A Nobel Prize-winning physicist sold his medal for $765,000 to pay medical bills
vox.com
vox.com
My grandfather went into a nursing home in Canada and the gov’t took 80% of his pension income and then subsidized the rest. That includes savings as well.
He was rejected from our universal healthcare system because of the astronomical costs of keeping a 96 year old man (with a life ending disease) alive.
Those costs exist under every system regardless of whether or not the customer sees those costs.
This is not a defense of our "private" healthcare system. This is a defense of our public healthcare system. They made the rational decision to focus their resources on younger people with better chances of recovery. Dr. Lederman made the rational choice to sell his Nobel prize to extend his life. At least that option was available to him! The same can't be said for people like Charlie Gard.
I try very hard to stay well and do precisely what I'm told by medical professionals.
Many people that I've met in the hospital do not. They're often older and should know better, but they'll hear "No foods or liquids", and sneak in beef jerky before surgery anyway.
That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Universal healthcare will need to cover all of these people who don't listen to medical advice, and will return because of it.
From a private insurance or single payer insurance perspective there may not be a difference between the two.
All I know is that I must have good medical insurance at all times, otherwise I will be screwed in so many ways.
absolutely crazy what we have become here. and i thought this stuff was only happening in 3rd world countries (like russia) where world known scientist live in poverty conditions.
My dad, making an upper middle class wage in a low cost of living area with good insurance, was almost bankrupt by the end of it. He had to borrow money from his siblings to bury my mother. On top of that, he is the kind of guy that makes /r/personalfinance proud. If someone like him that shuns most luxuries and makes a top 10% salary in the US can have his bank account decimated in under 2 years, I shudder to think about the 90% of people that make less than him and have less self-control.
As a society (US) we HAVE to solve this problem. Our healthcare system is a disaster from top to bottom.
Professors aren't really known for their lack of hubris, either... begging students/faculty for money might have seemed to him an activity that would rob him of whatever dignity he had left. In other words, I am not shocked a renowned Nobel Prize-winning physicist refused to ask for help.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/09/russian-bill...
Above the rest of itself?
tenured professors are the top 1% of academia and they have a pension no?
maybe he sold it to live out his final days with premium care.
maybe they decided his surviving wife would've rather had a liquid estate instead of a shiny medal in a closet.
For instance Professor Vickram Chandra of UC Berkeley [0] made ~$91k in 2016 [1]. Other professors make more, like Professor Alexandrova of UCLA who make ~$146k in 2016 [2]. You can poke around the UCs and compare. Do remember that most PIs labor in grad school for ~7 years, earning barely anything.
I do not know of other databases for other universities that do this, but many US states have sunshine laws that make professor's salaries public information. I know that Colorado also mandates that all public employee's emails are public information too and I think other states do this as well, though I do not have a list of them.
[0]https://english.berkeley.edu/profiles/22
[1]https://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/state-pay/art...
[2]https://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/state-pay/art...
I looked up my friends PI at Berkeley. (no Nobel) $300k
pension 50-75% of salary + retiree healthcare benefits
hard to say someone in that position is going to end up destitute unless they make terrible life choices.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/swilling-the-pla...
One of a thousand examples.
My history books (1980s public school, New York, US) most definitely taught nothing of the sort.
You have a point about the economic impact of the colonialism, and the economic value that was extracted. At least in the case of the UK, that was made it a global power. That is usually not discussed much, because it's history, not economics...
Annihilation of local tribes by colonisers
forced opium enslavement of China
dividing up China between France/Britain/Japan
pestilence from European cattle annihilating 2/3 of inland african people via starvation
the policy of the Holy Roman Emperor and The Pope to keep german states at war with italian states
emperor Chin executing the whole village where any crime at all occurred
The Spanish Inquisition
The Khmer Rouge
The Long March under Mao
Stalins purges and gulags
the list goes on
Premise: No they won't, it'll be whitewashed in textbooks and only those who study history will know. There's already so many so-called black marks that are worse and already quietly overlooked.
And you just offered a ton of support for the competing hypothesis that our period of history will be infamous along with the ones you’ve listed.
try it.
You think? Here's my experience (I went to school in Germany).
> Annihilation of local tribes by colonisers
Saw some TV documentaries on it. Not mentioned in history class.
> forced opium enslavement of China
Heard about it on a history podcast. Not mentioned in any sort of mainstream media or curriculums.
> dividing up China between France/Britain/Japan
Hearing about this for the first time now.
> pestilence from European cattle annihilating 2/3 of inland african people via starvation
Hearing about this for the first time now.
> the policy of the Holy Roman Emperor and The Pope to keep german states at war with italian states
This rings a bell, but only very distantly. So maybe I've heard about that somewhere, but no idea where.
> emperor Chin executing the whole village where any crime at all occurred
Who's emperor Chin?
> The Spanish Inquisition
Saw some TV documentaries on it. Not mentioned in history class.
