inej “barbie has a great day every day” ghafa and kaz “ken only has a great day if barbie looks at him” brekker
Fucked up so bad my only option is birds holy crap
Reblog if you also think Toph shouldn’t have been a cop.
I want to see how “unpopular” this opinion really is outside cop-worshipping Reddit.
once a black widow sets her eyes on you…
Spider-Men
this moment during AGOS is one of the funniest in the series to me and i simply do not see it get enough love
let's recap what we've learned about the United States in the last few days.
things that are terrorism:
allegedly shooting a healthcare CEO whose company generated more pure profit (not revenue, profit) in a year than the GDP of 94 countries, exclusively by denying coverage to people who pay for it
a 42-year-old mother of 2 using the wrong combination of 7 words during a heated conversation with a call center employee at a health insurance company who was in the process of denying her health coverage.
things that are not terrorism:
mass shooting in a Black church to incite a race war
going to a BLM protest specifically to kill protestors
a neo-nazi running over a crowd of people, killing a woman
targeting and killing 23 latinos in an el paso, texas walmart
killing 12 people in a theatre, shooting 58 others, rigging your apartment with explosives
a QAnon groyper killing 7 and shooting ~50 at a 4th of July parade
killing 3 people and shooting several others at a Planned Parenthood in defense of the unborn
stalking someone relentlessly and then killing them and their child despite months of the victim making police reports
any one of the 1,200 murders committed by US police yearly, the vast majority being minorities
tightening your border while ~100 immigrants (including children) drown every year in the Rio Grande
United Healthcare killing an unnknowable number of elderly people by using faulty AI to deny medically necessary coverage
Aetna killing a woman by refusing to cover her cancer care
Blue Cross killing a 6-year-old by denying her appendicitis surgery
Cigna killing a 17-year-old child by denying her liver transplant
the pharmaceutical industry killing half a million people with opioids in the name of producing revenues in 2023 that rivaled the GDPs of countries like Spain, Mexico, and Australia.
the United States killing 45,000 people a year because they can't access health coverage
make sure you keep this guide handy the next time you find yourself interacting with your insurance company or any other millionaire, billionaire, or an individual who is part of a protected class such as a CEO or president of a corporation.
I feel like I should make a post about this because it’s not something that’s very well-known, and that Americans in particular may need to know about given the uncertain state of our healthcare system at the moment. I’ve wanted to write this out for a while, It’s kind of a long post, so sorry about that!
If you have an emergency and have to go to the hospital, you’ll owe the hospital a lot of money. (I got into a car wreck and broke my ankle and my arm. My hospital bill was around $20,000)
You’ll also owe the ambulance provider, if you need one. (My ambulance bill was about $800)
You may get separate bills from the anesthesiologist or surgeon. (My anesthesiologist bill was $1,700)
You may need follow-up appointments. (My orthopedic surgeon billed me for the appointments and his surgery together and it was about $1,000)
You’ve also got to pay for medical equipment you need afterward, like crutches or a walking boot. (Mine cost about $75)
Altogether, I ended up with almost $24,000 in medical debt from one car accident. That’s a really scary number for someone like me who makes $10/hr at a 12 hour a week job.
I got my debt down to $1075 by making some phone calls and submitting some paperwork.
The first thing I did was contact the hospital. They don’t make it easy to find, but many hospitals (perhaps most hospitals?) have financial assistance programs for people who can’t afford medical bills. I don’t make a lot of money, and I have bills to pay, so they were able to help me. I called the billing department and asked if they had any assistance programs for low income people who can’t pay their bills. I had to call multiple times, and I got transferred in circles by people who didn’t know what I was talking about. Finally, I got an appointment with someone in “Eligibility Services” (I don’t know what other hospitals call it, if it’s something different). I had to bring my pay stubs and copies of all of my bills. When I got to the hospital for the appointment, nobody knew what I was talking about so I had to wander a little to find where I needed to go. I spoke with the guy in Eligibility Services, and I waited for a decision on how much of the bill they would forgive. A month later, I got a call telling me it was totally forgiven.
I did the same thing for my ambulance bill and my anesthesiologist, but the process was a LOT easier. I just had to mail some paperwork and it was totally forgiven.
I didn’t bother with the medical equipment suppliers, since the bills came from separate companies and I didn’t feel like going through the process twice for $75. I was assured at the hospital that they had similar programs for debt forgiveness, so I could have probably avoided paying that too.
The only thing I couldn’t get taken care of was the surgeon/follow-up appointment cost, but they were able to put me on a no-interest payment plan.
Medical debt is scary because it’s something that can come from stuff that’s already really scary. I didn’t need the burden of $24,000 in debt on top of trying to get around on a crutch with a broken arm (it’s not easy, believe me!).. but I can’t imagine what it would be like with a bigger debt or a more severe medical emergency. I see lots of people in even worse trouble than I was in, both financially and medically. Please know that there are options for you when that GoFundMe doesn’t do enough. Even if your income is higher than mine, it’s worth a shot even for partial debt forgiveness.