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Unfortunately death and aging is going to happen regardless of how rich we are. The topic isn't do we rather be healthy and have loved ones with us still, but if money can bring about happiness.
Being wealthy can take away a lot of burdens related to death or caregiving. If a loved one is sick, then you can take as much time off to take care of them. Once they pass away, you can take as much time off to grieve for them. Being stuck in a job having to worry about bills AND your ill loved one is a major stress. A lot of jobs don't give you the luxury to take a lot of personal leave. Life still goes on but being rich can lighten all the stress and grief related to illness and death.
Money isn't supposed to be the cure for all your troubles. It just lightens the load and gives you so many opportunities that a person should take advantage of.
Money will not bring a stillborn child to life, money won't take away the cancer killing your spouse, money won't enable your brother to breathe without a ventilator, money won't stop your father from getting Alzheimer's. Money can't buy the truly important things in life. Of course it's nice to have all the extras and not have to worry about paying your bills every month but it will never be a substitute for family and friends.
When it comes to health:
You're right, money won't bring a stillborn child to life but it will help pay for therapists and extra support to help the grieving process.
You're right, it won't stop your father from getting Alzheimer's but it can buy a few extra sets of eyes to keep on him so you can find some comfort in knowing he is safe round the clock.
Also, there are soooooo many absolutely insanely brilliant doctors even pioneers of treatments that don't take medical insurance. While they still may be involved with research and affiliated with top notch hospitals and teach their time is no longer spent seeing patients anymore so if you really do want to have them see you, you are paying out of pocket a significant amount. Money buys that.
You're right, money won't take away the cancer killing your spouse BUT it can buy you the extra time to spend with them (like be able to take plenty of time off from work and not stress about bills or if spouse wasn't employed it alleviates the stress of financial burdens etc) It can pay for extra private nursing care. It can pay for extra medical bills, it can pay for complimentary treatments such as acupuncture and other holistic therapies. the list goes on and on and on. When I worked as a nurse the families that were financially sound had a very different emotional outcome than the families that had very limited financial means in addition to the overall comfort measures of the ill person. Compounding illness with financial crisis is expodentially more difficult.
Also, from personal experience when my loved one was going a difficult and loooong complex cancer treatment, while I wasn't as financially secure as I wanted to be but I was doing ok, especially since I was still relatively young, the time I was able to take off and spend with them was actually priceless. It meant so much to me and to them in so many ways that I was able to work only seeing a few hours a week to cover my basic overhead so I can maximize my time taking care of them and running to every doctors appointment and also be by the hospital bed with every chemo admission that was 3 days long every other week for 2 years, in addition to at minimum 4 other doc visits a week. And of course the unplanned week long plus hospital stays for complications which happened a bit too often.
Oh, and my loved one was uninsured at the time of diagnosis and since he was collecting unemployment he didn't qualify for temporary Medicaid. His huge emergency surgery and 3 week post op stay was something that had to be privately paid still huge bills after even negotiating. Yeah, that sucked big time and the hospital care was atrocious. I HAD to be there every moment otherwise I know for a fact he wouldn't be alive today otherwise just because of the incompetence of the nursing staff and mistakes that were made. Another way it would have been really nice to have a whole lotta money- paying 268k JUST to have the slides read as a second opinion by a pathologist at a leading cancer institution wouldn't have wiped out my savings and my retirement account. BUT, I would do it all again in a heartbeat if I needed to.
It was actually that very experience that made me realize and gave me the extra push to make sure I create a plan to achieve financial independence. I still have a long way to go but that's my no.1 reason for striving to earn more and create a rather significant nest egg. I just keep praying for the strength and intelligence to achieve that goal. I'm not gonna lie, I wouldn't mind buying some incredible travel experiences and some extra pairs of fancy "Choos".
Besides major wealth which of course will by excellent extra care (private duty nurses are extremely expensive and that's just one extra bill) in addition to other benefits of course. It would help many families if they could even have extra money to buy solid long term care health insurance aside from regular medical insurance, it will make a big difference in quality of life for the person who falls ill as well as their loved ones. .
Money should never be a substitute for family and friends but when health crisis hits (and for majority of people, there will at least be one crisis to deal with) having money behind you helps. A lot. And in many many more ways than i even went into above.
So when the sh&t hits the fan having money makes things a lot easier. Knowing that =happiness.
My happiest years happened to be years when I had very little money, which is NOT the same as claiming that having little money leads ipso facfo to happiness. I'm so glad to be able to live in reasonable comfort now at age 72 and not to have worries and stress about finances.
