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

richardlynch.blogspot.com

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

#201

Post by secstate »

natrius wrote: post #162
secstate wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's new in the past 45 days. For what it's worth, under the ADA the insurance subsidy I get from taxes is enough that I actually am insured, but it doesn't bring the monthly cost of an insurance plan down any ... just pushes the cost off to taxpayers. The miserable irony of this is that then the government winds up making a deal with FOR PROFIT insurance companies. Companies which would be failing their investors…

Insurance companies generally have to spend 80% of premiums on medical expenses[1]. The profit and marketing expenses aren't that much of your premiums. What you seem to be asking for is price fixing the way much of the rest of the world handles healthcare, which will reduce the incentives to advance medicine. I prefer our current approach, where those who can afford to pay are left to pay as much as they're willing…

But 90% of the world doesn't die from exotic cancers, at least not below the age of 50 (or 60 ... keeps creeping up). The idea that advanced medicine is an justification for for-profit medicine is a straw man argument.

The reality is that there are many more nuanced single-payer healthcare systems in the world than the one where the government tells you who gets to live and who gets to die. In the U.K. for example, there are still for-profit health care insurers and if you're wealthy enough you can buy their policy and have quadruple by-pass surgery when your 75.

I'm not going to pretend we don't live in a capitalist world and that at some point rich people are going to live better than poor people. That would a fool's dream. But to argue pure Smith-style market economics will help keep people healthy is a joke.

Even worse than that, while you laud the MDA Cancer Center in Houston now, wait 20 years and the cost of operating it will have sent it out of the country. In a globalized world you are competing with everyone, and while the USA has been sleeping the rest of the world has been getting very good at what we believe makes us special.

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

#202

Post by majika »

markdown wrote: post #74
piyush_soni wrote: post #51

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.

Here in Fiji we've always had universal healthcare. When people need surgery/treatment they can't get here, the government sends them to India (Used to be Australia/New Zealand, but not any more).

Context: Australian and NZ relations with Fiji have seriously deteriorated (expelled diplomats, aid cuts, trade sanctions) since the military coup in 2006, and the resulting dictatorship there. [0]

Despite the diplomatic meltdown between Fiji and the western world, Australia and NZ continued to offer healthcare to Fijians. It was a decision by the Fijian government to start sending people to India instead. [1]

Also, Fiji has very large ethnic ties with India. [2] The country has a history of deep social and religious divisions as a result. [3]

I don't think there's any suggestion or indication that it's actually preferable to have surgery or treatment in India rather than Australia or NZ.

As an Australian, I'm sorry that Fijians can't come here anymore under their healthcare program.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Fijian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat...

[1]: http://www.fiji.gov.fj/Media-Center/Press-Releases/FIJI-LOOK...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indians_in_Fiji

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indians_in_Fiji#Religious_and_...

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

#203

Post by mgkimsal »

markdown wrote: post #82
Markinhos wrote: post #30

I am really sad for this guy... Can someone explain to me why is he asking for donations? Doesn't the insurances cover with these expenses in USA?

I'm curious about why he would even need insurance. Someone of his skill, who has presumably received a six figure salary for decade(s?). He would be in the wealthiest 1% of the entire world population, yet needs donations. What does that mean for the billions of others?

read the comment about his life in chicago - giving money to bands as one example. he's spent much of his life helping the larger communities around him - php and music are just two that have been mentioned.

We've got no idea what Richard earned, but saying "six figures" can make it sound fabulously wealthy. $999,999 is six figures. So is $100,000. $100k in suburban Chicago raising a family is quite possible, but likely isn't going to leave a whole lot of room for savings. He may have had moderate savings that were wiped out in 2008. He may have had savings and needed to drain those to pay for another medical situation in his family earlier. We just don't know the details.

1%? Hardly. Someone earning $100k might be in the top 10% - http://www.financialsamurai.com/how-much-money-do-the-top-in... - still obviously towards the top, but the phrase "1%" has other "occupy" connotations that simply don'y apply to Richard.

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

#204

Post by bestham »

wtbob wrote: post #103
jtreminio wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because he paid taxes to his government, not his friends.

You (and the downvoters) don't get it: my surprise is that bestham's first reaction was not human sympathy for someone suffering; his first reaction wasn't to try to help; his first reaction was to score a cheap political shot. That's awfully sad, albeit not as sad as the fact that it was successful.

My first reaction was to provide some help for him, I did and boy am I sorry for him and everyone in his predicament. While doing that I could also identify an underlying problem in the way he has to beg for help and how unfair a system like this is to everyone that is suffering from similar diseases, terminal or not.

If Richard and his family would not have to care about the money, this thread could be about nothing else beside him and his achievements.

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

#205

Post by Rantenki »

adventured wrote: post #196
sofal wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are medications I need that cost an entire order of magnitude more in the US than in Canada. I'm not exaggerating. They're about $80 full price from Canada and $800 here in the US.

