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Tell HN: Jonathan Dale's Cancer Fundraiser isn't Doing Well & Time's Running Out

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Re: Tell HN: Jonathan Dale's Cancer Fundraiser isn't Doing Well & Time's Running Out

#31

Post by Zarkonnen »

lisper wrote: post #27
Zarkonnen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expanding on this: emphasis on support from the community is a mechanism to maintain the status quo. If you are part of a wealthy/powerful community, you can take risks and get the payoff. If you're not, your best bet is to try and conform and join such a powerful community - but you may not be able to. If you're the only X-believer in a community of Y-believers and you get cancer, well, it's not that the Y-believers…

I agree it's not a good system, but the argument is not nearly the slam-dunk you seem to think it is. You can re-cast socialism in similarly distasteful terms: you have no choice but to participate in the system whether or not you agree with the rules. That can result in a substantial minority of people being forced to participate in a system with which they vehemently disagree. Under a libertarian regime, in order t…

I disagree that they're similarly distasteful. It's "dying from a lack of medical attention" vs "being forced to participate in a system that asks for nothing more than some of your money".

And it ignores that people do not have an equal start in life. You get born into a wealthy, well-connected environment, and, well, even if you do some coke and maybe kill some people with your car, your community is still going to stand by you.

It's generally not a question of having to actively alienate people. Not being in a wealthy/powerful community is enough. The Y-believers don't have to hate that lone X-believer to fail to fund his medical bills. They just have to think of the X-believer as somebody else's problem.

If you get born into the wrong environment, all you've got is "the people who think no one deserves to get left out in the cold" - and those people's resources are stretched way past the breaking point. How much do we pay nurses? Does charity provide for adequate medical care for poor inner-city black kids? No.

This libertarian stuff pretends to be progressive, but the actual outcome of the suggested policies is incredibly regressive. It's no coincidence that libertarianism is a politics espoused by the already-privileged.

In the end, I am very happy to choose human dignity being more important than property rights as the hill to die on.

Re: Tell HN: Jonathan Dale's Cancer Fundraiser isn't Doing Well & Time's Running Out

#32

Post by debacle »

Zarkonnen wrote: post #15
lisper wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It shouldn't make you cringe. This is actually (part of) the whole point of Free-Market/Libertarian/Randian/Austrian/Lassez-Faire economics, that people can elect to join social groups for exactly this kind of mutual support rather than being forced to participate in a single support network run by the government. (Note: I personally don't subscribe to this theory, but it is certainly defensible.)

That just makes me cringe more, sorry. Even if you don't agree with these politics, you are very much describing them in their particular language and framing: a commitment to human dignity described as a use of force.

It's more about drawing a very clear line between "Us" and "Them."

Unfortunately, some people find that appealing. Time will tell which is the proper philosophy.

Re: Tell HN: Jonathan Dale's Cancer Fundraiser isn't Doing Well & Time's Running Out

#33

Post by DanBC »

jey wrote: post #24
hluska wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, issues like this are not confined to the United States. Both my Aunt and Stepmother are currently fighting cancer. We're Canadian, thus we have universal health care, but each province is responsible for administering its own prescription drug plan. Thus, depending on where you live and your income, you may or may not have decent coverage for cancer drugs. Complicating the situation, there is often a g…

> Both my Aunt and stepmother have good drug plans that refund their expenses. However, their treatments still cost thousands of dollars out of pocket. Why is it structured this way? Why don't they just directly bill the insurance without requiring large outlays upfront from the patient?

In England people pay a small amount (£8.05) for each item on a prescription. One prescription is almost always a single month. Thus, if you have 5 or so meds on a script you'll be paying £40 per month for meds.

There is help for prescription costs - people can get deductions for long term meds.

Luckily, most people do not pay prescription cost. About 80% of people on a prescription have some exemption or other.

There are big problems with medication non-compliance, even for serious life-critical meds (cancer meds; HIV meds; transplant surgery meds) but it seems the cost (free or high cost) is not relevant - non-compliance is similar in the UK and in the US.

There are some problems with the English NHS, but "getting access to meds" is not one of them. Unless you count fantastically expensive new cancer meds that add maybe a week of poor quality life.

Re: Tell HN: Jonathan Dale's Cancer Fundraiser isn't Doing Well & Time's Running Out

#35

Post by darthcluespouse »

Tell HN: Jonathan Dale's Cancer Fundraiser isn't Doing Well & Time's Running Out 74 points by rpm4321 1 day ago | 29 comments This was posted on HN a few months ago and got a lot of attention at the time (751 points), but I figured I would post a reminder to everyone about Jonathan Dale's cancer fundraiser. There's less than a month remaining and they only have about 10% of their goal: https://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/w704/beating-cancer-o...

Original post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7390638

Re: Tell HN: Jonathan Dale's Cancer Fundraiser isn't Doing Well & Time's Running Out

#36

Post by chrisBob »

ma2rten wrote: post #22
nilsimsa wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with a good health insurance plan, there are still copay and deductable to consider when you have a major illness that requires hospitalization. This can add up to $1K-$4K per year of treatment depending on how good a plan you have. Then you have all the time and money incurred by your family is getting you better. Time off from work, traveling to visit you, staying with you. If you are lucky you have a good ins…

That is exactly the point... In no other developed country (or should I say in no developed country) do people die because they can not pay their medical bills. The system has to change.

Its actually worse than that. Preventative care is not guaranteed, but emergency care, at a hospital emergency room is. This way caring for someone with a minor illness or injury often ends up being more expensive because they can only get help when it becomes life threatening.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02...

Re: Tell HN: Jonathan Dale's Cancer Fundraiser isn't Doing Well & Time's Running Out

#37

Post by hluska »

jimmydddd wrote: post #26
hluska wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, issues like this are not confined to the United States. Both my Aunt and Stepmother are currently fighting cancer. We're Canadian, thus we have universal health care, but each province is responsible for administering its own prescription drug plan. Thus, depending on where you live and your income, you may or may not have decent coverage for cancer drugs. Complicating the situation, there is often a g…

US citizen here. I have friends and family in Europe and Canada. One relative in Canada was told that they would have to wait several months for an x-ray needed for diagnosis (and might die by that time), so came to the US for treatment instead. A relative in Europe was told that he was too old to qualify for treatment, so he came to the US for treatment instead. From what I've been told, some treatment options that…

Good comment. In my province, there is a very long wait for an MRI. The wait is so long that, in many cases, it makes more sense to go down to the United States (or to a province with private MRI facilities) and just pay for the test.

I was raised with Medicare, but I see nothing but problems with how it is administered. And, I hope that your country doesn't follow our mistakes...

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