You are diagnosed with cancer but have no money for treatment. You've no option but to steal the money somehow. What's your plan?

pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 49 points –

Assume you're life-lusted and are willing to abandon every moral you have just to live. Paying for cancer treatment is also worth prison time to you.

Also assume you've exhausted all ethical fundraising options, i.e. GoFundMe, loans, etc. and that insurance won't cover treatment for whatever reason.

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Join forces with a former student and cook meth in the back of a Winnebago

Sounds like a plan, Jesse

Seriously though, drugs are the quickest easiest way to make a quick buck. Used to be able to scam the check cashing places pretty easy but it's mostly electronic now.

Whoever's downvoting you has clearly never pulled night shifts at a 7-Eleven.

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I just get treatment because I live in a country that actually provides its citizens with healthcare (even if the Tories want to get rid of that).

Is it bad I can’t even tell which commonwealth country you’re talking about?

So just ignore the question and sound pretentious?

Do you just call everyone pretentious who says something you don't like? Lol

He's misusing the term. What he means is to sound superior, and although I appreciate his spirit -- the Europeans and Canadians speaking up are doing so outside of the context of and therefore against the spirit of the question -- I think it's fine, it's good to have non-Americans with whom to compare responses.

That is the point of the post. There is something very wrong with this country, isn't there?

I don't have insurance because it's too expensive and the thought crossed my mind this morning that something like that could actually happen to me, and if it did, I honestly have no idea what I would do. And then I realize that the society around me would get angry at me and morally condemn me if I did commit a crime to save my own life, and that's when I finally realized that American morality is a fucking sham. It's all designed to convince its subjects to accept being enslaved and murdered to keep the system going, and that's wrong. What good is morality if it only costs you and doesn't benefit you?

If you look at higher education, it's also designed to convince its subjects that killing abroad for oil and economical interests is moral and good. In 2019 a third of Americans still thought the Iraq war was "worth fighting for". And you'll notice the question in the Pew research poll. It isn't "was it moral" or "is it ok we killed 1~3 million people and destabilized and entire region for economic gain", just "worth fighting for".

That's a bit unfair. This question is pretty much only relevant to USians and USians should be reminded of that at every possible opportunity. We're trying to help you, man.

I don't worry about money since the treatment is free and sick people get money from the government during recovery.

Australia. 3 years of chemotherapy, two stem cell transplants, multiple X-rays, CT and MRI scans, now in remission, didn’t have to pay for any of it.

That didn't answer the question. You just sound pretentious.

Nah, it's fair. The health care dilemma is why I actually asked in the first place.

I don't understand why it is people don't revolt over it. The government is literally killing people and society itself just expects you to die and no one actually thinks about or appreciates the gravity of the situation.

They did answer, It means they are stealing tax money from ALL Germans. /s

I mean… it did, they would go get treatment. They have that option.

Sneak into a country with public healthcare I guess, maybe steal the identity of someone if they won't treat a stranger.

Lots of countries' healthcare will treat you for free as long as you are there. The problem you need to solve is to not get kicked out of the country, so you need to either have a job, be rich, or have a provable reliable income (like a pension) to get a long term visa, or you need to go back to your plan of stealing someone's identity.

I think quite a few countries would see "kicking you out whilst battling cancer" as a human rights violation, and would only kick you out after your treatments.

I was searching for some precedent there - which brought up Bush eliminating cancer treatments for illegal immigrants in 2007. It's impressive that this war criminal can still disgust me even further.

The thing is that, at least for Americans, their country of origin can treat the cancer as well as any European country, and "I'm too poor to live in my own country" is usually not an accepted reason for immigration or asylum.

There are some countries that have medical treatment visas but those usually require people to pay for the treatment, and while it's order of magnitude cheaper than US hospitals but for cancer is still not exactly cheap.

Can't just go there on vacation?

Touristic visas only last 90 days. And usually the hospitals will only provide emergency care to tourists. They might be willing to stretch that definition a lot but not to the point of doing things that need to be regularly scheduled.

Go to a hospital and get it treated. I assume this is some third world health care bait though, as it's missing which country the hypothetical is happening in

I've heard that the success rate of bank robberies is far under reported.

Yes, but it's misleading. Most bank robbers get cash from the tellers, and not even all of them. You might clear 10k on a really good score. It's a lot of risk for little reward. You'd have better success with insurance fraud.

Guess I'll die

Seriously? You wouldn't do crime to live?

I've had acquaintances waste away trying to delay cancer death. Hospice is not fun, so I'd rather go out on my own terms.

Plus, any kind of money making scheme I'd think of is likely going to end up like the "aim for the bushes" scene in The Other Guys.

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Create a fake news website and make sure there’s a floating donate button on every page.

Complain about Klaus Schwab and the WEF and talk about eating bugs and not owning anything.

Say the donation is for gods army to take on Bill Gates and his Clinton’s.

Make absolute bank in less than a week. Tried and true. These people aren’t going anywhere so you might as well mine them like the resources they are.

Divorce my wife, quit working and get state funded insurance. We still keep her income and I can get treatment without sinking my entire family. Something something capitalist dystopia.

