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Man Dies in Police Custody After Being Jailed for an Unpaid Medical Bill
- Thread starter mellz
- Start date
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Are you for real?
Wow. This is just sad as fuckAmerica take better care of your vulnerable people.
That's part of it but knowing what's an emergency and what's not is important. Chronic back pain for 7 months isn't but crushing chest pain is.
E-Cat
Member
I added the second line just in case someone's sarcasm meter was broken. But ehh, I guess it wasn't enough?
Palculator
Unconfirmed Member
Nah, it was fine, even without the second line.
Mammoth Jones
Member
Had a buddy get an ambulance ride about 2 miles. Got two Tylenol and an hour to rest.
Over 5k.
E-Cat
Member
I don't think I've spent that much on healthcare in my entire life. Or taxi drives, for that matter.
Man-is-Obsolete
Member
Wealthy people, talking millionaires and up, and CEOs have done a great job convincing non wealthy people that raising their taxes would result in jobs being lost because there would be less money to reinvest in the company. Some have gone so far as threaten job cuts and/or preventing growth if their personal salaries are taxed more.
All of which is a joke. The millionaires and billionaires getting taxed the same as $60,000 household should not affect jobs.
Ps. Ambulance rides are a joke. Once took my wife to a hospital because her stitches from her tonsils ruptured. They said the branch we were at couldn't do anything and took my wife via ambulance to the other hospital across town. I didn't know any better about the costs and such and that cross town trip was a $1000
Dreams-Visions
Member
Had a family friend's wife go into the hospital for kidney stones.
< 1 day worth of hospital stay later, the bill was $22,000.00.
They were charging something like $250 per bag of saline. Saline bags that cost hospitals something like $0.005/bag in bulk. Never mind the rest of what little they ended up doing for her.
And apparently we have apologists for said system in this very thread. Quite remarkable, that.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
We really need an actual term for that instead of 1st and 3rd world that are almost exclusively used in the wrong context.
I live in a third world country & we have free health care too.
Straight Edge
Member
The end result of not showing up for a court summons will always be jail, whether you jay walked or assaulted someone. If there was no penalty, people would just stop showing up altogether.
The Horror the horror
Banned
They cited another incident in the article of a guy that didn't pay his 30-year-old $1,500 tuition debt. I'm not playing devil's advocate, but who takes that long to pay off that kind of debt? Could that have been the case of a person having the money but not wanting to pay?
thehypocrite
Member
Yep, that's important too. Preventive care and education will help with that.
Ambulance is not a car ride, if the patient is critical or need to be stabilized they can use very expensive one use equipment and medicines.
With that said, this sickens me, the US need to get their shit together about universal health care.
Just wait to reiterate this. We are not taxi rides. With that being said, healthcare is still to damn expensive.
thehypocrite
Member
Stupid as fuck. That's stupid as fuck, that's fucking stupid as fuck. Jail isn't a time out corner.
God damn.
1.21Gigawatts
Banned
Because you don't have insurance companies negotiating prices.
The rules of a free market where the customer chooses the best and cheapest product don't apply, because customers don't know what would be best and cheapest and are therefore easily exploited.
In other countries where you have insurance companies as a middle man who have an interest in paying as little as possible but also have an interest in getting the best care for their customers so they don't have to come back again and again, the prices for healthcare are way lower, because these companies can hire experts who evaluate products and services.
Its ironic that a country like the US where everyone always talks about how important the free market is has a healthcare system where the rules of a free market don't apply.
As a result you get this:
Straight Edge
Member
Does the judicial system have the right to summons people to court for legal matters?
Does the judicial system have the right to enforce the summons?
What would be the proper response from the judicial situation for people who fail to appear at court?
sechsterangriff
Member
In any other developed country something like this would be a complete shitstorm situation.
E-Cat
Member
The anesthetic of normalized apathy. When everyone else around you doesn't care, you start to think it's sort of okay to not care either.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Where was it that police forgot a captive for like 5 days?
thehypocrite
Member
Yes, yes, they should use non-discriminatory means and provide a viable and free legal representation option.
Poverty ain't a Crime America.
It's more about the Western societies stand on being focused on independent than interdependent. There's a focus on improving yourself than improving yourself, and everyone around you to keep a social harmony. With the multitudinous amount of entertainment media focusing on the hero in movies, or the best basketball player in sports. It's no wonder that it will impact other aspects of our lives. People are more concerned about themselves than they are about others because that's what the have learned to do as they were growing up. In order for their to be a significant change. We will need to begin moving to a more interdependent society.
