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What a tragedy on so many levels. An elderly husband and wife died in an apparent murder-suicide in Washington state on August 7th. A 77-year-old man called 911 on Wednesday morning saying he planned to die by suicide. Despite attempts by crisis negotiators to stop it, the couple went through with it. Deputies found several notes throughout the home in which the couple expressed despair over high medical bills. If the couple couldn't afford their current medical bills, they would not have been able to afford psychiatric care also. I'm sure other factors contributed to their demise, but financial stresses certainly didn't help.
Sad unfortunately stress over money issues can lead to suicide. Remember in 2010 the year when there was no death tax and people committed suicide before the end of the year so their family would lose the money when estate taxes came back in 2011. I wonder how many people did this during the great recession when they lost everything. I know this Post is supposed to lead to an argument over Medical Care for all(not something i am necessarily against) but we can't help everyone with everything to prevent tragedies like this.
I don't see how this incident advances the medicare for all argument, since presumably this elderly couple already had medicare...
Well, IF you really want to bring Trump into the conversation it'd be more appropriate to the subject of healthcare costs to bring up the FACT that he promised time after time after time that he would put a "far better than the ACA" plan in place soon after taking office and has utterly failed to any such thing.
So ACA is the failure we all knew it was. Thanks for confirming that.
The article also does not mention what the "severe medical issues" were. Maybe not wanting to put up with them any longer was a big contributor to their decision
Remember, this was an elderly couple in their late 70's, and they were from a generation in which many, if not most people, considered it shameful to not be able to pay one's bills and just as shameful to apply for any kind of "welfare" or "charity". (I am 65, and I also feel that way to a very large extent.)
I feel bad for older folks because you are correct...this is their mindset. A good deal of them anyway.
They see recollecting money that was stolen from them at gunpoint as immoral. I blame the State indoctrination centers for that mindset.
That's what they SAY, but I'm retired and we take care to keep ourselves well insured. It's not that expensive.
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"Expensive" is relative.
From the link below (my italics): "The average retiree spends $4,300 on out-of-pocket healthcare expenses each year, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Given that the average Social Security recipient collects just under $17,000 a year in benefits, that's a large chunk of that income to be spending." [end quote]
And, again, the $17,000 is what the average retiree receives, and many receive less than that -- and yet the medical costs aren't less just because one's income is less (unless one qualifies for Medicaid, I think).
Maybe they wouldn't have if they hadn't had worries about their medical bills?
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