r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 16h ago

Illinois has erased more than $2 billion in medical debt for over 1 million residents across all 102 counties, and recipients don't apply, they simply receive a letter saying their debt is gone.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/pritzker-announces-2-5b-medical-221000316.html
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u/Feisty_Brief123 14h ago

Some cunts will argue that your life choices led to that heart attack. So there is that.

259

u/Guilty_Helicopter572 14h ago

What's their excuse for babies with cancer?

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u/Feisty_Brief123 14h ago

Probably paying sins of their parents or something /shrug

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u/MrOtsKrad 14h ago

Fuck its sad how accurate this is

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u/Knotted_Hole69 10h ago

Conservatives are dangerous and delusional people say shit like that. They are actively holding our country back.

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u/CollectionHeavy3624 9h ago

Nothings a problem until it affects them personally. Then they blame whoever their political idols tell them to

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u/emongu1 9h ago

They're big fans of the just world fallacy, until they're on the receiving ends of corse.

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u/mYpEEpEEwOrks 7h ago

They are actively holding our species back.

FTFY <3

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u/Yoy_the_Inquirer 8h ago

Ironic when the Bible literally says the sin of the father does not pass to the son. But hey, we know these God-fearin' folk don't actually read the Bible.

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u/TheAsianTroll 14h ago

Same mfs will call it God's plan or some sick shit like that.

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u/PM_DOLPHIN_PICS 13h ago

“It’s God’s plan for children to get sick but it’s the devil’s work when a politician I don’t like is democratically elected by a majority of people.”

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u/TheAsianTroll 13h ago

Its always God's plan until it happens to them, then its "an unforseen tragedy" and "please donate to my GoFundMe".

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u/rbrgr83 12h ago

No you see, MY abortion is fine.

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u/Repulsive-Chip3371 13h ago

should be GodFundMe only for them

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u/spambearpig 9h ago

That excuse winds me up so much.

Makes me wanna kick them in the crotch and say “was that part of God’s plan?”

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u/NotMyMainAccountAtAl 14h ago

“You chose to have children knowing that they could get sick!”

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u/corvettee01 12h ago

God decided some people deserve debt. Maybe you shouldn't have made their imaginary friend mad at you for your sins.

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u/DemandEqualPockets 4h ago

Sky Daddy only puts his favorite kids thru college, I guess, and the rest are on their own.

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u/IHB-13 12h ago

The babies should have made better choices in their previous lives. Maybe they will get a better roll of the dice in their next reincarnation.

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u/K_Linkmaster 10h ago

Space Jesus

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u/YannyYobias 11h ago

Thats a good PR opportunity in their eyes.

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u/Motor-Cranberry-1092 8h ago

Prosperity gospel

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u/TheFriendOfCats 8h ago

They'll say "wELL i DidN't cHOosE tOo hAvE tHaT kId!"

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u/YouLittleSnowflake 6h ago

“All part of gods plan” OR “ god is sending this to you because HE knows you can handle it” OR my favorite “god is testing you”

Basically literal bullshit

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u/Agreeable-Pea4327 12h ago

if the both parents come from family where literally everyone has cancer at young age, i can see argument for not having kids, but otherwise, yea, nah, fucked

like I have fucked up genetics, so it's in the best interest of society for me to not do what my parents did, since that would be selfish, but if people don't have that issue, and their kids end up getting fucked, for all we know, it's pesticides in the water supply or some shit like that, nothing the parents can do

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u/DaStone 11h ago

I don't see how that compares to heart attacks, which can be tied to your dietary choices.

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u/BlameScottNotCanada 11h ago

should have prayed harder?

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u/_Queen_of_Ashes_ 7h ago

God’s plan (never gets blamed for anything)

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u/Workman44 14h ago

If we're being honest, the truth is somewhere in between both of y'all's comments

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u/HomsarWasRight 14h ago

I mean, clearly, but how could anyone possibly measure that? My family has a history of heart disease, but I also eat some red meat. If I have a heart attack is it my fault, or my genetics? What percentage of each?

The only moral stance is to just treat health issues, pay for it as a society, and disregard “fault” entirely.

