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Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

richardlynch.blogspot.com

141–150 of 317 posts

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#142
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In USA it's still much better. In many countries including India for example, people pay taxes for their whole life but if they lack money in the end, there's no health/food/shelter security - you are basically on your own. Legislative Bills are there, but they are just that - dormant bills. Nothing exists in reality.

The fact that you have to compare the USA to a developing country to be able to say that "it's still much better" speaks volumes.

What about Canada? Is that acceptable? Left canada to come here to the US where we pay less and get more for the care my children need.

No system is without its problems. I'm just glad in the US it's not about quality or quantity of care, just funding.

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#143
post #110
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was pretty surprised at how easy PayPal has made it. I know that people prefer other services and the reasons they do, but at least PP has been moving forward in their ease of integration. Noticed it on Bandcamp recently as well. Just type amount, enter email and password then confirm and done (assuming you've got PP setup already).

I work with PayPal and to be honest my dislike doesn't come from the user experience but the developer side, the api, the tools, the interface, they are all broken, it is amazingly demotivating.

I worked with it years ago and had a similar experience. I guess I was try to say the recently I had a few pleasant, easy transactions. Upon further inspection, that might not be something to be too excited about.

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#145
post #5

Can someone who knows this guy set up a Crowdtilt page for him? Charitable campaigns do really well there.

I work for Crowdtilt -- if someone who knows Richard can contact me (lebel at crowdtilt dot com), I can help get a campaign set up with all fees waived.

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy insurance which covers home health care and doesn't cost a cent after a deductible of a few thousand dollars. You can buy insurance which provides income if you can't work because of an illness... there are also several government programs that help the disabled. You can also save money for emergencies and not live in debt beyond your means your whole life as too many Americans do. Sometimes bad luck stri…

The problem with your Rand-esque proposal that if we all saved and lived below our means would be rolling in it, is that we don't all have the privilege of living in state or region that provides reasonable healthcare. Any guesses what a family policy with a $10,000 (?!) deductible goes for in Maine? $1,400. Say what? That's if you don't get insurance through your employer, which is becoming more rare everyday as ins…

The Affordable Care Act requires routine medical visits to be covered by your insurance provider without a copay. If you aren't seeing a doctor every year, you're throwing away money.

http://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/insurance-plans/health...

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The healthcare system is broken if you do an honest day's work and can't afford insurance, but that's not what we're talking about here. Isn't it, though? If you replace "insurance" with "appropriate medical care" that does in fact sound like what we're talking about. This individual was a programmer, who based on his blog only quit his job once he was physically unable to perform the duties required - and yet, is…

You can buy insurance which covers home health care and doesn't cost a cent after a deductible of a few thousand dollars. You can buy insurance which provides income if you can't work because of an illness... there are also several government programs that help the disabled. You can also save money for emergencies and not live in debt beyond your means your whole life as too many Americans do. Sometimes bad luck stri…

I don't know you, but I'd wager that in order to be able to say things like this, you're very privileged. And it's leading you to say extremely ignorant things.

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#148
post #104

I donated $50, but I really wish US (and other countries) would reconsider their broken healthcare systems. My dad died of cancer a few years ago and I am really glad we lived in Denmark when he got it - - with a great public healthcare system. He lived 2 years with his cancer, which is a lot when you are counting days. Not many normal people can afford these things (as each of my dads treatments cost about 20.000USD…

I donated $100, and yeah, our healthcare system is a goddamn travesty. I don't get it. If you're fortunate to live long enough, the one thing that's guaranteed to eventually happen is you're going to get sick in a very expensive manner. It's not an "if" question, it's a "when" question. I don't think that should mean financial ruin. People against universal healthcare must think they're just immune to ever getting si…

I think a key feature of health insurance is that not everyone gets hit with 6 or 7 figure healthcare bills. It's because of that fact that we can and should do better as a society.

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#149
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you have to compare the USA to a developing country to be able to say that "it's still much better" speaks volumes.

What about Canada? Is that acceptable? Left canada to come here to the US where we pay less and get more for the care my children need. No system is without its problems. I'm just glad in the US it's not about quality or quantity of care, just funding.

There are some situations where the US healthcare system is superior to the Canadian one, but this is definitely not one of them.

Re: Richard Lynch, an awesome PHP community guy and former colleague needs our help

#150
post #104

I donated $50, but I really wish US (and other countries) would reconsider their broken healthcare systems. My dad died of cancer a few years ago and I am really glad we lived in Denmark when he got it - - with a great public healthcare system. He lived 2 years with his cancer, which is a lot when you are counting days. Not many normal people can afford these things (as each of my dads treatments cost about 20.000USD…

My mom just got diagnosed with extensive small cell lung cancer (thats spread to her brain) and I am fucking terrified about whats going to happen to us financially. I can't even focus completely on my mother as a person because I'm wondering about the bills, then I feel bad for worrying. It fucking sucks.

Very sorry. Speaking from experience, this is exactly how it is. When there's a serious medical situation, the focus is necessarily on the bills. They even send you separate envelopes for every little line item and provider, staggered over time, even more than a year after the service, so you can never stop thinking about it. Always fearing opening the mailbox, having to deal with confusing hard to reconcile charges, trying to catch double-billing, dealing with payments to multiple providers. The stress of the bills can easily make the illness worse. The US is truly a barbaric system. But it has this small bubble of well-off people, who have a disproportionate platform for their propaganda, so you can get this public picture that everything is great. Everyone beams smiles in the commercials, consuming the miracle products. The well-off only associate with others who are well-off, so they can pat each other on the back and say "What a country! All this opportunity for those with the right sort of character, like us!"
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