something needs to change.
i’ve spent a lot of the past 6 years in a hospital. i’ve talked with a lot of people. you’d be surprised at how people will open up to someone with a tube sticking out of their chest. i guess it’s a ‘you must know where i’m coming from’ type of thing. and let me tell you, about 97% of the time the topic of insurance and costs comes up. and in every single case they couldn’t afford it. healthcare cost is ridiculous. people have sold their cars, their homes, their baseball card collections just for a drug. parents have to have second and third mortgages just to get their baby a transplant that might save her life. and even if the family makes it in to a recovery/remission stage they are left with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt they owe to the hospital. forever. if they can even get that far. there are some case where the money just can’t be found. and yes, there are programs out there to offset the cost. but there are requirements and qualifications. for the without insurance folks that is where their saving grace is. but to the people who have insurance, who have a semi-decent paying job there is no help there.
in the past 6 years i had exactly 1 year without insurance. so all of the services and drugs i needed was paid out of pocket. granted it was heavily discounted because i begged and pleaded my no insurance/college student case. but i still didn’t qualify for any assistance due to my ‘fortunate’ bank account. so to date (not including my current stint) i have paid OUT OF POCKET over 1.5 million dollars. i have yet to qualify for any sort of program. i can barely get the hospital to stop charging me $84 for tylenol . i am so very fortunate to have good insurance. i am also very fortunate to have the money to pay those bills. but if i weren’t, i wouldn’t be in this hospital bed. i wouldn’t have made it this far. because i wouldn’t be able to pay the $2,500 a month drug bill. or the $200,000 drug treatments. how can anyone be expected to pay that? how can you ask a parent to make a choice between one childs christmas presents and the others medication. because no matter what you choose, both lose. and no matter how much debt you go into to make yourself healthy, you will be paying for that while living in poverty. unfortunately in this country, it’s cheaper to commit a felony and get treated in prison than to be an honest citizen and never have enough money to pay for you next round of treatment.
A section of the Rocky Mountain News newsroom sits empty on February 27, 2009 in Denver, Colorado. The edition on Friday the 27th was the last one for the nearly 150-year-old daily, Colorado’s oldest newspaper. The owner E.W. Scripps Co. announced the day before that the paper was closing down after efforts to sell the money-losing newspaper failed. (John Moore/Getty Images)
Caption: The floor of this school’s front office is littered with several decades’ worth of student records and report cards.
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan (March 14, 2009) - School’s Out For Ever
Viceland has a series of photographs from Detroit’s abandoned public schools. There’s something oddly chilling about them - a whiff of cultural and social death.
This is really not the most powerful photo, IMO. Everyone should go see the whole series…it’s sad and eye-opening.
Every day my wonderful friend Rachel forwards me the journalism job listserv circulated by her university. Of course, I usually skip right over the PR jobs that sound like they actually pay a living wage and head right for anything that says ´´reporter´´ or even better ´´intern.´´
Today, however, there was no skipping involved, nor was a forced to ponder what my parents might do to me if I tell them I am interested in spending a fourth summer as an intern.
This is because the listserv was even more pathetic than usual.
I´ve copied you all below. Anybody want to get a drink? (It´s almost 5 pm here).
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
1. JOURNALISM INTERNSHIPS:
Sorry, no postings this week.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
1. FREELANCE:
Sorry, no postings this week.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
1. JOURNALISM EDUCATION:
Sorry, no postings this week.
“
| — | throughthislens by my friend Julie, a recent graduate currently living in Buenos Aires. |
I’m not fooling around, internet. Obey.
I’m sorry to hear the bad news, Lunchbagart. Perhaps you should become a professional lunchbag artist. I bet Sasha and Malia Obama could use some super-sweet lunchbags. But seriously, you could make decorated lunchbag care packages for parents to give their kids! Anyway…good luck with the job search and thanks for the interesting artwork :)
