Uninsured Father Dies of Toothache

[Schneibster]

Pitiful. The US is becoming a third-world shithole.

Read all about it.

[Seth]

Need to change the thread title to "Parsimonious idiot dies of stupidity."

When his face started swelling and his head began to ache, Willis went to the emergency room, where he received prescriptions for antibiotics and pain medications. Willis couldn't afford both, so he chose the pain medications.

I'm betting he could afford both, but was just too parsimonious and too stupid to take care of his health rather than buying cigarettes, lotto tickets, or crack.

If he truly "couldn't afford" his medication, then he clearly couldn't afford to eat, and yet he did not starve to death. It would have cost him the equivalent of a couple of missed meals to buy the antibiotics, but evidently he preferred to eat.

Nor, do I suspect, did he go to a charity hospital and tell them he couldn't afford the antibiotics, in which case they would have been given to him for free, as a life-saving measure. Pride goeth before a fall...and stupidity is its own reward.

"When people are unemployed or don't have insurance, where do they go? What do they do?" Silverstein said. "People end up dying, and these are the most treatable, preventable diseases in the world."

Um, they dispense with some other expenditure and go to the dentist and get the tooth pulled, and pay for it out of your own pocket. The notion that anyone cannot either afford an $80 tooth extraction, or cannot find a charitable institution to do it for free, is idiotic. Most people die from dental infections because they are AFRAID TO GO TO THE DENTIST, not because they cannot afford to have a tooth pulled. Even some bum flying a sign on a street corner can afford to scrape eighty bucks together to have a tooth pulled, so don't try to foist this horseshit off on us.

My brother-in-law had exactly the same experience. He broke a tooth and it became infected, but didn't want to go get it pulled even though I repeatedly told him he could die from the infection. Eventually we were able to convince him to go to the dentist and get it pulled, but for weeks he thought he could just gut his way through it and it would just get better and go away. He was just afraid to face the pain at the dentist, but when he actually went and had the tooth extracted, the dentist numbed him up properly and there was no pain. Now he's fine.

Same thing happened three weeks ago to my girlfriend, who likewise broke a tooth. Only took me a week to convince her it wasn't going to heal on its own and she needed to go to the dentist before it got worse.

This story is a load of crap. It's a piece of progressive propaganda and nothing more.

He received timely and free medical care, but he himself made a bad decision about both initial treatment (he should have seen the dentist right away) and he botched the follow-up care, and it killed him. That's not a function of medical insurance, that's a function of individual choice.

Lesson: When the doctor tells you to take antibiotics, for fuck's sake take them, even if it means foregoing some other expense.

[Lozzer]

Health insurance? I have mine




Tehehe

[wittywoman]

Need to change the thread title to "Parsimonious idiot dies of stupidity."

When his face started swelling and his head began to ache, Willis went to the emergency room, where he received prescriptions for antibiotics and pain medications. Willis couldn't afford both, so he chose the pain medications.

I'm betting he could afford both, but was just too parsimonious and too stupid to take care of his health rather than buying cigarettes, lotto tickets, or crack.

If he truly "couldn't afford" his medication, then he clearly couldn't afford to eat, and yet he did not starve to death. It would have cost him the equivalent of a couple of missed meals to buy the antibiotics, but evidently he preferred to eat.

Nor, do I suspect, did he go to a charity hospital and tell them he couldn't afford the antibiotics, in which case they would have been given to him for free, as a life-saving measure. Pride goeth before a fall...and stupidity is its own reward.

He received timely and free medical care, but he himself made a bad decision about follow-up care, and it killed him.

Lesson: When the doctor tells you to take antibiotics, for fuck's sake take them, even if it means foregoing some other expense.

So easy to blame authority for everything.

It is news, but not a JUDGEMENT on the Government's health provisions. Just ... news.

[Schneibster]

Need to change the thread title to "Parsimonious idiot dies of stupidity."

This is called "blaming the victim." It's a common Libertardian practice.

Just sayin'.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Seth, what are you basing that bullshit "bet" on?

[Rob]

I love the assumptions Seth makes. I wish there was a god at times. I would pray to have Seth put in the place of people he labels deadbeats and idiots.

Let me amend that. I wish there was a hell for Seth to go to.

[Mallardz]

Health insurance? I have mine




Tehehe

National Insurance stealing a percentage of my wages since 2009.
What's worse is I haven't needed medical supplies in that time. I may set out to get ill in an effort to get my bloody moneys worth.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I love the assumptions Seth makes. I wish there was a god at times. I would pray to have Seth put in the place of people he labels deadbeats and idiots.

Let me amend that. I wish there was a hell for Seth to go to.

I kind of like Satan, so I would disagree.

[Seth]

Need to change the thread title to "Parsimonious idiot dies of stupidity."