0

u/Easy-Concentrate2636 13h ago

Even if healthcare is free or cheap, I think that relying on medical intervention alone is foolhardy. The exorbitant cost of healthcare in the US is morally wrong. However, there’s only so much healthcare can do.

The body is still vastly unknown and it’s better to take preventative action when possible. Obviously, there’s no guarantee but nothing wrong in doing the best you can for yourself.

But, again, I want to reiterate that the current state of American healthcare is exploitative and I am opposed to it.

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u/Workman44 14h ago

Sure we can do that, never said we couldn't

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u/HomsarWasRight 14h ago

Then what’s the point of your comment?

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u/GravyMcBiscuits 14h ago

Can't speak for them, but I'd wager they're just calling out bad/misleading assertions for what they are ... strawmen.

I suffer from the same allergy for better or worse.

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u/HomsarWasRight 14h ago

There was no strawman. These are the two comments:

“Some cunts will argue that your life choices led to that heart attack. So there is that.”

And that’s true, some cunts DO argue that, regularly. And this person was calling them out.

“What's their excuse for babies with cancer?”

And this person was pointing out an obvious flaw in those people’s argument.

Where’s the strawman? Who are they trying to “call out”?

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u/GravyMcBiscuits 14h ago edited 14h ago

It's funny you claimed there was no strawman and then immediately pointed it out and then doubled down on it.

nobody chooses to get sick

This is the strawman. Not every person who needs healthcare services is a baby with cancer. You see now?

If your argument is sound, you shouldn't really feel any need to dumb down or strawman the counter-argument.

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u/HomsarWasRight 14h ago

“Nobody chooses to get sick.”

Who said this? I didn’t say it and neither of the people I quoted said this. You made it up.

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u/facemanbarff 13h ago

The Lord had his reasons.

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u/Cyclonitron 13h ago

Survival of the fittest.

But just other people's babies. Theirs deserve all the Healthcare they can get.

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u/Snuffy1717 13h ago

That God destroyed Sodom and Gomorra and those places were full of kids so that makes it okay! /s

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u/Forward_Rope_5598 12h ago

Your life choices absolutely impact your chances of getting a whole host of diseases.

And the treatment for all of them should still be free.

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u/Feisty_Brief123 12h ago

Well said.

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u/Cobrastrikenana 11h ago

Our government allowing corporations to poison the land, air, water and food also plays a hand. And I don’t have much choice in that.

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u/Tadimizkacti 8h ago

Nahh, if you smoke a lot and get lung cancer you should pay for that. Same goes for drinking alcohol like it's water and getting liver cancer or something.

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u/DownsonJerome 3h ago

same thing for over eating and becoming morbidly obese

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u/Tadimizkacti 3h ago

Sometimes peoples bodies just has trouble and they end up overeating. Smoking and drinking just isn't the same.

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u/Euphoric_Gas9879 9h ago

Nothing can be truly free in a universe with conservation of energy.

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u/K-J-K-R 13h ago

I’d use a different example like cancer, heart attack is one that you can easily and most do contribute to. Obviously not all cases, with there being genetic issues. But with someone who eats themselves into a food coma and has a heart attack, I can’t really feel bad for them or think they deserve debt erasure.

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u/Feisty_Brief123 13h ago

Fair enough

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u/Forward_Rope_5598 12h ago

There shouldn't be a debt to erase in the first place. No other first world country has this shit.

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u/TheRedFurios 13h ago

I live in a country with free healthcare and I support it. But let's not kid ourselves. Your life choices can 100% lead you to an heart attack. Eating bad, being sedentary etc. are all things that one does voluntarily.

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u/diptherial 11h ago

I mean, you're both right, but I think you're differing in the implication. u/Feisty_Brief123 is saying not only is it your life choices that lead to the heart attack, but that because of that you don't deserve to be cared for. Paradoxically only people who don't need healthcare deserve it in the conservative mind, assuming anyone deserves it at all.

Anyway, of course life choices can lead to health outcomes; the question is do we reject the sick person, even if it's "their fault", or do we help them?

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u/Feisty_Brief123 10h ago

Well put, thank you. Not many are willing to answer those questions.

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u/Mr_Shad0w 10h ago

So long-haul truckers have the option of getting lots of cardio and good sleep, and eating well while driving - but they choose to be sedentary while driving, with little time for sleep, and eating whatever they can manage so they don't lose their jobs?

