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It's not only a matter of affording transplants, it's also a matter of donor organs being in short supply.
More countries should adopt the "OPT-OUT" system used in much of continental Europe, Russia, Turkey, Argentina, Colombia. There, it's just assumed that everyone on death is an organ donor, UNLESS they have bothered to sign a statement NOT to. This is why in Austria, for example, 95% of people are organ donors.
In the U.S. sadly, THOUSANDS of patients a year, DIE for lack of donor organs because of our "OPT-IN" system where people are assumed to NOT donate unless they take the trouble to sign up to. This is scandalous. ALL major religions approve of organ donation. The costs are paid by your insurance. Doctors are strictly pledged not to euthanize you prematurely for your organs.
Please, people, have "Organ Donor" put on your drivers license, and tell your loved ones of your wishes.
Seriously, I thought everybody did this.
And when my husband died last year, the Donor place called and started the ball rolling. Unfortunately, when the cause of death is cancer, major organs can’t be used. But my husband’s skin has been banked for grafts, two people have sight because of his corneas, and his eyes went to science for testing. His brain tissue is banked and being used to help find a cure for glioblastoma brain tumors.
I couldn’t believe the gratitude and the resources that the donor place gave out. They also have grief counseling, and frankly, that’s really been a really good source of my grief therapy. I’m bonded to those people who are grieving like me because of a common connection.
I’ve gone from thinking this is something that everybody did to understanding this is an amazing gift that we can give and I’m real proud of my husband for doing it and hopefully when it’s my time to do it somebody will be really proud of me.
I also just made what my ex-mother in law (who taught me how to make it) goulash. I fed 4 with it and here's my cost.
Pasta - $3 (not any fancy but 2 boxes)
Hamburger meat- $4-5
Bell pepper- $1
Onion- $1
Mushrooms- $3
Canned tomatoes- $2
Tomato sauce- $1
Fresh garlic $1
Oil, salt and pepper and garlic salt which would need to be purchased if I had none.
Fresh salad and garlic bread which if added to cost makes your $12 theory or the cost of a pack of cigs a fantasy but maybe fresh salad is extravagant so much for keeping everyone healthier.
I'm saying no one pays those 'average prices', so you'd have to adjust the numbers to see if a half a pack a day could feed a family (answer: no).
People pop into convenience stores for just cigarettes often, the price of other things in there is irrelevant.
Kroger wants to compete now and offers marlboros for $6/pk. Again, there are cheaper cigarettes. Taking the average retail price before discounts on premium cigarettes is useless.
Again, this is not about what you see in just one local area, this is not about your local cigarette prices or other cheaper brands and where you buy them or if you can get a deal. It really doesn't matter what you think people pay, the data shows something different. Also, in NYC, the tax on a pack is $5.95, you are not getting any brand for anywhere close to $6/pack.
The discussion was about a pack, not half a pack and was specifically Marlboros, not any other brand. This was about for the cost of a pack of Marlboros, could you feed a family of 4 for the day - and yes you could feed a family on the price of a pack, at least in some areas.
Again, this is not about what you see in just one local area, this is not about your local cigarette prices or other cheaper brands and where you buy them or if you can get a deal. It really doesn't matter what you think people pay, the data shows something different. Also, in NYC, the tax on a pack is $5.95, you are not getting any brand for anywhere close to $6/pack.
The discussion was about a pack, not half a pack and was specifically Marlboros, not any other brand. This was about for the cost of a pack of Marlboros, could you feed a family of 4 for the day - and yes you could feed a family on the price of a pack, at least in some areas.
That is cherry picking to show that smokers could all feed their families instead of smoking, when reality is that especially people with little money do not pay retail, and all of your prices shown are retail.
They ARE going to get the ones from the stores with the 2 or 3 pack special price and/or they are NOT going to get Marlboros.
Marlboros are a premium brand, so why on earth the full retail price for a premium brand would be used talking about poor people makes absolutely no sense.
Friend 2 is from India. He makes the calim that in India being very poor means dying on the street, being a sewage diver (look that up I dare you), living on rats. Numbers vary but somewhere between .25 and .33 of Indian children are malnourished to the point of stunted growth.