Used to see these people with multiple prescriptions for Percocets. They would use one for themselves and sell all the rest as individual pills to pay for treatment.

American healthcare system turned little old ladies with cancer into hardcore drug dealers.

You just described life in America for a moral person.

I'll get a social welfare benefits which won't be a lot but I can probably make do for a while. I'll also get a medical insurance benefit which covers roughly 2/3 of my insurance so I'll have to pay something like €40/month myself. Those benefits will help me pay the €385 max yearly out of pocket for the care I'll need, and be done with it. That's not to say being in this situation is great in the Netherlands, but I won't go into debt and I won't lose my home (gov't guarantees mortgage to bank) and I won't have to continue to pay back my 0% interest student loans.

We're lucky. But make sure to vote.

From the usa, safest bet would probably be a heist on an armored vehicle, killing the driver and taking his clothes and belongings and heading to mexico to change the money and get healthcare.

Or better yet , you might not even need to kill the driver. impersonate or bribe a cop and just pull them over and take the money. Cops did that all the time a few years ago, targeting companies related to weed since its federally illegal, making the transport of the profit on interstate highways vaguely illegal. They still can, but they supposedly dont.

Assuming I know some chemistry, I'd cook some crystal meth.

I'd so watch a TV show about that!

The money is a means to an end. It would be more efficient to steal the drugs themselves. As a first guess, threaten a doctor to steal the drugs and write out a detailed rota of what to take and when for you. Depending on the means used to coerce, leave the country afterwards. Or just live in a country with socialised healthcare

I don't think I am able to make that much money even if I played along with your no morals all goes scenario.

Realistically I have zero chances of successfully robbing a bank or avoiding police if say, I choose to kidnap a baby and ask for a Ransom.

Drug dealing would be more believable, I guess I could start my own mushroom and marijuana business but I don't think I'll be able to make enough or grow my network as much as necessary to cover for expenses.

I continue working in Japan and have it covered by national insurance.

You don't need money to receive treatment in the US. But to answer the prompt, I'd just rob a bank with a note and no weapon. Immediately surrender when the police arrive and spend the next few years in prison getting 100% free healthcare

Probably kidnap and random rich peoples dogs.

Plus I think you get chemo in prison.

Prison chemo sounds like it would break the Geneva convention.

Pfff… you are probably just someone that scours the internet for new twists and ideas in the name of big Hollywood-Studios since those pesky SAG-AFTRA people refuse to work, huh? /s

Probably talk to my friend Lee and do another "job" for him

Find some black tar and start injecting to expedite my death. Why would I want to harm anybody else all because of my misfortune. At least I'll go out in nirvana.

Why would I want to harm anybody else all because of my misfortune.

How about those who deliberately create that misfortune?

While you can't fully control whether or not you get cancer, the cost of cancer treatment doesn't have to be a "misfortune". Cancer treatment doesn't have to be out of your reach. Every other major world power has figured out how to fund universal healthcare.

The people demanding that you bear the artificially inflated, exorbitant cost of treatment are calling for your death. They are attacking you. They have figured out a way to literally murder you with institutionalized neglect. That isn't hyperbole; they are running a protection racket, and using your death as a warning to others thinking about not purchasing their services.

The victims of such attempts on their lives should have no moral qualms against causing harm to the entities responsible.

🤔 There has to be a way for someone like that to steal the money without actually harming someone though.

If it was me, I'd go find an ATM tucked away from view of a main street and bust that bitch open in the middle of the night. Pick the lock, apply acid or dynamite, something. Book it before the cops show up or set off smoke bombs as a distraction.

Wouldn't it just be easier to move to Europe?

You need to be rich to emigrate

You don't have to be rich, it takes a couple thousand dollars, the problem is to not become homeless afterwards...

Isn't having a job lined up a prerequisite for immigration in most countries?

Immigration is complicated, and you are thinking only of "legal" immigration. It is extremely common for people to ignore those laws. And a job is not always required, no.

You (generic you) don't need to really emigrate to a country to receive treatment, you could go with a tourist visa or visa free and get treated, then go back to the shitty country without universal healthcare where you live.

In my home country everyone has access to healthcare because it's a human right, so by law it doesn't matter what your immigration status is, you will get care. This includes cancer treatment, for free.

So all you gotta steal is $300 for a plane ticket. That should be relatively easy, right?

I’d rob a few dispensaries. Only place I can think of to find a bunch of cash.

Collect a bunch of broken laptops, fill the hard drive with pics of dude's 69'ing and sell them for $2,000 each on Ebay as "Hunter Biden's Laptop".

While I don't care what two consenting adults do, the people obsessed with Hunter do get bent out of shape over anyone gay, so it would be entertaining to make them look through many such images looking for whatever evidence they think they will find.

Alternatively, and more likely, I'd get over my moral qualms about selling questionable tr*mp/rightwing gear to idiots.

Maybe car theft would make sense. The reward isnt too low and the risk isn't too high. Although I wouldn't know how to sell it. Might have to drive each car over the boarder or something. That increases risk but should still be feasible here in Europe.

Otherwise maybe setting up a crypto scam would be feasible for me. I never used Etherum but I know the technical basics of blockchains, they were part of my distributed systems class.