E-Cat
Member
I think you confuse Western society with the US. The culture of European countries, while still individual oriented, does not place such emphasis on celebrity worship. We value great thinkers, teachers and scientists.
And we do take care of our sick and poor.
I am not confusing Western society with the US. I am using the term Western society to talk about the US. I should have used a comparison with Eastern societies as well. Many studies have shown in Psychology that people from Eastern society mask their emotions based on whether someone is present to view their reaction to something. And in most cases, they will mask it with a smile to not disrupt social harmony. While an individual from the west would express their emotions openly. I never said that either societies do not care for their sick and poor. I wrote about the general reason why you don't see why people caring about this specific situation, and many others that you may come across in the future.
Why? His freedom was not being threatened. If we were to provide free legal representation for civil matters the legal system would drown.
Mammoth Jones
Member
Can Crusher
Banned
Speechless.
Mammoth Jones
Member
Perfectly "normal". As in this is where our healthcare is at and has BEEN at for a very long time.
My friend in his early 20's basically told em he flat out wasn't going to pay. He never did. He didn't give a shit about his credit at the time and after 7-8 years it was no longer an issue.
There is a deadbeat paradox that needs to be resolved. I'm not saying everyone who has a lot of debt is untrustworthy: most people in debt will make a good faith effort to get out of it if they have the means, but there are always going to be a few people who really just want to avoid paying for anything, and if they really don't have the money for it, it's impossible to compel them, but can you really just let them off the hook, either?
Current solutions are definitely self-defeating though, like old Bill Clinton's laws about child support where he'd chuck the deadbeat parent in jail while their back child support pay only grew and grew and surprise, now they don't have a job or income to do the thing you're trying to make them do!
Maybe some sort of enforced community service (plus a cost-of-living stipend for the individual) in exchange for the government paying down your bills? But only for extreme cases where the individual doesn't have or can't get a job.
Current solutions are definitely self-defeating though, like old Bill Clinton's laws about child support where he'd chuck the deadbeat parent in jail while their back child support pay only grew and grew and surprise, now they don't have a job or income to do the thing you're trying to make them do!
Maybe some sort of enforced community service (plus a cost-of-living stipend for the individual) in exchange for the government paying down your bills? But only for extreme cases where the individual doesn't have or can't get a job.
Gordon Shumway
Banned
That'll teach him to need medical assistance without money..moocher..
thehypocrite
Member
So a guy has no money to pay for an ambulance bill, and he's due in court over the non-payment of his due bill and you suggest him to retain an attorney for the procedures? He has no money cause he's poor. If he needs legal representation and advice he should be given a free option in order to receive a fair treatment in court.
Now you have a man dead, who knows if he had a family because in America the biggest crime is poverty.
Fucking bootstrap mentality.
DontBeThatGuy
Member
1) Not a 2k bill in the first place.
2) No dead bodies.
But alas, the courts and our systems overall punish the poor, and the systems in place that kinda don't, are constantly under attack.
If health care is not basic enough to qualify as a human right, i'm thrilled to read what qualifies.
Show me where in my post I suggested that he should have hired an attorney. I was simply informing you of the current law.
The idea of Civil Gideon has been discussed at length and so far most of the states who have experimented with pilot programs have limited its scope significantly. Providing attorneys in civil matters would require a significant amount of funding that most states cannot afford without significant help from the federal government.
An estimated 4 million people seek to represent themselves (Pro Se) in CA in civil matters each year and that is CA alone. The US is a far more litigious than any other country in the world.
thehypocrite
Member
What were you suggesting? Self-Representation? Please tell me that's a joke. Yes, Civil representation costs money, you know what else cost a lot of money? Putting people in prison. They become a burden on the state\federal. Plus, you have a civilian that's unable to contribute to the economy.
Your reason to deny fair treatment to a fellow citizen, a fellow human is just money. Read that sentence & tell me if that's the kind of society you want.
As I said, poverty isn't a crime. A poor person should be given a fair chance to have a dignified life but in America being poor is horrible and any random event can fuck you forever.
What are you going on about? The law currently in the US does not provide an individual with representation in a civil matter. Thus, if you can't get representation and/or do not qualify for legal aid or one of the special programs then the only alternative is Pro Se. The idea that somehow legal representation would have prevented this situation is far fetched. This has more to do with the failure of our health system than our legal system. At the end of the day you cannot ignore a court appearance/summons.
Also, why mention prison? The US does not have debtors prison.
thehypocrite
Member
The point is they should. In regards to your last sentence they do put you in jail for not showing up to court.
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