This is called "blaming the victim." It's a common Libertardian practice.

Just sayin'.

He was a victim of his own stupidity, and therefore is to blame. It was his tooth, and his life to save or lose, nobody else's. I'm not responsible for him, or his tooth, and I object to being enslaved and having my labor stolen from me in order to compensate for someone else's stupidity. Sorry, but I've got my own health to worry about and provide for, and I don't depend on others to pay for it, I pay for it myself, and I expect everyone else to do the same.

He had money. He had prescriptions. He had free advice from a doctor on what to do. He ignored the doctor's advice and decided that taking narcotics to dull the pain was a better way to deal with a tooth abscess than taking antibiotics or getting the tooth pulled. That mistake in judgment killed him. Sad, but clearly the consequence of his bad decision making, not whether or not he had health insurance. There are plenty of resources available for those who are truly indigent, and he could have returned to the ER and gotten treatment, but he didn't. He spent money he should have spent saving his life on something else, and he's paid for that error in judgment.

Here's the lesson: When you have an infection, treat the infection, don't do something else with your money. It's common sense. Which will kill you faster, skipping a few meals or packs of cigarettes or an abscessed tooth? I'd spend my money on what is going to save my life, but hey, that's just me.

[Seth]

Seth, what are you basing that bullshit "bet" on?

Common sense, knowledge of the American medical system, observation and rational inference.

Are you suggesting that he was indeed penniless and starving and had no money at all?

You'd be wrong, because it says right there in the story that he had money, but he spent it on narcotics to dull the pain rather than on the antibiotics to cure the infection. Moreover, he failed to spend that money getting the tooth pull when it first started hurting him, and it took two weeks for the infection to kill him. That's two weeks in which he could have found a dentist to, as the article puts it, pull his tooth for eighty bucks.

He made bad decisions. He died. Sorry about that, but he didn't die because he was unemployed or because he didn't have health insurance, he died because he made bad decisions and didn't spend his money wisely.

[Seth]

I love the assumptions Seth makes. I wish there was a god at times. I would pray to have Seth put in the place of people he labels deadbeats and idiots.

I don't have insurance, and I don't complain about it, I just take care of my health, and my teeth, and I pay for my own medical care out of my own pocket, I don't steal from others to compensate for my poor lifestyle choices and I don't blame others for my decisions and the consequences. If I have an abscessed tooth, I'm going to go get it pulled and pay for it in cash, which I can do any day in any major city in America, not sit around for two weeks hoping it'll get better until it kills me. And if I only have money for pain pills or antibiotics, I'm going to buy antibiotics, which is the smart thing to do.

Why should anyone else be held to a lower standard?

His toothache, or yours, is not my problem, and I don't care to pay for it. Sucks to be you, I guess, if you make bad life decisions and suffer the consequences of doing so and there's nobody to bail you out at the muzzle of a machine gun. Make better life decisions and stand on your own two feet and quit stealing from other people to suit your own needs and desires. Or at least have the grace to ask for charity, in which case you'll most likely get it.

Let me amend that. I wish there was a hell for Seth to go to.

Reported.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Seth, what are you basing that bullshit "bet" on?

Common sense, knowledge of the American medical system, observation and rational inference.

Are you suggesting that he was indeed penniless and starving and had no money at all?

You'd be wrong, because it says right there in the story that he had money, but he spent it on narcotics to dull the pain rather than on the antibiotics to cure the infection. Moreover, he failed to spend that money getting the tooth pull when it first started hurting him, and it took two weeks for the infection to kill him. That's two weeks in which he could have found a dentist to, as the article puts it, pull his tooth for eighty bucks.

He made bad decisions. He died. Sorry about that, but he didn't die because he was unemployed or because he didn't have health insurance, he died because he made bad decisions and didn't spend his money wisely.

[Seth]

Health insurance? I have mine


Tehehe

National Insurance stealing a percentage of my wages since 2009.
What's worse is I haven't needed medical supplies in that time. I may set out to get ill in an effort to get my bloody moneys worth.

And that's exactly the mindset that drives socialized medicine, and nations that use it (like the UK) to the brink of economic collapse, as everybody who pays for NHS decides to consume the resource unnecessarily just because they feel they're entitled to do so because they are being taxed for it.

When you have to pay for your medical care out of your own pocket, like I do, you take better care of yourself and you plan ahead and make better consumer buying decisions about health care itself, rather than simply forking over a third of your paycheck to pay for someone else's bad life decisions.

[tattuchu]

I wonder if the dentist who told him he needed the tooth pulled also told him he could die if he didn't. If not, I'm sure the guy never imagined he'd end up dying from a toothache. If he had limited funds and it was a choice, at least for the time being, of buying either the pain meds or the antibiotic, then I'm sure the pain meds seemed the more immediate concern if he was in terrible pain.