> [the last three bulletpoints about communist dictatorships]
The gulags were mentioned in history class. Nothing about Mao or the Khmer Rouge. I saw some documentaries about Mao on TV, though.
In general, history education in school was infuriatingly superficial wrt the 20th century. The curriculum was basically chronological, starting with the antique Egyptian empire in 5th grade and ending with contemporary history in the 10th grade. (Then in 11th through 13th grade, the same structure, but condensed into three years.)
The obvious issue with this structure is that you always run out of time at the end of the curriculum, so you have to rush through the most recent parts of history, which IMO ought to be given the strongest emphasis of all periods.
The complicity of US corporations in the holocaust.
The way the US protected people who committed atrocities to gain a scientific advantage after WW2.
A summary of the book is that history textbooks have a tendency to avoid showing anything negative done by great American historical figures because they are held up as heroes for people in imitate. There is a narrative of constant progress that is told in the textbooks that does not match with actual history. History textbooks avoid talking about class struggles altogether, because if they did they would be labeled as Marxist. There is a general avoidance of discussing immoral foreign policy. The book backs up these claims by citing many popular textbooks and how they cover, or don't cover, historical events.
(The following summary of the book is my own understanding of the book's opinions and not necessarily my own. I haven't studied history enough to hold my own opinion.)
Treatment of indigenous peoples around the world is also another big blinders, although the US has done one of the better jobs of being forthright about poor treatment (compared to Canada, say).
I don't know if that guy is a liberal or conservative, but he is a Stanford professor, and that seems like a pretty reputable source. At least more than Howard Zinn.
Do you by chance consider yourself a conservative?
If we continue on the current path then im afraid we'll still be divided with all the consequences (same old same old).
" No they won't, it'll be whitewashed in textbooks and only those who study history will know. There's already so many so-called black marks that are worse and already quietly overlooked. "
"The Times found that nearly 20% of Trump supporters did not approve of freeing the slaves, according to a January YouGov/Economist poll"
The 13th amendment calls it out as an exception to the ban on slavery and there is not universal support to change that amendment
I had very similar figures (avg 18 months), although unofficial, from a person involved with nursing homes over here (western european well developed country with good medical system), although I obviously cannot cite.
So yes, please visit them as soon as you can after admission, don't put away...
There's a big difference between using violence to control other people, take their land or systemic disenfranchisement and the best healthcare being affordable to a big chunk of the population.
Things that are Really Bad(TM) involve people actively doing things that we consider highly immoral today. Healthcare is just a case of failing to find a workable solution. The situations are very different.
This sounds like "it's deeply immoral to plan ahead" to me.
"When you start talking about whether it is moral to be rich, you end up heading down some difficult logical paths. If I am obligated to use my wealth to help people, am I not obligated to keep doing so until I am myself a pauper? Surely this obligation attaches to anyone who consumes luxuries they do not need, or who has some savings that they are not spending on malaria treatment for children. But the central point I want to make here is that the moral duty becomes greater the more wealth you have. If you end up with a $50,000 a year or $100,000 a year salary, we can debate what amount you should spend on helping other people. But if you earn $250,000 or 1 million, it’s quite clear that the bulk of your income should be given away. You can live very comfortably on $100,000 or so and have luxury and indulgence, so anything beyond is almost indisputably indefensible." ~ Nathan Robinson, It's Basically Just Immoral To Be Rich
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2016/01/14/paul-glasziou-and-iain-...
How do you expect anyone to compete with the government and fund useful medical research if they aren't allowed to accumulate enough wealth to compete with the tidal wave of crap that governments are producing? You need to "hoard" at least a couple hundred million dollars to even hope to compete with that.
If you look at the latest news stories about Memorial Sloan Kettering (ProPublica is a place to start) and conclude that the government should minimize involvement in medical research for the betterment humankind Because Competition... you will certainly find plenty of friends, I suppose
Also, think about Elon Musk with 22 billion (https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/elon-r-musk/). His entire wealth is what governments currently waste on crappy medical research every couple months.
Lets say NIH is producing 99.99% crap (about 1 in 10k papers is useful) at ~$30 billion per year. Elon musk could set up MIH (Musk Institutes of Health) that is 100x more efficient (producing 1/100th the papers, but that are "only" 99% crap) for ~$300 million/year. After 73 years, about one human lifetime, the fund would be bankrupt. That's why I say you need to accumulate at least a couple hundred million dollars to hope to have an effect.
> and the best healthcare
The US does worse across a wide range of health measures.
>There's a big difference between [...] systemic disenfranchisement and [...] healthcare being affordable to a big chunk of the population.
I edited your post a bit. Frankly, I don't see the difference unless you don't classify healthcare as a right. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human rights would disagree with you, but that's okay.
If that doesn't float your boat, we can look at outcomes instead. In both cases, people are forced to live without dignity regardless of whether or not that end is achieved by systemic financial coercion, by strapping someone to a board and pouring water on their face, or by bludgeoning them.