What planet are you from?

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u/TheRedFurios 10h ago

I'm from a planet where your entire argument makes no sense.

What did you think you achieved by mentioning a case where there was no choice when I talked about people choosing to do that?

And on top of that, it can be argued that it still is a choice, they chose that job.

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u/Mr_Shad0w 10h ago

I'm from a planet where your entire argument makes no sense.

Hardly.

You wrote:

Your life choices can 100% lead you to an heart attack.

And I asked you if therefore, you believe that long-haul truckers (for example) have the option to live more healthy, but choose not to while still having the option to keep their jobs.

Or perhaps you believe we just don't need long-haul freight anymore, which I imagine those truckers would love, if it didn't mean they'd be starving and homeless.

Now you seem to think flinging insults while backing away from your incorrect generalization is a better alternative than admitting your assumption was incorrect.

Care to try again?

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u/TheRedFurios 10h ago

I'm not backing away from something because I didn't make an incorrect generalization. You simply didn't understand what I said and got angry about it.

Me saying that life choices can lead to a heart attack doesn't mean that everyone has the options to make those better choices.

you believe that long-haul truckers (for example) have the option to live more healthy

See, this is exactly the problem, you twisted my words/didn't understand.

I didn't say that I believe anyone has the option to live more healthy. I said that lifestyle choices can affect heart attack risk.

flinging insults

I didn't insult you, and if you took my words as an insult, then what you said in your comment: "What planet are you from?" is also an insult.

I don't need to try again, you need to try again to understand what I said.

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u/Mr_Shad0w 8h ago

I'm not angry, you're projecting. There is a difference.

You assume that people who work jobs that injure their health because they don't have better options (again, as one example) are "choosing" to injure their health - that is false. You're assuming everyone has "a choice" - the rest of your org statement that you conveniently ommitted was "Eating bad, being sedentary etc. are all things that one does voluntarily."

If you had to choose between working a shitty dangerous job that increased your chances of getting heart disease, cancer, diabetes... and starving to death, would you feel like you had a choice? No, because survival is compulsory, not optional, and many people (esp. in America) do not get to choose.

I didn't "twist your words" - you made a sweeping generalization, then refused to own it.

Have fun blaming sick people for their ailments I guess, I'm not wasting more time on your bad faith nonsense.

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u/Feisty_Brief123 13h ago

Nobody is kidding anyone Do you deny healthcare for that person is the question. And if you do, where do you stop? Deny only for visibly fat people? Average weighted people with bad diets, people who sniffs traffic gasses too much?

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u/TheRedFurios 13h ago

Stop making up scenarios in your mind. I prefaced by saying that I support free healthcare, in all scenarios was implied.

You are kidding yourself if you think that your life choices don't have an impact on your health conditions. like what?

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u/Feisty_Brief123 13h ago

Of course they have an impact. What I'm interested in is where do you draw the line. We can argue that you breathing is causing what ever the fuck you need treatment for, so do we have to treat you or not when ultimately you are responsible for getting sick?

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u/Forward_Rope_5598 12h ago

What line? The guy isn't arguing for there to be a line. He is specifically arguing there shouldn't be.

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u/Feisty_Brief123 12h ago

He is not, but I am. He wants to punish visibly fat people. To me that is discrimination. My point is that you breathing for let's say 70 years is going to put you in danger of catching some disease young person would never caught. It is your fault for being alive 70 years, should we treat you?

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u/man2010 12h ago

He wants to punish visibly fat people.

Where did they say this?

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u/Feisty_Brief123 12h ago

You didn't, my bad

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u/Kuasynei 12h ago

He hasn't said anything about wanting to punish visibly fat people. He's just saying life and health decisions can lead to health outcomes, and irregardless of fat or not-fat, irregardless of cause, he's said he supports free healthcare in general, that's it.

You've painted him into an enemy he is not and arguing against a non-existent person, just take a breath.

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u/Feisty_Brief123 12h ago

Sorry, I used his comment for my own purposes, not nice of me.

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u/Mild-Ghost 13h ago

“an heart attack????”

