you may want.
However, you get sick, and your insurance (that you manage to find and who would accept your $8,000 a month voucher from the government) still requires a co-payment of only 10%. Unfortunately, you have to stay in the hospital for 2 weeks, and get an MRI, and surgery, and your co-payment comes to $2,000 (very low estimate!). You must now take that out of your remaining $77,000. . . .This means, you plan on dying one year earlier, or you cut down on your budget, taking out only $2,700 a year!
Yes, the remaining money in the bank still draws interest. . .not enough to compensate for the cost of living inflation though.

Do you think my picture is too bleak?

Think about it. And tell me how long that $80,000 will last in your opinion.

More bad math.

One could easily have more than 80K and it would continue to earn interest while one was withdrawing small amounts in retirement.

In your example one owns a house - that is an asset that is worth money. It can be sold or reversed mortgaged. Then one can live in a modest apartment and have no expenses to keep up that home.

And of course one still has those college educated sons.

 

[Dr.Who]

A little more reading about Verone and we learn that he paid his rent in full up until the last day and he considered other options (meaning he had other options) like his brother or sister or charity or early social security and he CHOOSE this option. The article alludes to the idea that he did this as a political statement.

 

[Dr.Who]

But lets look just a little further. This story comes to us here courtesy of "The Lookout", a source I have never heard of.

This is what Investors Business Daily says:

"A False tale of Woe

[] Come see how terrible health care is in the United States! The most expensive in the world, and yet it forces people to take desperate acts to get treatment! Thank goodness for ObamaCare!

There's just one little, inconvenient fact missing from all this coverage. Verone had access to free care — outside of jail — and plenty of it.

The dirty secret about our health care system is that it is, in fact, very generous to the poor. A recent study from the N.C. Justice Center notes that North Carolina hospitals provided $694 million in free care in 2008.

Nationwide, hospitals provide more than $34 billion in unpaid care. Then there are all the private charities, Medicaid, and various other state and federal programs that offer the poor and destitute access to care.

A hospital in Gastonia, N.C., — Gaston Memorial Hospital — offers discounts up to 100% to low-income patients. There's also a free health clinic just five miles from where Verone robbed that bank, and many more in nearby Charlotte.

If he wanted to travel a bit farther, Verone could have availed himself of the state-of-the-art medical facilities at the University of North Carolina, whose mandate is to provide "medically necessary health care to the citizens of North Carolina, regardless of their ability to pay."

That our hapless bank robber apparently didn't know about any of this is excusable.

But the fact that not one reporter trafficking this story bothered to point these facts out is an example of gross dereliction of duty or extreme bias — or both."

 

[Gipper]

But lets look just a little further. This story comes to us here courtesy of "The Lookout", a source I have never heard of.

This is what Investors Business Daily says:

"A False tale of Woe

[] Come see how terrible health care is in the United States! The most expensive in the world, and yet it forces people to take desperate acts to get treatment! Thank goodness for ObamaCare!

There's just one little, inconvenient fact missing from all this coverage. Verone had access to free care — outside of jail — and plenty of it.

The dirty secret about our health care system is that it is, in fact, very generous to the poor. A recent study from the N.C. Justice Center notes that North Carolina hospitals provided $694 million in free care in 2008.

Nationwide, hospitals provide more than $34 billion in unpaid care. Then there are all the private charities, Medicaid, and various other state and federal programs that offer the poor and destitute access to care.

A hospital in Gastonia, N.C., — Gaston Memorial Hospital — offers discounts up to 100% to low-income patients. There's also a free health clinic just five miles from where Verone robbed that bank, and many more in nearby Charlotte.

If he wanted to travel a bit farther, Verone could have availed himself of the state-of-the-art medical facilities at the University of North Carolina, whose mandate is to provide "medically necessary health care to the citizens of North Carolina, regardless of their ability to pay."

That our hapless bank robber apparently didn't know about any of this is excusable.

But the fact that not one reporter trafficking this story bothered to point these facts out is an example of gross dereliction of duty or extreme bias — or both."

I bet there are very few liberals who know this or would believe it. Now, what does that say about them?

 

[steveox]

Just like the man shot his Mailman to get healthcare in federal prison
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-07-14-postal-shot_x.htm

 

[Dude111]

It truly is sad Steve the only way people can do this IS BY COMMITING BAD ACTS....

Truly very sad

 

[Dr.Who]

I bet there are very few liberals who know this or would believe it. Now, what does that say about them?

It says that some have their fingers in their ears and are chanting "lalalalala". Though most did not even place a comment here to begin with. And that means that they are perfectly aware that free health care is available to all and that not a single person in this country lacks access to health care.

I would guess that few do not know everyone has healthcare.

Now is a good time to talk about the dialectic. A term that Marx liked so it should be received well by the left. It should also be received well by the right because it is not important who says a thing but only if it is true or not.

A dialectic is a clash of ideas that results in one true idea.

"Dialectic (also dialectics and the dialectical method) is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues. The dialectical method is dialogue between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, who wish to establish the truth of the matter by dialogue, with reasoned arguments.[1]" - Wiki


The important characteristic of a dialectic is that the people are more committed to the truth than they are to their original points of view.

When the left holds onto the notion that there are 46 million people without health care they are not committed to the truth.

When the right holds onto the notion that no one has some personal responsibility for the few who actually do not have insurance they are not committed to the truth.

When the left fails to see that most on the right do believe in responsibility for those without insurance and say things like "the right wants people to die" they are not committed to the truth.

When the right fails to be more clear about their own empathy and makes the same talking points without acknowledging how they would provide care they are not committed to the truth.

So here is a challenge to the right. Prove that non-governmental sources of care are not just adequate but could be superior to a governmental public option in providing exemplary health care to every single person in his country. (in a new thread of course)