All are inhumane.
Healthcare is not a 'we can't find a solution' problem. It is a 'a lot of people are making a lot of money off this combination of inelastic demand and opaque pricing for technical service' problem. Call a spade a spade.
> "I'm shocked it sold at all," Lederman's wife, Ellen, told The Associated Press on Friday. "We would let little kids play with it and have their picture taken."
> Auction manager Laura Yntema told NBC News that the winning bid was placed online — but she declined to provide further information about the buyer, citing the auction house's confidentiality rules.
So an anonymous person provided for Lederman’s retirement in exchange for “ownership” of a piece of metal, with little intrinsic value, no sentimental value, and that will forever be know as “Lederman’s Nobel medal” never as belonging to the buyer.
Just another way to look at how the “mechanics of society” worked in the case.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/physicist-leon-...
That so many people I personally know in America are absolutely fine with this is something that blows my mind. I think it's insane, but I'm a "socialist" Canadian who shouldn't be pushing my crazy ideas on the southerners.
You’re likely seeing cheaper prices because of cheaper labor and doesn’t really tell us anything about the efficacies of a free market system or a third party payer system.
The fact is that the US spends much of its money on caring for the elderly already, and there is, as the article notes, medicaid for those who cant afford to pay for nursing home care. As a result, im a bit confused as to why he had to sell his medal.
Having something that you could sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars therefore may be a disqualifer.
1. Willing to gamble they'll never get sick 2. Don't want "their" tax dollars paying for other people's medical bills, other peoples anything for that matter. More aircraft carriers please! 3. Don't think there's a problem with the system because it hasn't destroyed them yet. 4. America is #1, best health care in the world, and any contrary information is ignored.
Unfortunately for a lot of people if a problem doesn't impact them directly, it's not a problem or doesn't really exist and anyone else can eff off. In a very real way it's not just anti-socialist, it's just anti-social.
For instance, I truthfully told my boss I wouldn't mind my tax rate increasing if it meant everyone got medical coverage. He almost lost it, like he was ready to kill me, he was so angry. The fact that he would lose even more of his money, the rage, it was ferocious.
I really saw first hand the "I got mine, fuck y'all" mentality. I didn't think it was real until then. I always thought that was sound-bite fox news talking point and the argument was over how much one should sacrifice for others. I stand corrected.
Money is a zero sum game, otherwise we could just print as much as we could. We're only as rich as others around us work hard for us. Granted, we live in a crony capitalist society so it's not working that well. For example, healthcare in the US is notorious for failing to spend money wisely.
* predatory lending would drop (people not having to go to payday lenders to get money for medicine, for example)
* fewer sick days from people (either for themselves or their kids)
* FAR FAR FAR more mobility in the labor force, as so many people feel locked in to their job because "insurance". Employer-provided insurance is one of the biggest things holding down our innovation and progress in society, IMO. I know dozens of talented people who are afraid to move jobs, move cities, or make any change at all because "current job = health insurance". They'll never be able to go work for newer small company X, because "insurance". Big companies may bitch about costs, but employer-provided insurance is a huge moat - financially and emotionally - that keeps the status quo humming to the detriment of many on the lower end.
> losing the birth-lottery
The cited rate for skilled nursing care in the article is not accurate. US 10K/month is about normal for a SHARED room for someone who is NOT in a memory unit. It only goes higher from there.
There's something to be said for keeling over from a sudden heart attack as a septuagenarian.
>Many Americans do end up getting Medicaid to cover nursing home bills — but that often requires selling off significant assets and dwindling down savings in order to fall below the public program’s income requirements.
The costs are so high is because much of that money goes to subsidizing Medicare and Medicaid, hence the socialist aspect of having to downsize your assets to qualify.
Also the last sentence you wrote doesn't make sense. Please justify your use of "socialist aspect of downsizing assets to qualify".
If you'd like to learn more about how hospitals that serve Medicare/Medicaid patients need additional taxpayer funding to remain financially solvent, you can look at the statistics around Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH).
Why do we need Health "Insurance" to just go see a doctor ? Why not pay the doctor directly which cuts out middlemen (insurance and billing companies) for simple stuff and keep insurance for you know the reason Insurance should exist: catastrophies.
After all, why should ordinary people be allowed to slowly amass modest fortunes to pass onto their heirs?
If you want to know who is truly elite in America, see whose debts cannot be discharged through bankruptcy.
If you have a lot of assets you want to pass to your heirs, but not enough assets you don't mind selling to pay for your end of life care, it's best to give to your heirs over the course of your life.
The downside is a substantial gift while the giver is alive has a paperwork burden, as well as a loss in the step-up in cost basis you get when giving after death. The upside is you get to see how your heirs use the gift and you can express your feelings directly, rather than through rolling in your grave.
"Something somewhere is wrong."
Undoubtedly.
Could you be more specific about the problem you have in mind?
Because I think you'll find that there isn't a consensus about what the problem is.