I loved and still miss Don't Trust the B in Apt. 23. Krysten Ritter and Dreama Walker and Eric Andre being only somewhat weird and James van der Beek showing up at odd moments... That show was EVERYTHING I wanted in a sitcom, so of course it got canceled.
Speaking as someone who has had 6-figure medical events and survived financially because of ~being adequately insured~ ...
I hate to sound cruel and am not trying to, but it almost sounds like there was no or inadequate life insurance, health insurance, involved here. And not at fault of the insurance industry. Someone with 6 kids and celebrity means would seem capable of being insured to the teeth. There are surely people who would deny the risk of 1) polio, and 2) being uninsured, but would then cry for GFMs to fund prolonged iron lung treatment instead of vaccinating a child. While denying science over religion and sniffing coke off toilet seats.
Not everyone is a celebrity who can raise a nearly 2 million GFM. This story has been extremely thinly reported so more should be known about exactly why a celebrity with apparent means is in such dire financial straits. Expensive quack remedies or travel to international quack "spas"? Just plain old lack of personal responsibility? Personal religious beliefs?
It's possible he couldn't work due to cancer, and if your income as an actor drops below a certain amount, you're dropped off the insurance of the SAG/AFTRA union.
I made one back in 2020 when the herniated disc decided to destroy my life plan. Got zero money, burned through all my leave/vacation time and savings, and had to cash out my retirement to survive and get my life back in track. I would have retired in 2028 at 55. Now I will work until I die.
We need a commercial version of Firesign's "Beat The reaper" where there are side bets on patient outcome, and the patient gets to reap the vig to pay the bills.
Oh, well, there's a TV shoe on Apple+ called that.
Well done, Robyn. All anyone has to do is to look at history before there was any safety net at all, even the flat watery beer that passes for one here in the greatest country on earth.
Part of why our regime is the worst combination of fascism and communism, if one reads The Cancer Ward by Solzhenitsyn (and corroborated by many of my colleagues in the field), if a patient was not expected to return to being a "worker" there was no interest or investment in treating them (unless they were oligarchs with connection to power).
It very much seems that all of this patient blaming that we get from RFKJ, and the shutting down of the NIH, etc, will lead to similar approaches here, only the politically connected Rich will get proper cancer care, the rest of us will have to die miserably in the streets.
The NIH hasn’t been shut down. I’m presently participating in a research study, and have spent two weeks as an inpatient in the last 9 months.
They did shut down a bunch of one particular branch, which got the headlines. The branch that Anthony Fauci led before he retired. I can’t imagine why that area was cut🤷♂️.
I'm directly involved with the NIH and I stand by my language. Nothing is functional as it was before. The fact that your study hasn't been shut down (yet) does not represent the huge amount of work that has already been hampered or damaged, every day things get worse.
I saw a stat a few years ago saying that if GoFundMe were a health insurance company, it would be among the biggest in the country.
Please tell me more about this American Exceptionalism I hear so much about.
Even if we looked at people strictly like they are revenue-generating vessels meant only to increase the value of a corporation, how productive is a sick or dead person? Our lives are valued so little that I don't even have a snarky way to end this sentence.
I'm going to go back to work and cry at my desk for a bit.
I don't get it. My aunt, who had Medicare and supplemental health insurance paid for as a retirement benefit, fought ovarian cancer for 3 years - and she never faced any unaffordable bills ( hell, she didn't even have to pay co-pays ).
I'm not trying to minimize the awful way our health care and insurance systems impoverish MANY people, I just don't understand how common that is - and how fortunate my aunt was.
Yeah. Some of us are fortunate, with Medicare and another reliable secondary payer.
I had an MRI, and the billed cost was $4,000. My copay was $0.
But, until you’re old enough for Medicare or qualify due to a Social Security disability determination (SSDI, not SSI) then insurance is a crapshoot here.
That paid-for supplemental insurance was valuable, too, since Medicare doesn't cover 20% of ( at least some ) bills ( and most such policies require premiums ).
