Man Uses $1m Win To Finally Visit Doctor, Gets Terminal Cancer Diagnosis, Dies

[Amarok]

But that's an exception to his unsupported made up rules .

[Joods]

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bold mine.

I'm gonna call bs on this. In 2016 my other half had to pay $42 a WEEK for health care just for himself. In addition to that, he was paying nearly a grand a month in child support. During weeks where he got a straight 40 hours per week, he was lucky if he got to see $350 a week out of his pay check.

In 2017, we got equal custody of the kids but he still wasn't allowed to either child on his tax returns. He also was still paying child support to the tun of $400 a week. AND he was still paying $42 a week for health insurance for himself. The kids have Chip. Do you know how much it costs to raise two teenage boys when you have then half the time and you still have to pay their mother child support which she either spends on weed, booze or CAM cards? Oh in addition to that, she was also taking the oldest son's SSI money and spending it on herself as well. 

We barely got by. We still barely get by, but we now have the kids every week and she gets them two weekends a month. She also has to pay child support, but it isn't nearly the same amount as what my other half had to pay when she had the kids the majority of the time. 

Try having a $600 a month grocery bill, three teenagers, two of which are involved in sports and ALL of them are growing and constantly need things. My other half can't even get to the doctors because he has expensive co-pays that must be paid at the time of the appointment. We can't afford that. He also has to pay a lot of OOP costs on his medications. 

My other half busts his ass at work and I can tell you that unless he gets overtime, his pay barely covers all of our expenses. I work, but it isn't enough. Our budget is so tight it squeaks. Thankfully we are finally getting a second car so he can venture out of the local area and try to find a better paying job. But don't you ever say that everyone can afford health insurance if they work hard because you are full of shit. 

There are hundreds of thousands of families that fall under the "working poor" category. We are such a family. Five people and we struggle. Things will eventually get better, but we have kids in 8th, 9th and 10th grades. All of them plan on going to college. All of them have needs and wants. We do what we can that falls within our means, but we also have no extra money to put away towards retirement at the moment. I am 46 and he is 43. At this rate, he's going to be working in to his mid 70's, when he should be enjoying his retirement.

That's an indictment of divorce or out-of-wedlock children, not health costs.

Read the parts in bold. Divorce had nothing to do with it. Neither did having kids outside of the marriage, which he didn't. He would have had to pay out even more costs if the kids were on his insurance. Honestly - don't make the argument that healthcare is affordable when clearly, you don't know every situation. You seem very ignorant to the fact that there are thousands of families who are struggling to make ends meet and they have to decide whether to pay their bills or deal with medical costs.

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Count down to AM telling you it’s all your fault; you shouldn’t have had kids if you couldn’t afford it, in 3...2...1...

That seems like a more reasonable approach than having them anyway and expecting the rest of society to pay for them.

Know what? This is a road you don't want to go down because it won't end very well and might result in the thread being closed. 
My kids mean the world to me and that includes the ones that another person left behind. I willingly stepped up to that plate so don't you dare assume that society is paying for any of my kids. You can rightly fuck off with that fucked up statement.

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I’m sorry; did Joods say that “the rest of society” is paying for her kids?  No.

Money is fungible. When she argues for publicly supported health care and ties that to child support payments, yes, she effectively is saying that the public should pay for her kids.

Or, she introduced a red herring as an emotional ploy.

Take your pick.

Clearly you don't know how to fucking read.

[Amarok]

Yup then he will accuse you of "only reading the title " well only read the parts of something like and calls it "research "

And then he will deflect his own shitty system by attacking someone else's. Despite the fact his system is even shitter then the countries he's criticizing .

[LadyForCamus]

Well, Alpha’s entire argument rests precipitously on, ‘all other factors equal’, but we all know that that, ofc., is not the case.

Yet, it's an accepted method of analyzing economic questions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceteris_pa...rpretation

Ceteris paribus or caeteris paribus is a Latin phrase meaning "other things equal". English translations of the phrase include "all other things being equal" or "other things held constant" or "all else unchanged". 
...
A ceteris paribus assumption is often key to scientific inquiry, as scientists seek to screen out factors that perturb a relation of interest. 
...
One of the disciplines in which ceteris paribus clauses are most widely used is economics, in which they are employed to simplify the formulation and description of economic outcomes.

Yes, I’m aware of the concept of controlling variables when attempting to identity true cause and effect in research. You’re actually underlining my point by acknowledging that there are, ofc, numerous and complexly interconnected variables effecting any given person’s financial and social status.  Hypothetically controlling for every other factor in order to falsely inflate the impact of a single chosen one, wouldn’t be an accurate picture of reality, now would it?  Then again, no narrative that the far right peddles ever is.

[Joods]

Around here, anyone but a teenager can get ten bucks an hour (and good teens can as well).

Interesting.  Minimum wage, which most places pay its workers, is only $8.25/hour here in the U.S.