As my friend likes to say in myriad ways. Your poor people are fat, have color TV/cable, AC, cars, 100X better medical care.......the poor in India live next to or in open trench sewers, often drink water that would hospitalize Americans, regularly see their children starve etc. He also says the average poor American would survive four weeks in poor areas of India.
______________
You'll forgive me for not buying DNC definitions.
So you propose we make poor live next to open sewage trenches to encourage them to work harder? Or maybe make them live in the sewage trenches floating on small rafts?????
Its hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you dont have boots.
So you propose we make poor live next to open sewage trenches to encourage them to work harder? Or maybe make them live in the sewage trenches floating on small rafts?????
Its hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you dont have boots.
That's the defeatism my friends, you know people who have actually experienced persistant-longterm hunger and seen people in numbers starve to death, cannot understand about so many Americans.
That is cherry picking to show that smokers could all feed their families instead of smoking, when reality is that especially people with little money do not pay retail, and all of your prices shown are retail.
They ARE going to get the ones from the stores with the 2 or 3 pack special price and/or they are NOT going to get Marlboros.
Marlboros are a premium brand, so why on earth the full retail price for a premium brand would be used talking about poor people makes absolutely no sense.
Again, I did not pick the comparison and I am not cherry picking by using averages paid for the entire country, not your little area sale prices. Marlboros are the most prevalent brand in the US at 40% of the market, so not really premium and the best for comparison. Your statement of "people with little money do not pay retail" is total malarkey, those with little money tend to buy 1 at a time rather than save for a sale.
People with little money also should stop buying cigarettes altogether, maybe they would have a little money, the average smoker spends $188 per month or $2,292 per year according to the data. You could buy a house for that amount over 30 years in some areas of the country. In NYC, a pack a day will cost you almost $40K a year, could buy a new car every year or pay off the average $32K student loan for that amount. For some reason, you are trying to justify the cost as not that much when it really is no matter if on sale or not.
And when my husband died last year, the Donor place called and started the ball rolling. Unfortunately, when the cause of death is cancer, major organs can’t be used. But my husband’s skin has been banked for grafts, two people have sight because of his corneas, and his eyes went to science for testing. His brain tissue is banked and being used to help find a cure for glioblastoma brain tumors.
I couldn’t believe the gratitude and the resources that the donor place gave out. They also have grief counseling, and frankly, that’s really been a really good source of my grief therapy. I’m bonded to those people who are grieving like me because of a common connection.
I’ve gone from thinking this is something that everybody did to understanding this is an amazing gift that we can give and I’m real proud of my husband for doing it and hopefully when it’s my time to do it somebody will be really proud of me.
IDK...I'm pretty conservative myself and tire of the either the "Live beyond their means" or "have money for beer and cigarettes" or "poor choices" schtick.
I don't have to believe in welfare or socialism to recognize that the causes are varied and complicated.
Indeed, the causes are varied and complicated. Both conservatives and liberals oversimplify, with conservatives being in the "poor choices" camp and the liberals in the "more money from the government will fix it" camp.
However, even liberal researchers like Isabel Sawhill from the Brookings Institution (a left leaning think tank) says poor choices are a significant factor in making people poor and keeping them in poverty. This woman has studied poverty for 30+ years now; so even though I don't 100% agree with her, I think she has a clue. Unlike our OP, she doesn't use hyperbole and other such hysterics to make her point, but actual reasoning and supporting facts.
In a famous exchange between Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald is reputed to have said, “The rich are different from the rest of us,” to which Hemingway replied, “Yes, I know, they have more money.” Liberals have long contended that Hemingway had it right. There is nothing wrong with the poor that a little more money wouldn’t cure. This view is, I believe, profoundly misguided. Money can alleviate the harsh conditions of poverty, but unless it is used to leverage changes in behavior, it will have little lasting effect.
Not only does behavior matter, it matters more than it used to. Growing gaps between rich and poor in recent decades have been exacerbated by a divergence in the behavior of the two groups. No feasible amount of income redistribution can make up for the fact that the rich are working and marrying as much or more than ever while the poor are doing just the reverse. Unless the poor adopt more mainstream behaviors, and public policies are designed to move them in this direction, economic divisions are likely to grow.
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Solly says — Be nice!