The Trump administration is not about to leave the ACA alone:
"The Trump administration says a proposed rule that introduces new types of insurance -- including multi-year catastrophic plans -- will expand consumer choice and lower premiums, but critics argue it could instead create more financial risk for patients.
The rule issued Monday will mainly affect offerings on the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) health insurance exchanges. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) blasted the proposal, saying it's a gift to insurers at the expense of families.
"Here are just a few things on offer: raising the out-of-pocket maximum, allowing insurance companies to offer even more complicated and indecipherable plans that include fewer in-network providers, and rolling out the red carpet for junk plans that don't cover essential healthcare," Wyden said in a press release. "On top of that, the Trump administration continues to heap more red tape on top of consumers, making the task of getting and maintaining good health insurance even harder."..."
What a timely post. Recently my best friend was having issues. The preliminary diagnosis was metastatic cancer. They called for an emergency oncologist report. After 6 weeks she finally got in. She has only MediCAL.
Heard from her last night after that appointment Turns out they are pretty sure that she has ovarian cancer but it is beatable. Gotta drain the fluid. See if it comes back. Yes-chemo. No- Hysterectomy then maybe chemo. Stage 4A but they are very optimistic that she isn’t gonna die right away. IF it’s wrapped around her liver then chemo. Or in her large intestine a colostomy. All the stuff is set up. Anyway there are remedies. Won’t be easy but she’s a fighter.
The biggest headache and hurdle will be, no doubt, navigating this archaic system. As if sick people need to deal with that too.
After my last doctor’s visit, she ordered an ultrasound and a follow-up appointment for a biopsy. I was supposed to have the ultrasound at the outpatient facility run by my doctor’s hospital just this past Monday. However, when I arrived for the appointment, I was told that my cost would be $1100. For a freaking ultrasound. I explained to the billing lady that I didn’t have insurance so I would be self-pay, which should be a lower price. She said that *was* the lower price, and that the regular price was $3000. Again, just for a freaking diagnostic ultrasound.
So, I left. After a quick google search, I found a medical imaging center near me. Their cost for the same ultrasound? $250. I have that appointment on 2/23, a few days before my scheduled biopsy. Still need to find out what the biopsy will cost.
If the biopsy shows cancer, the common treatment is surgery. My google skills tell me the cost for this varies widely depending on the type of surgery, and whether it is performed at a hospital or at a surgical center. I’m bookmarking those results just in case I need them.
This country has an absolutely ridiculous healthcare system, but the point I’m trying to make is that you shouldn’t assume that medical charges are what they say they are. They can be negotiated, and in some cases, there are much less expensive alternatives. Part of my hard-won knowledge comes from watching a recent episode of “The Pitt” (excellent show, BTW), in which a patient without insurance attempts to navigate the healthcare system to get necessary, lifesaving care. The money quote: “If the system doesn’t work for you, you’ve got to work the system.”
The star of that show was raised in a little hole-in-the-wall town in Pennsylvania that I lived in a few years before she was born. What an awful place.
Ritter was born in Bloomsburg, PA. Not what I'd call a hole-in-the-wall town (it is the only legally recognized "town" in PA) or an awful place. If you want one of those, just cross the Susquehanna River to Catawissa.
And being from that area, I can name a dozen places worse than Bloomsburg - including the small NEPA city I grew up in.
35 years in this field, 11 patents, 1 FDA trial approval (melanoma). Most drugs are linear, one gene controlling a single enzyme. Design a competitive blocker that isn't too toxic, mass-produce it and Bob's your Uncle.
Cancer is 26,000 genes going every which way but loose. Google "Permutations and Probabilities" and it ends in tears. The failure rate for most drugs in trial stage is 80%. The failure rate for cancer is 90%, and that's after you spend $500M-1B to get there. Phase 3 randomized trials are where they put your new drug against the best approved drug. You have to beat the champion to win.
Drug companies are evil, greedy bloodsuckers, but they don't want you dead. They don't want you cured, either, just well enough to keep buying their expensive drugs.
The problem with charity being the replacement for a social safety net is that billionaires are cheap mutherfuckers who already are willing to destroy democracy to avoid spending more than most will ever make in their life and they make in interest in an hour.
