Inmate Charged With Bank Robbery Said He Did It To Get Medical Care
James Richard Verone woke up June 9 with a sense of anticipation. He took a shower. Ironed his shirt. Hailed a cab. Then robbed a bank.
He wasn’t especially nervous. If anything, Verone said he was excited to finally execute his plan to gain access to free medical care.
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Until last week Verone had never been in trouble with the law.
Now he hopes to be booked as a felon and held in prison where he can be treated for several physical afflictions.
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Verone says he’s not a political man.
But he has a lot to say on the subject of socialized medical care. He suspects he wouldn’t be talking to a reporter through a metal screen wearing an orange jumpsuit if such an option were available in the U.S.
What kind of country is this?
We live in the wealthiest nation in the world, but people have to rob banks and be sent to jail, just to get their medical problems treated.
Serial killers and child rapists get free healthcare, but the average working person doesn't.
We have the most technologically advanced hospitals in the world, but people die from easily treated problems, like abcessed teeth and the flu, just because they don't have money.
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
The way healthcare works in the U.S.A.... there is just no way to justify it. Insurance companies and their shills in Congress are perpetrating a horrible, heinous crime on the American people. Insurance companies do not help us. They prey on us, like a parasitic worm, slowly killing the host.
Every decent American should agree, that healthcare is a basic human right. Any American with any sense of compassion should agree, that the insurance companies need to be stopped.
I'm optimistic that they will be. With every story like this, the insurance companies become less powerful, and the movement for real universal healthcare becomes stronger.
Some day, and sooner rather than later, all Americans will be able to get medical care. They won't have to send themselves to jail to get treated. They won't have to go bankrupt to pay their hospital bills. People will not have to choose between paying for their food or medication. People won't have to live in constant pain and fear, because they can't afford to go to a doctor. The insurance companies will not be allowed to prey upon the people for much longer. Once single payer has been adopted in a few states, and people see how well it works, it will spread through the nation like wildfire.
The first domino has already fallen:
Vermont Governor signs nation’s first single-payer health care bill into law
We need to make sure that they keep falling. One after another. Until everyone gets access to healthcare. Until everyone realizes that its a human right, just like free speech or a fair trial.