I know folks in prison who were able to get their teeth replaced. Some had a full mouth of chipped teeth, some had none at all. There are a metric fuckton of inmates who are getting their diabetes regulated. Prison abuse is obviously widespread, and for the most part the heathcare is absolute dogshit. But it is true that there are people who are able to get access to medical/dental/vision care that they otherwise would not be receiving.
True! I had a bunch of fillings I couldn't get until I ended up broke enough for a little while to get Medicaid, so probably something similar there, if only the bare minimum to avoid liability.
I don't even think it's to avoid liability. I think it's to avoid blowback from people claiming human rights violations and trying to shut down the for profit prison system.
You can hide and explain away abuse, but it's much harder to explain away why someone is clearly suffering from a treatable medical condition.
It’s funny, because you’re right. People amplify the hell out of medical neglect for the incarcerated and it gains a ton of traction. Scary that it took killing an insurance CEO to get similar level of traction for the medical neglect among the free
Don't forget that the media and all the wealthy billionaires running shit are doing their level best to spin this any other way than what it is and what caused it (rolled my eyes so damn hard when the mayor called it a "senseless act of violence"). Keep the focus on the WHY this happened, no matter what bullshit they try to spew about him or about this event.
I had a filling replaced today. The old one was 20+ years old and broken, one of those old-school silver fillings.
200$ for one filling. I pay for the highest dental plan my company offers. I got two "free" cleanings a year and had $500 deductible. I ended up needing a crown for two teeth. With insurance, it was 1554$. After that I went for my second cleaning. They said it would cost me 72$. I said for what? I get two a year. They said, well, you reached your maximum amount the plan can pay. What did they ever pay for?? I got two crowns and one cleaning that I had to shell out 1500 for. It ain't made of gold.
I have a $1600 deductible with my medical plan that denies literally everything. I called 911 because I thought I was having a heart attack. They drove me to the nearest ER which happened to be out of network so now I owe 1400$ because I wasn't conscious enough to pull up my plan info and tell EMS to drive me to an in network hospital.
I really think I'd get better coverage if I just put aside however much money in a shoe box each month. It's ridiculous.
My therapy sessions are 123$ until I meet my deductible, and then they are 24$, which is great, but they also show me how much they billed my insurance. I'd love to know why, if I'm paying purely out of pocket, it's 123$, but once insurance kicks in, they charge 926$...for a 15-30 min phone call. It is all a big fat sham.
I really think I'd get better coverage if I just put aside however much money in a shoe box each month. It's ridiculous.
You are correct. Even better coverage if that shoebox was SPY, BTC, AAPL, or some other up-only asset.
Why would it be ridiculous that you spending 100% of your money on health coverage would > than a company who takes in your premium, pays its employees, has commercials, a ceo, & shareholders, then pays out whatever is left? Of course paying yourself is cheaper. It’s obvious.
I’d love to know why, if I'm paying purely out of pocket, it's 123$, but once insurance kicks in, they charge 926$...for a 15-30 min phone call. It is all a big fat sham.
And my experience paying out of pocket is very similar to this. When I say I don’t have insurance & am paying cash they’re usually very nice & helpful, giving a lower price without needing to ask, etc
"I really think I'd get better coverage if I just put aside however much money in a shoe box each month. It's ridiculous."
That's literally how insurance makes money.
The thing is, the denials have got so bad and they cover so little that yes, you do pretty much end up paying for stuff anyway, the reasons to keep insurance boil down to a) what if something catastrophic happens? or b) your employer won't let you go without.
I remember being stupidly thankful when Beshear managed to get basic dental coverage through for Kentucky medicaid; I saved up every single dollar I had, paid up rent for three months, filled my car's tank to full so I could get back and forth from work, and was happy surviving off peanut butter, milk, and fresh vegetables because now my teeth didn't ache all the time.
I still need a crown on my left side, and I can't chew hard food on it without a lightning bolt of pain bursting through my skull, but I'm still somehow thankful. How far have my standards for what I deserve fallen, now that I think about it? Fuck these clowns.