Imagine a world where medical bankruptcies are not a thing
If your medical bills are taken care of, you are no longer desperate and afraid of losing your job, which makes you more willing to beg for their crumbs.
Before HIPAA people (especially if they had sick kids with a pre-existing) were chained to their jobs; if they left they'd lose their health insurance and not be able to get more. It was, basically, a refined form of slavery.
I think you mean the ACA (which prevents insurers from denying coverage or charging more for pre-existing conditions), not HIPAA. The ACA also allows kids to remain on their parents’ insurance until age 26, whereas previously it was only age 18.
After I retired early, I got my insurance through the ACA, which was actually affordable until this year.
It was the portability part of it too, though, I recall. Used to be you were essentially stuck in your job because of healthcare, which you’d never get if you quit (or even took another, insured, job). This has been used as a plot element in various books.
I loved and still miss Don't Trust the B in Apt. 23. Krysten Ritter and Dreama Walker and Eric Andre being only somewhat weird and James van der Beek showing up at odd moments... That show was EVERYTHING I wanted in a sitcom, so of course it got canceled.
Oh, and FUCK OUR SO-CALLED HEALTH CARE 'SYSTEM'
Speaking as someone who has had 6-figure medical events and survived financially because of ~being adequately insured~ ...
I hate to sound cruel and am not trying to, but it almost sounds like there was no or inadequate life insurance, health insurance, involved here. And not at fault of the insurance industry. Someone with 6 kids and celebrity means would seem capable of being insured to the teeth. There are surely people who would deny the risk of 1) polio, and 2) being uninsured, but would then cry for GFMs to fund prolonged iron lung treatment instead of vaccinating a child. While denying science over religion and sniffing coke off toilet seats.
Not everyone is a celebrity who can raise a nearly 2 million GFM. This story has been extremely thinly reported so more should be known about exactly why a celebrity with apparent means is in such dire financial straits. Expensive quack remedies or travel to international quack "spas"? Just plain old lack of personal responsibility? Personal religious beliefs?
It's possible he couldn't work due to cancer, and if your income as an actor drops below a certain amount, you're dropped off the insurance of the SAG/AFTRA union.
Doesn't SAG/AFTRA have some kind of COBRA equivalent?
This stupid country…
I made one back in 2020 when the herniated disc decided to destroy my life plan. Got zero money, burned through all my leave/vacation time and savings, and had to cash out my retirement to survive and get my life back in track. I would have retired in 2028 at 55. Now I will work until I die.
I'm pretty well ready to burn everything down.
<snark>
We need a commercial version of Firesign's "Beat The reaper" where there are side bets on patient outcome, and the patient gets to reap the vig to pay the bills.
Oh, well, there's a TV shoe on Apple+ called that.
https://youtu.be/D3zZ_ih0Jpc
Well done, Robyn. All anyone has to do is to look at history before there was any safety net at all, even the flat watery beer that passes for one here in the greatest country on earth.
RIP
Part of why our regime is the worst combination of fascism and communism, if one reads The Cancer Ward by Solzhenitsyn (and corroborated by many of my colleagues in the field), if a patient was not expected to return to being a "worker" there was no interest or investment in treating them (unless they were oligarchs with connection to power).
It very much seems that all of this patient blaming that we get from RFKJ, and the shutting down of the NIH, etc, will lead to similar approaches here, only the politically connected Rich will get proper cancer care, the rest of us will have to die miserably in the streets.
The NIH hasn’t been shut down. I’m presently participating in a research study, and have spent two weeks as an inpatient in the last 9 months.
They did shut down a bunch of one particular branch, which got the headlines. The branch that Anthony Fauci led before he retired. I can’t imagine why that area was cut🤷♂️.
I'm directly involved with the NIH and I stand by my language. Nothing is functional as it was before. The fact that your study hasn't been shut down (yet) does not represent the huge amount of work that has already been hampered or damaged, every day things get worse.
I'm glad you got your care and hope it continues.
Unless we kick the parasitic Epstein class to the curb.