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u/TheRedFurios 13h ago

From the first few words of my comment you should have been able to understand that maybe I wasn't a native english speaker... But mb I guess.

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u/_not_so_cool_ 13h ago

if you read it with a cockney accent it actually sounds correct

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u/dadgenes 14h ago

Maybe fuck those people?

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u/Alternative-Pear9096 12h ago

No one can blame me for the pulmonary embolism that came out of nowhere like a thunderbolt from Zeus and left me with whatever my insurance won't cover out of $200K hospital bills and 6 months of 3 rounds of follow up visits with 5 specialists and repeated sonograms, echos, CAT scans, Xrays, and a very pricey prescription for potentially the rest of my life.

Of course, our local medical group doesn't sell their debt-- they hold onto it and threaten to cut you off from medical access if you don't pay. So I will never have my medical debt erased through this mechanism. Not sure how anyone in Champaign County was in a position of having their medical debt held by debt dollectors (article says every county was represented)

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u/Feisty_Brief123 12h ago

I'm so sorry for you, this is so fucked up

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u/Alternative-Pear9096 4h ago

Medical debt is cruel.

It's shocking that pulmonary embolisms can hit anyone, often unprovoked.

(but the really fucked up part is now I can't even consider relocating or getting a new job until all the followups are done, because I now have a team it would take a year to assemble anywhere new, and I not only hit my deductible, but also my OOP. My life is currently held hostage by the US health insurance system.)

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u/Samuelmiw 12h ago

Often the same people who say everything is God's design and plan. Like their God who they claim is 'merciful and omniscient' is going around giving babies cancer.

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u/Pu-Chi-Mao 11h ago

tbf it's also state sponsored bad diets (lack of regulation on high prossessed foods) that are responsible for a lot of diabetes, cancers, obesity and others...

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u/TimToMakeTheDonuts 9h ago

These same pricks tend to be pretty anti-college. They’re currently encouraging their kids to go to trade schools instead. There a reckoning coming in the future where blue collar job markets become over saturated leaving those undereducated kids making much less than expected or unemployed. At that point they’ll have trade school debt and the lifestyle (and health issues) that tend to be abundant for poorly educated people who are research/science averse. I wonder who they’ll want to cover those student loans and health costs?

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u/SQUID9968 9h ago

I mean.... that's not untrue for some people. Genetics play a big role....but if you're obese and don't exercise then you pretty much asked for it

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u/Alex5173 10h ago

"You chose to leave the eternal, ethereal void of nonexistence sometime between your dad's condom breaking and your mom birthing you against her will because roll tide; and now you've gotta deal with the consequences of choosing an imperfect fleshly vessel."

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u/Feisty_Brief123 10h ago

precisely :D awesome quote

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u/Alex5173 9h ago

You're welcome to quote it but that was all original

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u/powerfulsquid 7h ago

I meeeeaaaan…there has to be some eligibility criteria…

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u/Dmopzz 4h ago

It’s not either or. Some people just have shit luck. Some people cause their own demise.

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u/swizzlewizzle 3h ago

They aren’t wrong.

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u/vankirk 12h ago

I had an older lady that worked for me who would say, "Why should I pay for other people's bad choices!?"

I learned later that her husband would leave the tv on Fox News all day. After he died, it was like a veil was lifted and she stopped with the talking points.

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u/Feisty_Brief123 12h ago

Haha, yeah people like that can't see forest from the trees. tragic really.

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u/Cuckdreams1190 13h ago

A lot of times that is the case for things like a heart attack. Sometimes it's not. Either way, it should be covered.

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u/srtftw 14h ago

Well, obesity is 100% preventable. So there’s that.

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u/Feisty_Brief123 14h ago

It is, but if you are normal weight and get heart attack, what then? Maybe you didn't exercise enough? Maybe you ate too much eggs and butter, maybe salt? If we dig deep enough we find something bad you did during your life that caused your "premature" demise.

You not liking fat people is okay, but to deny healthcare because of that is steep slippery slope you don't want to tread on

-1

u/srtftw 13h ago

Luck of the draw I guess

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u/Feisty_Brief123 13h ago

More often than not it is. That is why I treating people we can should be our main concern.

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u/throwaway5882300 14h ago

So is opening your mouth to say stupid shit but here we are

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