• @[email protected]
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    818 hours ago

    How is this c/mildlyinfuriating? Ain’t this supposed to be c/nottheonion or something?

  • @[email protected]
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    1521 hours ago

    This makes me mildly infuriating:

    The unemployed Massachusetts woman figured she could roll the dice as a healthy woman in her early 30s or at worst, could hastily buy private health insurance in a pinch, Kahn said.

    The near-$21,000 burden will probably lead to fewer vacations

    A huge percentage of the population doesn’t have enough dispodable income to take a single vacation, yet this FAFO situation “will probably” lead to fewer vacations for this woman?

    My empathy meter is at near zero, TBH.

    That said, fuck any country for not having a healthcare system available to all without having to cost a few vacations.

    • /home/pineapplelover
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      218 hours ago

      A huge percentage of the population doesn’t have enough dispodable income to take a single vacation

      I find this odd to believe though. A vacation doesn’t have to be extravagant. A good chunk of U.S states have PTO even and driving to Arizona isn’t that extravagant anyway.

      • @[email protected]
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        112 hours ago

        I find this odd to believe though.

        Census.gov reports over 12% of people in the States are poor (38 million people).

        The NPR reported that half the population can’t afford rent.

        A good chunk of the rest are able to afford it, but unlikely to have several thousand laying around for a trip.

        A vacation doesn’t have to be extravagant. A good chunk of U.S states have PTO even and driving to Arizona isn’t that extravagant anyway.

        I guess it depends on what “vacation” means. In the context of this article, it seems like this lady actually travels for vacation.

        If we mean visiting the local beach as a “vacation”, we’ve really been screwed over by wealth hoarders.

      • @[email protected]
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        112 hours ago

        Even just the money for a motel along with gas and food is difficult for a lot of people.

  • @[email protected]
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    322 hours ago

    She’s an American? Even I know better than to seek lifesaving luxury care at a hospital. Booze and D.O.T. automatic transmission fluid. Fix you right up. Yup. 'Merica.

  • @[email protected]
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    61 day ago

    Sometimes I forget others really want to keep living. Excited to get the opportunity to pay more rent or wage slave harder for less? I guess some people are like really into that shit. Not me.

    • @[email protected]
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      620 hours ago

      i realize that some people sometimes think “i wish i was dead” but i don’t think anyone really goes “i wish i had severe health complications until i die a slow and painful death.”

  • Scrubbles
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    1022 days ago

    Kahn said looking back, she should have secured private health insurance as soon as she was laid off.

    “I should have done COBRA, even though it was very expensive,” Kahn said. “But yeah, hindsight is 20/20.”

    The near-$21,000 burden will probably lead to fewer vacations and a delay in having central air conditioning installed at her place, Kahn said.

    She said she hopes others can learn from her misstep.

    “It was my fault. I took the risk of not doing COBRA and that’s forever on me,” she said. "But if one person gets covered because they saw this story, then I would be happy about that.

    Our system is fucked, that is for 100% sure. There should be no way that someone goes into medical debt because they were laid off, and we should fight to have a better system.

    However, viewing the problem at the societal level and the individual level are different things. Societally we need to push for health care for all. Individually though - get COBRA, get on a spouse’s plan, whatever you need to do. Don’t risk it.

    • Cora
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      720 hours ago

      I got laid off and looked into the COBRA offering. Sorry, but I’m not paying $758 a MONTH for coverage. NOPE.

    • @[email protected]
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      521 hours ago

      DO NOT GET COBRA! That is NOT the fucking lesson! Look, just use healthcare.gov. it’s not perfect, but God damn it will get 90% of people affordable healthcare.

      • Cora
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        420 hours ago

        Thanks for reminding me of this. My COBRA coverage was asking $758 a month. I found a 0 deductible plan on healthcare.gov for $370. If I don’t get a job by the end of this month, I’ll sign up for that.

        • @[email protected]
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          214 hours ago

          Glad to help! It really is a lifesaver if you ever lose your insurance, I wish more people knew to use it.