And claw back the ***TRILLIONS*** that they've stolen through tax cuts financed by the deficit-based Treasury borrowing since 1980.
I saw a stat a few years ago saying that if GoFundMe were a health insurance company, it would be among the biggest in the country.
Please tell me more about this American Exceptionalism I hear so much about.
Even if we looked at people strictly like they are revenue-generating vessels meant only to increase the value of a corporation, how productive is a sick or dead person? Our lives are valued so little that I don't even have a snarky way to end this sentence.
I'm going to go back to work and cry at my desk for a bit.
I don't get it. My aunt, who had Medicare and supplemental health insurance paid for as a retirement benefit, fought ovarian cancer for 3 years - and she never faced any unaffordable bills ( hell, she didn't even have to pay co-pays ).
I'm not trying to minimize the awful way our health care and insurance systems impoverish MANY people, I just don't understand how common that is - and how fortunate my aunt was.
Yeah. Some of us are fortunate, with Medicare and another reliable secondary payer.
I had an MRI, and the billed cost was $4,000. My copay was $0.
But, until you’re old enough for Medicare or qualify due to a Social Security disability determination (SSDI, not SSI) then insurance is a crapshoot here.
A good case for Medicare for All. Then everyone would have what your Aunt had.
That paid-for supplemental insurance was valuable, too, since Medicare doesn't cover 20% of ( at least some ) bills ( and most such policies require premiums ).
The Trump administration is not about to leave the ACA alone:
Link: https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/washington-watch/119844
"The Trump administration says a proposed rule that introduces new types of insurance -- including multi-year catastrophic plans -- will expand consumer choice and lower premiums, but critics argue it could instead create more financial risk for patients.
The rule issued Monday will mainly affect offerings on the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) health insurance exchanges. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) blasted the proposal, saying it's a gift to insurers at the expense of families.
"Here are just a few things on offer: raising the out-of-pocket maximum, allowing insurance companies to offer even more complicated and indecipherable plans that include fewer in-network providers, and rolling out the red carpet for junk plans that don't cover essential healthcare," Wyden said in a press release. "On top of that, the Trump administration continues to heap more red tape on top of consumers, making the task of getting and maintaining good health insurance even harder."..."
What a timely post. Recently my best friend was having issues. The preliminary diagnosis was metastatic cancer. They called for an emergency oncologist report. After 6 weeks she finally got in. She has only MediCAL.
Heard from her last night after that appointment Turns out they are pretty sure that she has ovarian cancer but it is beatable. Gotta drain the fluid. See if it comes back. Yes-chemo. No- Hysterectomy then maybe chemo. Stage 4A but they are very optimistic that she isn’t gonna die right away. IF it’s wrapped around her liver then chemo. Or in her large intestine a colostomy. All the stuff is set up. Anyway there are remedies. Won’t be easy but she’s a fighter.
The biggest headache and hurdle will be, no doubt, navigating this archaic system. As if sick people need to deal with that too.
I’m so sorry for your friend having to deal with this. Sending love.
Hoping for positive news for her, and I am glad she has a good best friend to see her through whatever is to come.
After my last doctor’s visit, she ordered an ultrasound and a follow-up appointment for a biopsy. I was supposed to have the ultrasound at the outpatient facility run by my doctor’s hospital just this past Monday. However, when I arrived for the appointment, I was told that my cost would be $1100. For a freaking ultrasound. I explained to the billing lady that I didn’t have insurance so I would be self-pay, which should be a lower price. She said that *was* the lower price, and that the regular price was $3000. Again, just for a freaking diagnostic ultrasound.
So, I left. After a quick google search, I found a medical imaging center near me. Their cost for the same ultrasound? $250. I have that appointment on 2/23, a few days before my scheduled biopsy. Still need to find out what the biopsy will cost.
If the biopsy shows cancer, the common treatment is surgery. My google skills tell me the cost for this varies widely depending on the type of surgery, and whether it is performed at a hospital or at a surgical center. I’m bookmarking those results just in case I need them.
