But cause they were poor, she was supposed to die? Isn’t that what the right wing constantly screeches when asked about the poor and the sick?
So sad that he felt he didn’t have any choice due to “healthcare” in this country…
7 Likes
Awful. I just hope he doesn’t have to spend money on lawyers too. Do you have free counselling in the US? I bet you do…
1 Like
You are assuming the people in charge want it to change.
6 Likes
In theory. But public defenders are so overworked and underpaid, that it’s not incredibly useful.
14 Likes
I don’t care about the people in charge. Last I checked, everyone else outnumbered them. I’m more concerned about the useful idiots among us enabling them.
I don’t know if you’ve seen Hot Coffee (if you haven’t, but have decided you’re not angry enough with the world, I highly recommend it.) In it, a lawyer recounts a story about tort “reform” in Texas where a man tried to sue for malpractice. He won, but the award was statutorily limited to something stupid, like a million bucks. He was injured for the rest of his life, but all he could get, for therapy, for extra medical expenses incurred as a function of the malpractice, for lost income, legal fees, for everything was a million bucks.
When his lawyer explained to him that there was a referendum on it, the guy looked at him shocked, “I voted for that. But that was supposed to just stop people cheating the system!”
I’m not proud of it, but I think that’s possibly the coldest I’ve ever felt towards another human being in my life. I couldn’t muster an ounce of sympathy.
25 Likes
I think it’s more the fact that it’s politically advantageous to invoke the boogie man of centralized healthcare. It’s not as if the hospital and pharma companies don’t make windfall profits in other industrialized countries. If there were bipartisan support among voters for real healthcare reform, it would happen in a jiffy, and the financial interests would align to profit from whatever emerged.
Considering he shot himself in the foot to spite others, I can’t see why anyone should have sympathy for him. Isn’t there something in the X-tian Bible condemning miserly behavior.
5 Likes
The thing you actually want is the Golden Rule: Don’t do unto another. It was squeezed into the bible as well, next to all the stuff nobody considers moral (because it does violate the Golden Rule).
Unrelated: I’m all for euthanasia, but if his wife didn’t leave some note expressing her own wish to be rather dead, it was not upon him to decide it for her. Jail time would be in order.
Bert
2 Likes
I have seen that and it’s enraging. I can understand the lack of empathy, too. But at some point, we’re all going to have to come together to create a society we ALL want to live in, these assholes, too. I don’t know how we make that happen, without a million episodes like that, where people begin to understand how their anti-state racism/sexism affects them too.
17 Likes
I see you still have some hope left. I do too, some days…but not today.
7 Likes
Absolutely heartbreaking. The worst part is that there’s a very good chance this isn’t the first time, nor the last that an elderly couple do this for each other in the US. Single-payer doesn’t just make economic sense, it makes moral sense.
12 Likes
Honestly, I waver. Some days, I really don’t have much hope, other days, I do. I guess you caught me on a good day! 
6 Likes
I’ve seen it too… and its not enraging for me… its horrifying.
What is about the American psyche that can let this system go on? That created this system? That literally makes people decide how many fingers do you want to be sewn back on cuz your insurance will only cover 2 not all? What is it that makes America so different from the rest of the world? Its easy to say American Exceptionalism or “Freedom” or whatever, but there has to be a thing… because this has gone on for so long and every other country abandoned this decades ago and I just do not understand.
I know “Obamacare” is changing things, slowly, but will it change things enough for people like in this film?
12 Likes
No one thing, but the juvenile polarization of our political landscape to the point where if one side does or says one thing, the other automatically does and says the opposite, has a lot to do with it I think.
No. The ACA is better than nothing…barely.
7 Likes
Agree. As a culture we seem to value hate and punishment as ‘justice’ moreso than tolerance, rehabilitation, and charity… and i"m christian. Enough at least to feel bloody insulted by everyone using that as an excuse to spew bile and intolerance everywhere. Like you though I value and cherish the founding father’s wisdom in constructing the constitution and ammendments to demand a seperation of church and state alongside freedom of faith and speech.
3 Likes
I understand what he did. I hope I would have the courage to do the same. But, a hand gun? Really?
You get oxygen concentrators. Some of them are a few hundred dollars. They work by absorbing nitrogen, and delivering the rest, which is mostly oxygen. This means the output is almost pure nitrogen. If you breathe nitrogen, you just go to sleep. No sensation of choking - that usually comes from carbon dioxide buildup. No paralysis where you are awake but can’t react. Take it off, and back you come of you haven;t gone too far. So just rig the exhaust of the machine to the mask, and there you are.
But a hand gun? Boom! Splat! Sorry about the mess, folks. I know this was America and you are allowed, nay, morally required in some areas, to have one handy. But when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail…
2 Likes
I understand you.
But, can you imagine he just did not know about it. And had a gun by hand. And/or, if he knew about the option you mentioned, he was afraid it would be registered when bought?
Also, likely an other explanation we totally don’t know/imagine because we never reached such a desperate point?
9 Likes
This is horrible.
4 Likes
It’s a little more complicated than that. You would have to remove the CO2 being exhaled. You would need a mask with one-way ventilation, but in order to achieve the desired level of CO2 expulsion, I don’t necessarily know that someone wouldn’t necessarily start to feel symptoms of CO2 asphyxiation and panic. I mean it’s possible, but I’m not sure I’d take the risk. We know about the painlessness of nitrogen suffocation from accidents where workers ended up being immersed in a large volume of gas, so their exhalations didn’t make a dent in the concentration.
4 Likes
Bristol, TN is where my family lives, and let me tell you: Basically none of them want any kind of government-run healthcare, despite how badly that decision would impact their lives. Brainwashed might not be too harsh of a term for what I’ve seen them go through over the past decade. They don’t vote in their own self-interests, not because they’re somehow inherently stupid, but because these people are pervasively and ruthlessly manipulated by the media and other forces beyond their view and control. They also subscribe to that distinctly American brand of supply-side Christianity which marries corporatism to a superficially moral platform. Between shitty politicians, shitty religion, and a shitty economy awash in despair and prescription opiates, these people are fucked six ways to Sunday.
7 Likes
Considering how the elderly only have the news (and usually Fox News) as their window to reality, they may feel there is no alternative – no way out – and will then choose the least worst apparent solution for a serious problem, even if it means killing the one you love to prevent their further suffering.
Thank you Pharma advertising/pricing/lobbying on steroids, MSM ownership by the profit-seeking few, and de-funding of help for those who are unable to help themselves.
4 Likes