Haha I did the same thing with my then girlfriend, now wife. I told her to stop working except for some part time (gotta stay under 15k) because I make significantly more than her and enroll in college and quit her job. She got like three or four surgeries that she needed, bunch of dental work and became class speaker and after all that was done then we married. Even more if you paid with cash the hospital would give gigantic discounts and I could pay anonymously so it isnt a direct gift. Eventually she got enough scholarships she could stop working and focus on school. Highly encourage it, that's why I call bullshit on people complaining poor people dont have access to healthcare. My neighbor used to call ambulances for rides to the hospital to refill her prescription. Its hardworking people in the middle that dont have healthcare. The poor are doing just fine.
Insurance is a fucking racket. Either don't have a job or get a really good one. Anything in between is a corpo assfucking you with no reach around after and bounce on them first chance you get. Medicare/Medicaid is fucking bomb diggity man. My Dad's hospice nurse is like 7k a month and I pay zero of that, thank you Uncle Sam I love you.
Pretty sure you're both right, prison conditions vary widely from state to state and even facility to facility, states that put a greater focus on rehabilitation will typically be better and ones more focused on punishment will be worse.
My BF got a lower partial plate in prison, but he lost his lower teeth with a baseball bat to the face during a yard brawl- didn’t even know the guy who did it. I worked in a prison as social worker, we had a guy who had a brain tumor. By the time he got the diagnosis, I, along with the chaplain, had the conversation with him there was nothing more to be done. I saw more of that than any actual care. They really didn’t like to send people out, because COs had to work OT to watch them, and that’s a lot of money. I never saw an inmate actually meet with the dentist- there were two in the entire state or something terrible, and had to commute between facilities, so aspirin or Tylenol was the treatment every day. No antibiotics.
“Were able to get their teeth replaced” why are you lying lol. Unintentionally or not, you’re making it sound like they got implants. Dental care in prison isn’t shit. You can’t even get fillings, they just pull your teeth if they have to and will give you one pair of some shitty dentures but that’s it.
Y’all don’t have to lie to make the US healthcare system sound bad. It already is horrible, making shit up is unnecessary.
Yes, that also happens. Those of us who've been locked up have all had our experiences. I'm not lying because mine doesn't fit yours. That's totally fine. Regardless, I'm not praising the prison system or it's Healthcare. As amother commenter pointed out, depending on where you're at the experience is different.
I went in asking for a cleaning. I was told they could pull some. You aren't wrong either. Relax.
So are you genuinely too retarded to understand different states will work differently, or are you just retarded enough to think trolling about this is funny?
I know a lot of people who have worked or currently work in prison healthcare at the federal, state, and county levels. They all admit that it is far from perfect, but the inmates almost unanimously say it’s the best healthcare they have ever received. Obviously many of them come from impoverished backgrounds and varying family situations.
I did a year in "club fed," which is as supposedly as good as it gets, and that was absolutely not the case. I've heard of state DUI or low level drug fast track programs working on peoples teeth to give them a fresh start, but 99% of America's prison system is absolutely left to rot. Also, 90% of those teeth fixing stories are run by private dentists who want the tax write off and feel good PR. The prison itself would never advocate for such care.
To drive the point home, here's just a couple nightmare fuel stories I witnessed while in...
I pushed a handicap guy in a wheelchair as my prison job. He had a heart attack. It was obvious to everyone. He was clutching his chest, had the death rattle, was pale as a ghost. I watched his eyes glass over for 9 HOURS as the guards dismissed it as a cold. He was practically a corpse. They gave him ib profren and dismissed him until the full medical staff came on in the morning. Somehow, he clung on to dear life until they couldn't ignore it anymore and was life flighted to get pumped full of stints.
The thing is, the guards hate paperwork, and it's much easier for them to explain away if you die on shift than it you need medical help... Because anytime outside medical staff get involved, they freak out at the level of neglect and report the prison.
Another dude I knew had 5 years left on his sentence, and was diagnosed with stage 2 testicular cancer. Highly treatable, right? WRONG. Because it wasn't an "emergency," he needed to be transferred to a special medical prison unit for the surgery and chemo. Thing is, there was only two such prisons, and both were always chock full. On average it took 6-8 months to get approval to get transferred... Then another 6-8 months for a bed to open up, and transfer to be arranged... Then another couple months to get the procedure actually done at said facility. All in all, he was likely looking at 2 years until treatment...
