You’re exactly right and it gets so much worse. I had a friend who needed a new lens in his eye. There were 3 options. For lack of a better explanation, it was, normal, better and best. His insurance only covered normal. So unless he could cough up more money, he only had the one choice.

My sister-in-law got very sick. She was in the hospital for almost a month. In the end, she died. My brother-in-law who was the executor of her will told me he saw the bill. It was $3.2M. You can’t force a dead person to pay and he was not responsible for her bills so it was pretty much just written off. But holy cow!

I think people in this country who think we have the greatest health care in the world, simply haven’t used it.

If I ever remove the spare tire from my car, I put air in it.

Probably not super helpful since most people don’t ever remove their spares or work on cars AND many new cars don’t even come with spares. But it helps me.

As you mentioned there is a dance between insurance companies and care providers. You should never pay a bill on the spot or upon first receiving it. Always wait until it says final warning. Often by then the bill has been reduced significantly.

There are many ways for the system to suck. When my wife and I were working it was less expensive for me to be covered by my company’s insurance and her by hers because adding a spouse to one policy was more expensive. This is because when you are working for a company that has a plan (not all provide this) the company usually pitches in on the cost of the insurance. The amount the company pays relative to the employee has typically been shrinking over the years. Combined the two of us paid about $500/month. Now that we are retired it is about $1500/month and the deductible has doubled to about $700 (which as I understand it isn’t too bad). There is also something called a co-pay, which is a small amount you pay for normal office visits regardless of anything else. Ours was $25. Now it is $50.

Coverages were all over the place. For a while we paid more to both be in the same insurance because my wife’s insurance would not cover alternative forms of birth control. My wife could not take the pill because it caused her to get blood clots. Ironically they would have paid (way more) for the birth of a child.

When my wife had a major issue, we found that ambulance services do not negotiate prices with insurance the same way as doctors, if at all. She was airlifted for a cost of $55k. Insurance paid $11k for some reason. The hospital stay (approx. 5 days) was $120k. Her max out-of-pocket was $16k, which we paid. Despite this, the air ambulance service was insisting that we pay the $44k and the insurance company was not budging on this. We had the same problem with the ground ambulance for $1600. This went on for like 2 years while my wife acted as intermediary trying to get the ambulance service to lower their price and the insurance company to raise theirs, figuring that having hit our maximum out-of-pocket meant we were off the hook. Not so. We were expected to pay this. Ultimately we were saved in the end when my wife’s employer paid those bills.

After that, assuming that because we had hit our max, it would be good for me to get my colonoscopy, we wound up paying the whole co-pay and deductible because I was not considered family. Yup, I’m a spouse. Apparently family means children. Why didn’t they say this? Probably to get people to do what I did.

So one of the biggest problems I think is when people don’t have insurance or they do have insurance but no real savings to speak of, they avoid getting health care for fear of the high cost.

In New York a while back there was a viral video of a woman who had her leg trapped between the subway train and the platform and all of the people on the platform teamed up to tilt the entire train a bit to free her. It is an awesome video of humans being kind. What wasn’t as viral was the fact that the woman had just prior to that, pleaded with the people on the platform NOT to call for help because she couldn’t afford it. Very sad for a country with so many resources.

Depends on who you ask. I’m American and went to the UK. I was looking to pick up my rental car, you know, so I could drive on the wrong side of the road and found a sign that read, “rental car collection.” I had to ask a local who was doing the collecting, because I don’t speak English. " If I was collecting the car, it’s a pick up. If they were collecting the car it’s a drop off. So…

I also butcher German and Spanish pretty well.

Yes and it can be a challenge. We married before I had really solidified my views on it. Ironically my views became solid AF because I started reading the Bible. Fixed me up right away.

We get by because she does not push it on me and I don’t really talk to her about it. I get along with her and her family because they are really good people who choose to follow the best parts of the Bible. They are relatively progressive, meaning they are tolerant of other religions, accept abortion more or less along the lines of Roe v. Wade, etc. I do wish she was an atheist because I liken religion to a cult and sometimes when she makes negative comments about MAGA people I have to hold my tongue. But otherwise she’s great. She takes care of me and I her. Been married 20 years.

If anything happened to her I think I would actively seek a new mate who was atheist.

Looks like a couple of pens to me.

Oh, at first I thought you were suggesting to try it on an intern and I thought what a great idea. If you can get an intern to cooperate, it’d be like the new jello shots. For a brief moment you were a genius, but sadly, not any more.

Tortilla chips?

Private jet. Because I hate TSA and I hate the friggin airlines. Completely ruins traveling, which I love.

I would like to suggest these are NOT fully grown ADULTS. Good luck with that though.

Yeah, but I’d love to have a switch blade. Seems really convenient to me.

I hate to be negative, but people have shown a propensity to dislike anyone not like them for thousands of years. Plain and simple. I think this situation can improve, but I doubt seriously, it will ever go away completely.

Yeah, it’s only on Tuesdays. Must be their slowest night or something. Wednesday also has $5.00 classic movies, stuff like Jaws and The Shining and that even comes with a free small popcorn. Pretty cool. I really like that place.

It’s in central Florida. I know …Florida. who da’ thought?

First, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, I think you should be just a tad bit MORE judgemental. Making excuses for people’s bad behavior is a bit like good people doing nothing and allowing evil to take over. You’re passively condoning the activity.

Second, the acceptable amount of littering is zero, not a cigarette butt is ok. I dropped my car off to be repaired and walked to work from there. You know what I saw along my walk. Thousands of cigarette butts. You don’t really see them from a car, but you sure see them on foot.

Third, I’m pretty sure this behavior is just trash humans. There are very few, if any, justifiable reasons not to hang on to your trash until you get to a trash can. This is my humble opinion.

Personally I like going to see movies in a theater. I even run a little movie group. We go out and talk over food , then hit up a movie. It’s a nice night out. I don’t want to see them go away entirely. The theater I go to is independent and the people who run it are cool. They gave my group a free tour of the projection area where they not only have new projectors but some old equipment they preserved. Fun fact: the bulbs got so hot that they could be dangerous and a special leather vest was worn whenever they worked on the projector in case it exploded.

The group only goes on Tuesday nights because the movie is $5.00. so yeah, in a time when everything is so expensive it feels like you can’t do anything, I understand to complaints. Tipping is like that too. It’s gotten out of hand.

But honestly, this is nothing new. I’m pretty old and it’s been this way for as long as I can remember. But calling the cops? Come on! The stupid thing is, movie theaters survive mostly on regulars like me and that woman. She’ll probably never go back there again. So they’re just shooting themselves in the foot.

Interesting thought. So perhaps had I been pressured later in life, I might have been a smoker.

When I was 6 years old, an older kid pressured me into smoking a cigarette. I didn’t get sick or anything. I just didn’t like it and decided one was enough. Never knew the best decision of my life would be made at that age.

Me too.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you. Nice of you to say.