Not sure if this qualifies as a "stranger", but a nurse at the UCLA Cancer Center in Santa Monica helped my family and I when my sister was on her last days, dying of cancer. It was a bunch of little things: she got us into a single-bed room; she cleared out a maintenance closet for the family to meet privately with doctors; she did some sort of meditation with my sister that helped calm her; she "translated" what the doctors were telling us; she told the other nurses (and the security staff) to leave us alone (visiting hours). Mostly, she was a human to us, not just someone doing their job. I'll never forget the horrible experience of watching my sister dying, but Nurse Suzanna made it so much better. She's an amazing person, and I'll be forever grateful to her.

BTW, here she is: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanne-travis-rn-ocn-reiki-cert...

IANAL, but this sounds like being charged for flushing your cocaine stash down the toilet while the cops are trying to bust down your door...except cocaine is illegal, whereas a cell phone isn't. So, beats me. I'd love to hear an actual lawyer's opinion.

If we're gonna stick with private insurance in the US, we should detach it from employment. The current system has created a society of indentured servants, not for money, but for "health insurance". The current system is expensive for employers that are often mandated to provide health insurance plans. And it forces people to work for something they have little or no control over.

When you work for money, you can do whatever you want with the money once you've earned it. But being compensated with "health insurance", you've got almost no control over it; you get what the company gives you - and btw, you can't purchase the same thing on your own, with your own money (way too expensive for most middle-class folks).

Detach health insurance from employment. Open "health insurance plans" to the free market, just like auto insurance. Free employers from all the administrative overhead of managing health insurance for employees (the stock market will love it!) And let health insurance companies work for their actual customers (health care patients!)

Or, just open Medicare to all.

The healthcare system in the US is, indeed, the best...if you're rich. If you're not rich, you're gonna spend a lot of time on the phone, arguing with bureaucrats and getting treated like shit.

A friend of mine is rich. We both have a health insurance plan from UnitedHealthcare. His experience is radically different from mine. He can make a phone call, and actually talk to his doctor within a few minutes. He can see his doctor the same day he asks to. He talks to one person who manages all the BS for him.

> If you're not rich, you're gonna spend a lot of time on the phone, arguing with bureaucrats and getting treated like shit

Sounds a lot like the Spanish healthcare system.

Years ago, a friend and I were kicking around startup ideas. We weren't coming up with anything good, so we flipped it and decided to come up with the worst/dumbest idea possible. We landed on a social media site dedicated to poop (this was back when social media sites were all the rage). People could upload pictures of their poop, discuss poop, share "best poop" stories, and so on. We never actually built anything, realizing it was just a joke, a total waste of time. ... Fast forward to 2025: For $600-plus-monthly-subscription, we'll take pictures of your poop!

BTW, someone please tell me that there is/was a social media site dedicated to poop, and the founder got rich from it. I need that today.

Look on the bright side: you can tell people you were simply ahead of your time!

I believe it is called "reddit"

If hunger and poverty was somehow impacting corporate profits, then yeah, they would ban it.

And we would probably really not love how they enforce it!

Happy Thanksgiving! ... I just wanted to express my gratitude to the Commodore 64 personal computer I received as a Christmas gift in 1982 (or maybe '83?). I didn't know it then but it set the course for the remainder of my life. I just wanted another device to play video games (Atari 2600 was over), but once I discovered "programming", playing video games turned into tweaking, cracking and even creating video games. I was in 6th grade; I used to stay awake until the dawn, even on school nights, programming and trading games (300 baud modem on a single phone line). My grades dropped, but thankfully my Mom didn't care; she knew what I was doing and how much I was learning. Honestly, many of the basic concepts I use today I taught myself when was I was 12 years old on the Commodore 64. So, thank you, Commodore. You're 64KB computer impacted my life more than, probably, anything else in my life.

I've always wondered why on-site child care generally isn't offered as a perk through employment. Many large companies, like the F500 I work for, offer various on-site perks, like subsidized cafeterias, exercise facilities, garden, meditation room, etc., but never the thing that would help (parents) the most: an on-site child care center. My hunch is it comes down to two major obstacles: (1) the liability risk is too high; one accident can result in a major lawsuit to the company, and (2) the cost of the distractions; parents will never get any work done if their kid close by.

I'm not even a parent, but I see the struggle parents go through wrt child care.

Offering free childcare would be far more expensive than offering subsidized cafeterias, meditation rooms, and a gym.

Because it’s too expensive. Most people want wages.

People who have no children in particular would prefer to be paid wages versus other people getting childcare and them getting less wages.

Companies don’t want employees whose time is split between childcare and work. This is why egg freezing is a common perk but childcare is not.

Pretty dystopian to have your employer raise your children for you IMO.

Not exactly. More like, "The world can suck major at times, so we should make sure kids are prepared to deal with it when confronted." It's kinda like teaching kids to look both ways when crossing the street. Ideally, drivers are looking out for pedestrians, but if that doesn't happen and a pedestrian isn't prepared for it, well, people can get killed.

No one should be ashamed for teaching their kids to exist in a world that isn't always as loving as we all wish it was.

I drive back-country roads all the time to go hiking and camping. I guess that makes me an outlaw now. Great. /s