When I think back to my college years, then my graduate school years, then my young married years, those were exciting and interesting times - learning things, living for year in Europe (on a shoe string, to be sure). Life was an adventure than, full of various activities. And those were times when I never had much money! Of course I wasn't hungry or living under a bridge either, and that's important to note.
Especially in college I didn't have two nickels to rub together, but I knew that situation was temporary, and that knowledge is pretty important to one's attitude. I didn't experience it as bleakness, but as an exciting and interesting time.
if you think that having a $5,000 or $10,000 or even higher deductible is comprehensive, I guess you would be correct.....
Look, I'm no fan of our medical system or the ACA, but my point was that if a person goes into a hospital with medical insurance and their deductible is high, that isn't going to stop the doctors or hospital from giving them care, and they do not have to pay that deductible in one lump sum, or right away or whatever in the vast majority of cases but especially in an emergency situation.
I just decided to change my answer. I live in US. If somebody were to give me a few billion $USD I'd immediately move to the south coast of Europe and buy a villa, maybe two (in different countries), I'd take language lessons to speak the native language in the countries my villas are in, I'd hire full staff right down to chauffeurs, chefs and butlers (both villas), and I'd have an open invitation for my admittedly few friends to come visit me, I'll pay your first class airline tickets and stay as long as you want.
I'd never do another productive thing in my life except pay employees and taxes. It might not make me happy but I sure would enjoy my misery a lot more!
If I had enough left over I'd buy a small yacht, maybe 100 foot / 30 meters, hire captain and crew, so I could treat my friends in style. Of course my yacht would have a chef too!
Hey, you gotta dream big to have big dreams come true!
Anybody, if you have a few billion $USD free, please PM me and I'll send you my PayPal address. As a humorous aside, I wonder what PayPal would do if somebody sent a billion+ transaction through them. You know for sure they'd {ahem} bricks!
I just decided to change my answer. I live in US. If somebody were to give me a few billion $USD I'd immediately move to the south coast of Europe and buy a villa, maybe two (in different countries), I'd take language lessons to speak the native language in the countries my villas are in, I'd hire full staff right down to chauffeurs, chefs and butlers (both villas), and I'd have an open invitation for my admittedly few friends to come visit me, I'll pay your first class airline tickets and stay as long as you want.
I'd never do another productive thing in my life except pay employees and taxes. It might not make me happy but I sure would enjoy my misery a lot more!
If I had enough left over I'd buy a small yacht, maybe 100 foot / 30 meters, hire captain and crew, so I could treat my friends in style. Of course my yacht would have a chef too!
Hey, you gotta dream big to have big dreams come true!
Anybody, if you have a few billion $USD free, please PM me and I'll send you my PayPal address. As a humorous aside, I wonder what PayPal would do if somebody sent a billion+ transaction through them. You know for sure they'd {ahem} bricks!
Speaking of "Paypal," I've been receiving quite a few emails recently, which have a decidedly Nigerian twang to them, trying to convince me to "log onto Paypal from the link below" and update my payment options - you know, credit card number, name on card, expiration date, billing address, three digit security code, all that jive.
These emails also always say "Your recent transaction was declined due to outdated payment information" in the Subject line.
Considering 1) I rarely use Paypal and 2) I've had no transactions declined and 3) these emails always include rather humorous and whimsical typos and strange grammar, I haven't clicked on the link.
Money does buy health - if you have money to get the best doctors in the world - you would certainly end up better and happier. If you see those ads on TV of how compassionate and wonderful Cancer Centers of America are - until you call up for your loved one and learn they don't accept Medicare - they could care less about you - its all about the money
Jackie Kennedy and Steve Jobs were both wealthy and both died from cancer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stockyman
Unfortunately death and aging is going to happen regardless of how rich we are. The topic isn't do we rather be healthy and have loved ones with us still, but if money can bring about happiness.
Being wealthy can take away a lot of burdens related to death or caregiving. If a loved one is sick, then you can take as much time off to take care of them. Once they pass away, you can take as much time off to grieve for them. Being stuck in a job having to worry about bills AND your ill loved one is a major stress. A lot of jobs don't give you the luxury to take a lot of personal leave. Life still goes on but being rich can lighten all the stress and grief related to illness and death.
Money isn't supposed to be the cure for all your troubles. It just lightens the load and gives you so many opportunities that a person should take advantage of.
Agreed.
Due to stupidity on their parts, my parents will not leave me a thing. Grief on top of being stuck with funeral costs and possibly other debt is no picnic.
It has been my experience that the people who say that money won't buy happiness has always had it. I wonder if they ever struggled and by struggle, I mean basic needs. Many people think that having basic needs met but no wants is struggling. It's not.
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