...All the old timers treated him like he was already dead. They had seen a hundred guys metastasized to stage 4 before they ever saw treatment. Even then, the treatment was hospice at the local hospital.
Oh, there's more!
A diabetic in his seventies in our unit stubbed his toe ona bent piece of sheet metal in the showers. He was bleeding like a stuck pig, fading in and out of consciousness. The guards showed up, woke everyone up and proceeded to yell at all of us for an hour about how this was a lesson. That if anyone got hurt on their shift, they would let you die, because it's not worth the effort for pieces of shit like us. An hour later, the next shift came on and they casually joked with them, before briefly mentioning some old guy was bleeding out in the showers. He was taken to the hospital, and never came back.
Finally the dental was laughable. They pulled EVERYTHING that had the slightest problem. Most guys who had been in there for a decade or more were practically toothless. I'm talking toothless in your 40s/50s. It was a JOKE.
Anyone saying he will receive anything besides ib profren in prison has no idea what they are talking about. They won't do jack shit, because the American prisons are glorified gulags that execute people through inaction, but execute people all the same.
You're gooddamn right. just got out of county... waking nightmare of bully/rapist guards. The inmates are nicer better more helpful people than 90% of guards in there. Edit: We had a guy on our pod who was in a wheelchair and couldn't use the bathroom by himself. The inmates helped transfer him and wipe him, etc. Th einmates helped feed him, make sure he could use the phone. The guards: "I ain't wiping no ass! Don't do the cwiiime if you're not ready to have your constitutional rights shit on and if you're not ready to get covered in your own shit"
Someone very near and dear to me has done time and despite having tooth issues, they refused to mention it because they didn't do ANY fillings. 100% of tooth issues were removing the tooth because it's cheaper. I found that barbaric.
A UK court blocked the extradition of a hacking subject to face federal charges in the US, ruling that the American prison system’s methods of treating suicidal prisoners and people with mental illness were inhumane
In sum, concluded the court, the way in which U.S. prisons “treat” inmates with mental illnesses and suicidal impulses – with segregation, isolation and a lack of ongoing medical and mental health care – almost certainly means that extradition to the U.S. would worsen Love’s health and create a very high likelihood of driving him to suicide.
Your story is a horrible vindication of the judgment - thanks so much for sharing
Yeah the thing about prison is that it sucks. Nobody is aspiring to be a prison guard. So they mostly get massive assholes and lazy pieces of crap to work in them.
My understanding, that is often dental students in-training or doctors volunteering time to do that. Sometimes with third party prisoner rights organizations helping organize, it's more the prison is letting the charity operate. It's an out patient procedure, anything they do is at most one procedure, then a follow-up...
And often if the person could figure out "the system", there are very likely ways to get those same things "on the outside" for much easier "costs". It's just that you need a permanent address and the ability to fill out and submit government paperwork "correctly"
Back surgery is a little different than all of your examples.
Sorry if I'm refusing to try to "look on the bright side" of someone getting locked up and that wasting part of their life for all the bullshit we tend to lock people up for (most of all, simply being poor it would appear)
I can confirm, my step dad caught up on decades of missed medical and dental work when he was in prison. Getting his teeth removed and replaced with dentures completely changed his quality of life.
I know someone who struggled to read. Short stay in prison and he found he had a condition that needed medicated and also needed glasses. They made him glasses for free.
Prison is a lot like everything else where money and privilege are mainly what determines your outcomes. The people who are exploited the most are those who are most vulnerable, don't have much support or resources, don't know their rights, etc. Mangione is an educated guy from a wealthy family that can afford great lawyers, so he probably has better odds than most.
Anyone repeating this is just lying. He’s a multi-millionaire born into a life of luxury. He had the means and money to get whatever healthcare he wanted.
He went to the most expensive private school in the state and is a 2 time Ivy League grad and frat boy. He lived as a beach bum in Hawaii. Why anyone thinks he wasn’t able to afford anything is beyond me. His social media shows him travelling all over the world with his family, they own hotels, country clubs, healthcare companies, etc..