The problem is that every time consumer prices rise, one's pay does not.  The divide is scary real, and no one should have to work themselves to death just to live comfortably, yet unfortunately 'Murica wants its citizens to literally work themselves to death.

Let's not forget that the current minimum wage isn't even a livable wage. No one can live off of minimum wage as a single person. Try doing that with a family.

[John V]

Would his insurance definitely have covered the tests he needed?

That's what the article implies.

It isn't that difficult. Can you guarantee that cutting his expenditures would have resulted in insurance

Yes.

that would have stopped this from happening? Nope.

Agreed, but what's your point? The 1% die too you know.

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Yes, I’m aware of the concept of controlling variables when attempting to identity true cause and effect in research.  You’re actually underlining my point by acknowledging that there are, ofc, numerous and complexly interconnected variables effecting any given person’s financial and social status.  Hypothetically controlling for every other factor in order to falsely inflate the impact of a single chosen one, wouldn’t be an accurate picture of reality, now would it?  Then again, no narrative that the far right peddles ever is.

Feel free to work other factors in. I'm highlighting hours worked because it's something that can generally be controlled by the worker. If your current income doesn't allow for insurance, work 2% - 9.5% more hours and you can afford ACA coverage. Most people who can work can do that.

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Read the parts in bold. Divorce had nothing to do with it. Neither did having kids outside of the marriage, which he didn't. He would have had to pay out even more costs if the kids were on his insurance. Honestly - don't make the argument that healthcare is affordable when clearly, you don't know every situation. You seem very ignorant to the fact that there are thousands of families who are struggling to make ends meet and they have to decide whether to pay their bills or deal with medical costs.

As I've said, ACA costs the working poor 0% - 9.5% of their income. That's doable by working a little more and/or cutting expenses.

[Joods]

Expenses have been cut. Extra work is not always available.

You make it sound so easy, but you aren't living our lives so you have no right to assume that we can just do what you suggest. And neither can thousands of other families. You do realize that extra available work has to actually be a thing, right?

[LadyForCamus]

Yes, I’m aware of the concept of controlling variables when attempting to identity true cause and effect in research.  You’re actually underlining my point by acknowledging that there are, ofc, numerous and complexly interconnected variables effecting any given person’s financial and social status.  Hypothetically controlling for every other factor in order to falsely inflate the impact of a single chosen one, wouldn’t be an accurate picture of reality, now would it?  Then again, no narrative that the far right peddles ever is.

Feel free to work other factors in.

I don’t need to work them in, because they just exist in reality on their own, whether you like it or not.  You took this same fallacious approach in the thread about minorities and crime/poverty.  If your position on a socioeconomic problem requires that you ignore or dismiss the myriad of complex and interconnected variables that fuel that particular problem, then you’ve arrived at your conclusion using faulty logic. You are refusing to see that it’s more complicated than you want it to be, so that you can continue on with this idiotic finger-pointing.

One important point I made which you glossed over, (and to ShellB’s point which you also hand-waved away), is that at least here, even Silver plans have deductibles upwards of 5-7k/year for a single individual, with literally everything being subject to the deductible, including prescriptions.  Deductibles for families are in the 12-14k/year range. So, even if the premium is reasonable, it’s certainly not affordable coverage.  It’s not coverage at all.

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Alpha’s reasoning is a lot like Sam Kinison’s, now that I think about it. Too bad they couldn’t have collaborated; they’d have all the world’s problems solved by now.

Kinison on world hunger:

“You want to help world hunger? Stop sending them food. Don't send them another bite, send them U-Hauls. Send them a guy that says, ‘You know, we've been coming here giving you food for about 35 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn't BE world hunger if you people would just live where the FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT! NOTHING GROWS HERE. NOTHING IS EVER GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it's gonna be 100 years from now? IT'S GONNA BE SAND! We have deserts in America, we just don't live in them, assholes!"

[GrandizerII]

One important point I made, which you happily glossed over, is that at least here, even Silver plans have deductibles upwards of 5-7k/year, with literally everything being subject to the deductible, including prescriptions.  So, even if the premium is reasonable, it’s certainly not affordable coverage.  It’s not coverage at all.

Wow, that's one effective way to demotivate someone from seeing a doctor, even when they're very ill.

[LadyForCamus]

One important point I made, which you happily glossed over, is that at least here, even Silver plans have deductibles upwards of 5-7k/year, with literally everything being subject to the deductible, including prescriptions.  So, even if the premium is reasonable, it’s certainly not affordable coverage.  It’s not coverage at all.

Wow, that's one effective way to demotivate someone from seeing a doctor, even when they're very ill.

Yep.  I mean, obv that number moves up or down depending on your income bracket, but still.  If you have to go see a doctor, get blood work, and then get an imaging test done, you’re probably looking at at least a couple thousand dollars in out of pocket expenses right then and there.  It’s absurd.