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80daze · Joined: 15 Oct 2008 Posts: 118 Location: China

I read this in the Guardian today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/21/verone-one-dollar-robbery-healthcare

It was not perhaps the most obvious way of getting a bad back, arthritis and a dodgy foot seen to. But if you're unemployed in North Carolina with no health insurance, there is no obvious way.

So on 9 June James Verone left his Gastonia home, took a ride to a bank and carried out a robbery. Well, sort of.

What he did was hand the clerk a note that said: "This is a bank robbery, please only give me one dollar." Then, as he later told the local NBC news station, he calmly sat in the corner of the bank having told the clerk: "I'll be sitting right over there in the chair waiting for the police."

Before his peculiarly modest robbery, Verone, 59, sent a letter to the Gaston Gazette. "When you receive this a bank robbery will have been committed by me for one dollar. I am of sound mind but not so much sound body."

He invited the paper to send a reporter to interview him in Gaston county jail, where he is now in custody facing charges of stealing from a person (for just $1 the prosecutors didn't think they could hold up a bank robbery charge).

He told the paper he had lost his job after 17 years as a Coca-Cola delivery man, and with it his health insurance. He was in increasing pain from slipped discs, arthritic joints, a gammy foot and a growth on his chest.

Since being in the jail he has attained his goal: he has been seen by nurses and an appointment with a doctor is booked.

johnslat · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 2:57 am Post subject:

Actually, he beat me to it - that's my retirement plan. Only I plan to steal a lot more and have a darn good time before they catch me. Very Happy

Regards,
John

dustinm90 · Joined: 20 Jun 2011 Posts: 10 Location: Ontario, Canada

This is why I'm glad I live in Canada. With all the problems my country has, we guarantee health care as a fundamental right.

Nobody should be denied care simply because they don't have money -- especially considering the effect health has on one's ability to work, and work has on one's ability to pay for care.

Dedicated · Joined: 18 May 2007 Posts: 972 Location: UK

What a sad indictment this is of the US healthcare system!

I have lived and worked both in the USA and the UK ( where I'm based now) but if I had to choose between the US and the UK healthcare systems, I'd choose the UK in a heartbeat.

In the UK, Brits believe that healthcare is a human right and are happy to have a system that covers everyone, all the time. More money per person is spent on healthcare in the USA than any other nation in the world, but it is the only wealthy, industrialized country that does not ensure that all citizens have coverage.

According to the US Census Bureau in 2009, 16.7% of the population, or 50.7 million residents, were uninsured and without access to healthcare. Medical debt (ie. expensive bills) contributed to 46.2% of all personal bankruptcies. Life expectancy is 42nd in the world,(after Cuba at 37 and Chile at 35) and the WHO ranked the US healthcare system as 72nd by overall level of health, out of 191 member nations, below the average life expectancy for the whole of the EU of 27 countries.

Obama made reform of the healthcare system his top domestic priority when he entered the White House, yet NO Republicans voted for the Bill, and some people dared to criticise the British NHS system at that time.
The NHS system is not perfect by any means, but I know where I would prefer to be for healthcare. There is no cap on the number of times you can see your GP for free, or get hospital treatment for free.