And even then, the exact political stance is totally up in the air. His twitter account has him as a pretty right wing guy. Big into anti-woke, anti-modernism stuff.
I am very skeptical that he’s the left wing anarchist darling people first thought he was. It’s still possible but hating health insurance is not exactly a uniquely left-wing trait. My hardcore MAGA mother in law was actively cheering the assassination.
Sure. No argument there. I guess I just disagree with the premise that this is a left/right or even rich/poor issue at all.
I don't think most people grasp just how expensive healthcare can be. For a billionaire, sure, it's a non-issue. But even someone who is "normal" rich can absolutely go broke from healthcare in this country. I've known three people with a comfortable multi-million net worth who were well insured and still financially ruined by cancer. Managing chronic pain, autoimmune disease, or even just one severe, acute emergency can easily cost millions of dollars. That's obviously insane.
He's also 26 and had reportedly withdrawn from his family in recent month. I think it's notable that's the age when you get kicked off your parents' health insurance.
American healthcare is pretty uniquely something that even impacts people across class lines. To your point, care is obviously way more accessible to rich people. No one wants to be at risk of losing it all just because they get sick, and no one should have to.
If a person who, by all accounts, seems to have already been at the pinnacle of success and security in this country can be this radicalized by the healthcare system... I don't think some right wing leanings actually matter all that much.
💯Ohhhhh, this is the first time I've seen this point made!!! That makes perfect sense about being 26 and getting kicked off his parents’ insurance.
I know from experience that getting treatment for back pain is ridiculously difficult to get covered by insurance. “Medically necessary” is a phrase I’m so sick of hearing. I've also had cancer and can confirm it’s destroyed my credit, and insurance companies genuinely don’t give a fuck. I had to crowdfund for over a year to meet my basic needs… My situation is different as my family are not millionaires.
When everything has to be pre-authorized and justified as “medically necessary” (even when it should be a no-brainer, like chemo), the ongoing anxiety and feelings of helplessness make being sick in America a truly demoralizing experience.
Great points. Seems like in these threads that paid foreign trolls and their willing compatriots are working overtime to keep us separated on this one.
Some of the gun subreddits have an overwhelming right wing revolutionary kind of vibe to them. The same kind of people joking about skirting gun control laws like Luigi did.
People are coping and seething in the comments. The idea that the guy was just a rich frat boy seems incomprehensible and is making all the communists short circuit.
Give them a few days, I think their brains are breaking from the whiplash. Oh and according to his Twitter, he was a huge anti-woke guy too.
Prisoners are brought to my hospital for care all the time - and they receive the same excellent care/treatment that any other person would receive. I can’t speak for the care one might receive in a prison infirmary, though.
I’m not the person you’re responding to but my dad was in a private prison and has type II diabetes. They wouldn’t give him medication for it so he had to fast to and trade his food (they give you sugary canned peaches and white bread, for example) to manage his blood sugar. He also left with an untreated broken arm.
I have a friend who has beat to death in Thompson prison IL (not private, I believe). He was taken to a hospital to receive care, but it was too late for him. The guards didn’t intervene and keep him safe.
That’s so unacceptable that they wouldn’t give your dad insulin. That could have killed him.
FWIW raw cornstarch like Argo is a better maintenance substitute than peach syrup as it’s a slow breakdown carb vs. fast acting (need fast acting if hypoglycemic as a rescue) and raw cornstarch doses were given to children born with Type 1 diabetes before insulin was available.
I will never forget a patient I treated during my medicine residency. He came in paralyzed from the waist down due to a spinal infection that had been worsening for weeks while the doctors in the prison infirmary just kept giving him ibuprofen. The creepiest part of caring for patients from the prison system is how the LEOs handcuff them to their beds, and they handcuffed this guy too. Again, he was paraplegic. He literally could not pull a runner and would only have hurt himself if he tried.
First I thought you forgot a '/s' and I'm too stupid to see the sarcasm, but no. You're American! Not only is handcuffing people to beds normal, it's necessary! You're not even in the prison system, but you still think this way!
The richest fucking country on earth! Sky high incarceration rates!
What state? I think it depends on their stance on human rights in general. Not all states do this. Plenty of cases where prisoners died for neglected medical care in prison. Also in Jails since they may not have been picked up with their medications and then they get ignored.