    • @[email protected]
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      71 day ago

      The times when I was eligible for COBRA it was prohibitively expensive. I don’t know who it’s helping but definitely not worth it when it’s more than half your rent.

    • @[email protected]
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      552 days ago

      Paying literally hundreds of dollars per month as soon as I no longer have income isn’t a reasonable expectation either.

      If a freak accident like this happens while I don’t have a job, I’ll just go bankrupt and likely become homeless, then die. I’m counting on that not happening.

      • @[email protected]
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        242 days ago

        Yea people say get COBRA, but how are you supposed to pay for that AND rent/food/utilities? On top of that, you also need to apply and fill out all the paperwork and shit while dealing with actually finding a new job at the same time.

    • @[email protected]
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      181 day ago

      The problem is that COBRA is often unimaginably expensive, and since it’s something you’re faced with while out of work, it’s an impossible option for regular people. The better choice is to get private insurance as soon as you can, but coverage is usually tied to the start of calendar months, meaning you could be uncovered for a time if you don’t take COBRA. To make it even more wonderful, you often lose access to your health care immediately when you lose your job, so COBRA is only helpful retroactively after the fact in the event of a major emergency.

      Health care in the US is barbaric.

      • Scrubbles
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        21 day ago

        Oh I agree the system is fucked and cobra is equally bad. Being forced into this system though I would urge people to have enough in savings so that if they are dropped tomorrow from insurance they can at least rest easy knowing they have health care. Individually be ready for that rainy day. Societally yes let’s rip down our healthcare system

    • @[email protected]
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      1023 hours ago

      in civilized, developed countries, it doesn’t cost a kings ransom to receive necessary medical care.

  • @[email protected]
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    232 days ago

    Crazy situation. I’d like to let her father know that those sunglasses don’t fit his face very well.

    • @[email protected]
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      202 days ago

      https://www.fcgov.com/naturalareas/pdf/batarticle.pdf

      Myth: Bats get tangled up in people’s hair.

      Fact: Bats navigate and catch tiny insects using echolocation. This system is extremely refined and more sophisticated than radar. Bats can detect single strands of human hair and can easily avoid your hair.

      And then there was Bugsy, who was kind of an idiot.

      • @[email protected]
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        121 hours ago

        Seriously echolocation must have its drawbacks. Cause I been hit twice by bats in the face. No issues. Just a half minute of WTF.

      • Björn Tantau
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        132 days ago

        Didn’t scientists set up a high speed camera to see the amazing echolocation avoidance tactics of bats in action and actually ended up filming tons of collisions? I remember seeing that in some documentary.

        • @[email protected]
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          72 days ago

          Yep. Just because they are sensitive enough to detect something doesn’t mean they are agile enough to avoid it. I can see my environment just fine and I still give myself bruises walking in to tables and door frames.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 days ago

          Well, if so, I want to see a bloopers film with bats colliding in slow motion.

          squeak squeak squeak WHACK SQUEAK SQUEAK

          EDIT:

          https://www.vice.com/en/article/bats-crash-into-each-other-all-the-time-high-speed-cameras-reveal/

          Bats Crash Into Each Other All the Time, High-Speed Cameras Reveal

          The sight of bats bursting forth from caves at dusk is majestic enough to dazzle any spectator, scientist, or Gotham City billionaire orphan vigilante. Comprised of hundreds of thousands of mammalian aeronauts, these massive clouds of biomass seem to move as one organism, demonstrating the extraordinary coordination of individual bats.

          Or, so it would appear to the untrained eye. High-speed video cameras, however, reveal that bats are a lot more accident-prone than they look at first glance. A new featurette from the California Academy of Sciences follows bat biologists Nickolay Hristov and Louise Allen into the field near Hill Country in central Texas, to document the twilight flights of Brazilian free-tailed bats.

          YouTube video containing said slow motion collisions

          “We expected that they fly around each other and they never have physical contact,” Hristov said. “We have found, shocking to us, that bats crash into each other quite often. It’s a messy situation, but generally it’s very safe and it works very well.”