Kelly 2 breasts talking shite. Again.

[amydamy]

I think people (read: Kelly) just have no idea just how fast and how high medical expenses (or other disaster expenses) build up. They talk about living thrifty and putting aside pin money and not paying for cable TV, but in the face of SERIOUS medical help that you need for years, it's not remotely in the same league. Losing everything you have in a disaster, similarly.

Saving and being thrifty is a noble goal, I won't deny that. But some things are simply too large for individual families to budget for, EVER, and that is why we have communal assistance schemes and insurance of various kinds, including national insurance. The entire point is monetary redistribution and spreading wealth where it's needed. You don't need it? You're lucky, feel grateful, and pay your contributions.

Meanwhile I wonder how Kelly would respond to the hypothetical "should people be forced to donate a kidney?" question, re: abortion.

Hope everything continues to go the best it can for Burris' husband, including that the movies are good :)

I was in a car accident when I lived in NJ so luckily I was covered by PIP which paid everything but a small portion covered by my regular health insurance all I paid was the hospital copay. I still got all the bills sent to me before the state paid them I hit a million dollars before I even left the hospital let alone the months of specialist visits and physical therapy that followed. I had good insurance at the time but I wouldn't have been covered for a lot of what PIP paid. I had a traumatic brain injury so it was a very long recovery. I had no idea how expensive care was until all those bills came to my house. I had a vague idea but seeing it in black and white is different.

[ThisOlGirl]

It's easy for Kelly to talk out of her ass when she's sitting on it, inside a house that was donated, built on land owned by her parents(and I'm guessing will go to her and Mr. Kelly when Kelly's parents pass away).

[cindyluvs24]

She doesn't know what she is talking about. Everyone needs insurance, not just those with super jobs. My husband is on one med that runs 8K per month and another 3K. They seem to work, no new metastases. He is going to have one dose of high photon targeted radiation in a couple of weeks to zap a particularly stubborn "hot spot". He has three departments at Sloan Kettering putting their heads together and figuring out how to beat this thing (including a female oncologist with two little kids- take that Kelly) Without his insurance he'd be dead. I suppose having a good job gets you the good insurance. Having a good education gets you the good job. Having a good brain gets you the scholarship to the good college which gives you the good education. Having sharp parents gets you the good brain. So, Kelly and her friends are actually supporting a form of Darwinism.

[jenny_islander]

Something I forgot to put into the above post because I've been marinating in this stuff my whole life so I don't realize how insane it is to foreigners: You know how we're supposedly sue-happy here in the U.S.? Part of it is that any catastrophic injury or illness to you or to your dependents can strip you of assets and begin your slide into poverty--and once you're down there it's hard to get out. The so-called American Dream starts with the middle-class lifestyle and goes up from there. So if you get injured or sick, you have to pay for the parts that insurance won't cover somehow. Solution: Find somebody, anybody, who the courts might be convinced to make liable for your medical costs. Take them to court--even if they're friends of yours. This is why people get sued by party guests who slip on their front steps and break a limb.

And the insurance company itself may attempt to recoup costs by suing somebody "on your behalf."

[hearyoume08]

Or as the late, great George Carlin put it, "If you're pre-born, you're fine, if you're pre-schooled, you're fucked."

Burris, I wish your husband nothing but the best. I'm so glad he'll be with you soon.

Medical bills can devastate a person. Even a simple trip to the ER can ramp up medical bills that an individual can never hope to pay off. Our healthcare system here in the states is truly broken. I worked for insurance companies, in hospital administration departments, and I also worked for a healthcare business consulting company so I have a bit more insight on how the system is fucked up and destroying individuals, families, communities, businesses, etc.

Kelly needs to read Steven Brill's very thorough, well-researched, eye-opening, and mind blowing article "Bitter Pill" in the March 4th issue of Time magazine. Mr. Brill should win a Pulitzer for this article.

http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/b ... -main-belt

That article is jaw dropping.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Remember, this is coming from the same Kelly, who denied there was any poverty in U.S. just 4 years ago.

I guess she is doing some kind of progress after all. Just give her 40 more years and she might actually start giving to charity!

Ah yes. The old "b...b...b...but people in [some far off third world place they've never been] manage to live on $2 a day! They don't have microwaves! But they're happy! And thankful for what they have!" trope.

The whole idea of poverty being relative or it taking a certain amount of living standard (and thus MONEY) to be able to participate in mainstream US society (and like, get jobs) completely eludes her, it seems like.

You can't just put up a tin shack with no plumbing by the side of the road in modern US cities (where the jobs are). Various groups of homeless people have tried this, RECENTLY, and not met with legal favor. Turns out it's against zoning, even if you try it in a friendly churchyard, and that's even before we get into the issues of allowing even normal pedestrians/passers-by to "loiter" on what is pretty much always private property of some sort.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Kelly needs to read Steven Brill's very thorough, well-researched, eye-opening, and mind blowing article "Bitter Pill" in the March 4th issue of Time magazine. Mr. Brill should win a Pulitzer for this article.

http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/20/b ... -main-belt

Wow. Thank you VERY much for linking that article. The WTFery in there just breaks all bounds.

[Vex]

Kelly's obfuscation and stupidity. I can't even with it.

[yewchapel]

It makes me so angry that a huge, powerful country like the US can have people going into debt in order to stay alive.