That's the pharma industry's 'America pays' system. Canada receives subsidized costs on medications like much of the world, and America picks up the tab.

Not sure what point you're trying to make here. The pricing on the medication was exceedingly high, about $200/dose, but as far as I can tell, that is the same price as in the USA:

http://breastcancer.answers.com/medications/the-cost-of-neup...

The cost of the drugs was just picked up by the medical system instead of my pocketbook.

I have seen this argument before; American health care is expensive because everybody else is a slacker who can't pay. It's obviously false. US pharma companies aren't subsidizing Canadian drugs, the Canadian government is. That Canadian drug prices are lower is more a function of the broken US medical system than anything else.

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

#206

Post by natrius »

secstate wrote: post #201
natrius wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance companies generally have to spend 80% of premiums on medical expenses[1]. The profit and marketing expenses aren't that much of your premiums. What you seem to be asking for is price fixing the way much of the rest of the world handles healthcare, which will reduce the incentives to advance medicine. I prefer our current approach, where those who can afford to pay are left to pay as much as they're willing…

But 90% of the world doesn't die from exotic cancers, at least not below the age of 50 (or 60 ... keeps creeping up). The idea that advanced medicine is an justification for for-profit medicine is a straw man argument. The reality is that there are many more nuanced single-payer healthcare systems in the world than the one where the government tells you who gets to live and who gets to die. In the U.K. for example, t…

I don't fear the rest of the world getting better than us at medicine. Money motivates most people. The best doctors will go where they can get the most money. That is here.

If I had to pick between the UK's system, where price controls help pay for healthcare for those who can't afford it, and the Affordable Care Act, where wealthy people pay for healthcare for those who can't afford it, I'd choose the Affordable Care Act.

Price controls have such a terrible track record that we should prove why healthcare is different from the failures we've seen in housing, food and gas before trying again. Price controls give us less of what we desired so much in the first place.

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

#207

Post by majika »

piyush_soni wrote: post #84
markdown wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Fiji we've always had universal healthcare. When people need surgery/treatment they can't get here, the government sends them to India (Used to be Australia/New Zealand, but not any more).

Yeah. Thanks to India's affordable health care, we don't have to be dependent on this national scam called health insurance. We just go to doctors, they give us treatment, we pay money, that's it. I remember how here in US I had to go to a doctor to be told "You don't have any disease, that happens to everybody" (no diagnosis) and charged $400. Insurance paid $300, I paid $100.

See my reply to markdown for context on his/her comment (if you're not aware).

You should clarify your comment by mentioning what state and city you live in, how much you earn a year, and how many multiples that is of the average income in India, and in your state.

Healthcare in India is operated by the states; there is no national program. Care is not consistent. [0]

In India, can doctors provide food? I'm serious. 42% of Indian children are malnourished [1] - a frighteningly higher rate than the average malnourishment rate of sub-Saharan African countries.

This is but one figure representing India's overall healthcare system (or lack thereof), and unhealthy populace.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_India

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_India#Health_iss...

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

#208

Post by ndesaulniers »

mildtrepidation wrote: post #47
shasta wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and we'll never really know until we die I think the atheist would say you won't know then, either.

I am an atheist. Forgive me if I'm excessively generous, I'm trying to dissuade people from being jerks, not push my world view.

I feel that Neil deGrasse Tyson's view on Atheists strongly applies here. [0]

[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos&t=2m25s

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

#209

Post by vacri »

adventured wrote: post #196
sofal wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are medications I need that cost an entire order of magnitude more in the US than in Canada. I'm not exaggerating. They're about $80 full price from Canada and $800 here in the US.

That's the pharma industry's 'America pays' system. Canada receives subsidized costs on medications like much of the world, and America picks up the tab.

Are you honestly saying that only the US does [significant] pharma research?

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

#210

Post by na85 »

overgard wrote: post #194
hueving wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the probabilities were as bad as you suggest, there would be no such thing as health insurance. They need to bring in more than they spend on health-care costs. Most people can't end in a devastating health-cost manner.

So.. your argument is that because insurance companies can profit, it's not so bad? "Well, your legacy might be financial ruin for your children, or an early death to avoid that, but since most people die before they realize they're severely ill, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm not arguing probabilities here, I'm arguing deductive reasoning. You are a decaying meatsack. So am I. At some point something very bad will happen to that dec…

>So.. your argument is that because insurance companies can profit, it's not so bad?

His/her argument is, AFAICT: "Because insurance companies can profit, that shows that less than a majority of people die after a prolonged, expensive illness.

Therefore the earlier statement that "it is 100% certain you will have a long, expensive illness at some point in life" is not true.

Plenty of people die of sudden stroke or heart attack in their 70s after a relatively healthy life up to that point.

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