This country has an absolutely ridiculous healthcare system, but the point I’m trying to make is that you shouldn’t assume that medical charges are what they say they are. They can be negotiated, and in some cases, there are much less expensive alternatives. Part of my hard-won knowledge comes from watching a recent episode of “The Pitt” (excellent show, BTW), in which a patient without insurance attempts to navigate the healthcare system to get necessary, lifesaving care. The money quote: “If the system doesn’t work for you, you’ve got to work the system.”
I wish for you that you are ok after all this bullshit.
Thank you, Sherry. 🥰
Not the point, but Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23 is so slept on
I had never heard of it when I started to watch it, and was bowled over by how funny a sitcom could be!
I loved that show. Kristen Ritter is excellent, as she was in “Veronica Mars” (another excellent show).
The star of that show was raised in a little hole-in-the-wall town in Pennsylvania that I lived in a few years before she was born. What an awful place.
Ritter was born in Bloomsburg, PA. Not what I'd call a hole-in-the-wall town (it is the only legally recognized "town" in PA) or an awful place. If you want one of those, just cross the Susquehanna River to Catawissa.
And being from that area, I can name a dozen places worse than Bloomsburg - including the small NEPA city I grew up in.
As was my mother. Ritter was raised in Shickshinny, though, and I can tell you from personal experience that it was a hellhole.
Oh yeah. Shickshinny and Mocanaqua, the "twin boros" of shitholes.
I lived right at the Shickshinny end of the bridge.
35 years in this field, 11 patents, 1 FDA trial approval (melanoma). Most drugs are linear, one gene controlling a single enzyme. Design a competitive blocker that isn't too toxic, mass-produce it and Bob's your Uncle.
Cancer is 26,000 genes going every which way but loose. Google "Permutations and Probabilities" and it ends in tears. The failure rate for most drugs in trial stage is 80%. The failure rate for cancer is 90%, and that's after you spend $500M-1B to get there. Phase 3 randomized trials are where they put your new drug against the best approved drug. You have to beat the champion to win.
Drug companies are evil, greedy bloodsuckers, but they don't want you dead. They don't want you cured, either, just well enough to keep buying their expensive drugs.
The problem with charity being the replacement for a social safety net is that billionaires are cheap mutherfuckers who already are willing to destroy democracy to avoid spending more than most will ever make in their life and they make in interest in an hour.
Imagine a world where medical bankruptcies are not a thing
We don't have to imagine it
They have one in the Netherlands
If your medical bills are taken care of, you are no longer desperate and afraid of losing your job, which makes you more willing to beg for their crumbs.
Before HIPAA people (especially if they had sick kids with a pre-existing) were chained to their jobs; if they left they'd lose their health insurance and not be able to get more. It was, basically, a refined form of slavery.
I think you mean the ACA (which prevents insurers from denying coverage or charging more for pre-existing conditions), not HIPAA. The ACA also allows kids to remain on their parents’ insurance until age 26, whereas previously it was only age 18.
After I retired early, I got my insurance through the ACA, which was actually affordable until this year.
It was the portability part of it too, though, I recall. Used to be you were essentially stuck in your job because of healthcare, which you’d never get if you quit (or even took another, insured, job). This has been used as a plot element in various books.
Charity is also insanely inefficient.
Right? I mean, who gets to decide who's worthy? Jeff Bezos? Muskrat?
If only there were a more equitable way of managing excess funds.
Bezos wouldn’t even pay for his international staff at the former WAPO to fly home after getting fired while overseas
There are go fundme’s for the employees of the third wealthiest person in the world
I saw a research presentation on GoFundMe medical contributions a couple years back. It really helps to be white. A lot.
Of course
What country did you think you were in, exactly ...?
https://youtu.be/NDn_kMtowLg?si=CnW9scUZsey73FsA
https://youtu.be/z_h_rd1FHIg?si=3vz8lylsm3lGLRNO
Keith Porter was killed by an off-duty ICE agent
Philando Castile was murdered carrying legally by a MN cop
Sondra Bland
Breanna Taylor
Ahmad Arbury
Tamir Rice
Trayvon Martin
"America" didn't care until the victims were White