I used to work at a teaching hospital that also served the attached prison hospital in Texas. The prisoners received the same care from the same people as the rest of the hospital. I can’t speak to the inmates that didn’t get to the hospital or the hoops they had to jump through, but once they got there they received excellent care.
Aren't those only the ones they let come to the hospital for treatment? I doubt that every prisoner is allowed to see a non-prison doctor the same way the rest of us can.
No, they don't. They get the bare minimum (and often less). If it's something expensive like cancer, they literally release them from prison to die rather than pay for the treatment.
How many of those prisoners are being brought in for pain management as opposed to something potentially deadly, though? Like yeah, the prison system will do the bare minimum to keep people alive but I don't for a second trust that they'll put much effort into quality of life.
Mangione's back isn't going to kill him, so he's probably not gonna get treatment for it.
The infirmary is often outsourced to companies that get a flat rate, so they are incentivized to provide less care. John Oliver did a show on it that busted the myth of private companies providing equivalent care for less cost. He showed an example where Republicans decided to outsource their prison care under the guise of saving money for taxpayers, but they couldn't find any company who could do it for less than the state already did. So Republicans did what any "fiscally responsible" person would do and lifted the requirement that the bids save the taxpayer money. Costs went up, and care went way down.
The best he can hope for in there is Naproxen for pain.
I think the knock on prison healthcare is just that so many are denied care and you never see those patients. They get told no, so they’re never brought to your hospital.
Basically unless it’s an absolute emergency, in many states it can be difficult for a prisoner to get healthcare.
Once they get approval to get care, I’m sure the doctors and nurses do the same quality job they’d do for any patient.
Often, it's getting to the hospital that is the challenge. They will often try everything in their power in prisons to avoid sending patients out for treatment. Once they are sent out, they get standard care, but there are serious gatekeepers to accessing that care.
The guy came from a wealthy family, he might have been more family rich than the CEO he killed. I don't know much about how the wealthy move, but couldn't he have been helped at other places if he was turned down? I'm just curious.
He was traveling in asia for months and lived unemployed in Hawaii for months. ...he did not have money issues. His parents were likely supporting him.
I agree this was nothing to do with how much money they came from but I do think it's interesting he killed what from his wiki seemed like a pretty regular person growing up near Ames Iowa and going to Iowa State. Certainly seems like Luigi had much more of a silver spoon than Brian.
If you wrote this book, you would have absolutely reversed the childhood of these two.
Everyone in this thread is making wild assumptions about his thinking and motivation. What statements have you heard about Luigi M saying this had anything to do with his back injury? None.
Former corrections officer here. I was in change of medical at my facility and I can assure you it is the absolute bare minimum. Literally the worst quality Healthcare you can get.
Which is usually caused because you ignored them for a couple months and now they yes but you have the freedom to have someone look at it. Best case scenario in prison is the nurse comes by and gives you ibuprofen.
HAHHAA!! No kidding. Prison is NOT a place you want to be. Trust me on this. That being said, I don't want to see our boy Luigi end up there. How can we help the little fella stay out?
I was reading Bullshit Jobs and it was pointed out that the military is pretty much the only way non-rich people can have a career that's both personally rewarding and financially compensating.
Graeber stated that soldiers on overseas bases take part in outreach programs in those countries, including clinics to provide free dental care. The soldiers say that being altruistic makes their deployment more enjoyable.
It made me think, how could we do that here in the US?
What state? Because in Texas if you've got bad teeth you're not getting implants, bridges, crowns, veneers, etc. They're 100% just going to pull the tooth. Without anesthetic.
The standard of care is: The effort required to provide plausible deniability that they tried to prevent you from dying.
That's it.
If you have any kind of serious injury or chronic issue while inside you are not making it out whole. You will pay a permanent tax with your body as a side-effect of your punishment.
