Man Robs Bank for $1 To Receive Prison Healthcare | Death and Taxes

59 year-old Richard James Verone entered the RBC bank in Gastonia North Carolina June 9th and handed a female teller a note stating he was armed and robbing the bank for $1.

He then promptly sat down in the bank’s waiting area. “… I say, ‘I’ll be sitting right over here, on the chair, waiting for the police,’” Verone told reporters.

The police arrived, found him where he was waiting, unarmed. They then took him to jail, just as Verone intended.

While Verone’s $1 bank heist may sound like bizarre behavior, his motives were primary: he had a growth in his chest and two ruptured disks, and with no job or healthcare, was desperate for medical attention. He wanted to get to jail, and fast, for access to prison health care.

The story has a few clear political angles. For many, his fake heist poignantly proves the theory that the U.S. needs universal healthcare, and needs it fast.

Others may interpret the story as proof that Obama and his droogs have failed the economy, and as evidence that poor people should blame themselves for their situation and are constantly trying to game the system.

Verone seems aware, if subtly, of these political implications. “I’m sort of a logical person and that was my logic, what I came up with,” Verone told reporters from jail. “If it is called manipulation, then out of necessity because I need medical care, then I guess I am manipulating the courts to get medical care.”

To me, Verone’s $1 non-heist evidences two things: first, that people become resourceful and desperate when faced with their own physical survival. And second, that universal healthcare may actually cost less than alternatives.

Would North Carolina save money by just paying for Verone’s treatment? A state financed trial and a year in prison can be pricey. According to RealCostsOfPrison.org, North Carolina spends about $27,310 to keep one prisoner behind bars per year. That number likely increases when the prisoner needs urgent medical care.

This hypothetical question isn’t entirely practical: the state won’t offer Verone healthcare in place of prison, probably for fear it may encourage other desperate people to copy him.

But what if everyone who urgently needed care they can’t afford started robbing banks for $1 to spend a year in jail? And what if those who merely needed preventative care joined them?

How much would trials, plus prison, plus health care cost the country if all approximately 52 million uninsured citizens manipulated the system for survival the way Verone did?

52 Million people obviously won’t rob banks to spend a year in jail for medical treatment. But it’s worth noting that if they did, North Carolina’s per year cost for prisoners, would land us at a lowball estimate—excluding trial and extra medical costs—of almost $1.5 trillion.

Obama’s healthcare plan will cost an estimated $1 trillion per year for the next 10 years, and will lift millions out of life and death desperation. Healthcare is expensive, but healthcare and prison costs significantly more.

via deathandtaxesmag.com