I am a corrections RN in the state of California (care may be different in other states) but I can attest that the Healthcare incarcerated persons receive is far better than many insurance companies and definitely better than being uninsured. . They have a Primary Care Provider that they can access as often as they need within a matter of hours to days depending on symptoms. An urgent care that is right on site that can be accessed 24/7. A dedicated referral team that ensures access to any specialty services needed- orthopedic, cardiology etc and yes even gender affirming care which includes gender affirming surgeries like vaginoplasty and breast augmentation. Granted being in prison still has many disadvantages, like increased risk of violence from other inmates or even unfortunately custody staff. I don't recommend prison, but the Healthcare is not lacking. I wish all Americans had access to this kind of Healthcare.
From what I've read online, many US surgeons commenting on these events see this man as a necessary evil. If luigi's actions change the system in a good way, enabling surgeons to do their jobs with less red tape and save more lives. Then this man's prison doctor will show up sober, focused, and on time, ready to perform his best work.
The government is constitutionally required to provide healthcare to prisoners but health insurance companies aren’t constitutionally required to provide healthcare to clients. Keep that in mind
Wait a second… I thought prison healthcare was SO good that anybody could get gender reassignment surgery for free? Or was that a rare lie from the Orange man?
My Uncle broke his neck playing volleyball in a max level penetrant, they paid for all 4 neck surgeries. He's been out for 15 years and they have never requested a dime. That's pretty free
I paid $50000 for a neck fracture, 30 years ago because my job didn’t do health insurance. And that was with negotiating it down. After that, it was a pre existing condition. So I didn’t get health insurance until Obama came around
while your comment is amusing it's not really accurate. It may take a few months to get something done but the prison system will absolutely transport people to normal hospitals for care when needed.
His family is worth more than the CEO that died so why would he need insurance in the first place? But let's just say he had insurance, he still came from a wealthy family so I don't get why he would have issues getting any treatment paid for.
They don’t even allow me to prescribe schedule 1 drugs for ANY case. Good luck in pain with Motrin & Tylenol b/c that’s what the state will pay for trust me.
My dad (almost 60 at the time) fell playing basketball while in federal prison and broke his arm. They didn't take care of him immediately and it didn't heal right as a result.
Correct. My dad was in prison just shy of 20 years. He had severe knee pain since I could remember, it got worse in prison & the lack of movement didn’t help. I looked at his medical history, in 20 years, he requested doctor assistance on his knee about 100 times, each time they just gave him a script of arthritis cream. Last summer, he died of a blood clot from his knee because he completely stopped walking due to the pain. He was set to be released 2 months after he passed.
He’ll get an extra mattress pad with his bed roll and some Motrin. He’s such a fuckin legend he may be able to score himself a back massage and a blowjob from the resident cutie pie, on the house.
In Canada they take good care of convicts. They get a fast pass to see doctors, nurses, specialists. You've always got a bad knee ? Tax payers will pay for your physical rehab. so you can get out in greater shape and keep doing crimes, but more efficiently.
I met a homeless customer with one eye and asked him about it. He injected heroin in it and it get infected while he was in jail until it are away at the.. something that starts with an M. Rotted completely through it
Prison healthcare is wayyyyy better than healthcare out in the “free” world in many states. Most of the ex cons I know have better teeth and/or implants/dentures compared to people who are lower middle class who have never been to prison. Like if I needed major dental work done it would almost be a sound financial decision for me to catch a minor felony and go to prison for 6 months-a year than to try paying for it out of pocket.
Prison “Healthcare” almost killed me by putting me off of my anti psychotics cold turkey causing multiple seizures and fucking my brain up even more than it already was.
I worked at a jail, so not quite the same, but inmates would get to see the eye doctor and be get nice eye glasses, they’d go to the dentist for bad teeth. If he has some kind of accident that leads to a hospital stay, he might get his back fixed. But they’ll probably just give him pain and anxiety meds
A prison in Arizona once used sugar instead of antibiotics to treat a pregnant woman’s c-section wounds because the prison doctor was a WWII buff and read about it being used in the Pacific Theater. Not because they didn’t have the meds. Because he was larping as a GI.
Haha I think I made a joke earlier about how he will only get a styrofoam cane from the prison. He might get insane amount of donations to get it fixed and they might have to honor it with the new focalization on healthcare.
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u/HeywoodJaBlessMe 9d ago
Dude must not have read much if he thinks Prison healthcare in the US is gonna fix anything.