Wife killed because medical bills were too high
Man kisses ailing wife, hurls her from balcony - CNN.com
A man threw his seriously ill wife four stories to her death because he could no longer afford to pay for her medical care, prosecutors said in charging him with second-degree murder.
According to court documents filed Wednesday in Jackson County Circuit Court, Stanley Reimer walked his wife to the balcony of their apartment and kissed her before throwing her over.
The body of Criste Reimer, 47, was found Tuesday night outside the apartment building, near the upscale Country Club Plaza shopping district.
Stanley Reimer, 51, was charged Wednesday. He remained jailed on $250,000 bond and was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday.
I know I spend a lot of my blog time on health care because it is an important topic and we certainly hear about the uninsured but we don’t really take that information to heart. We forget how quickly that can become us. A major illness can knock us all into a place we can’t even fathom. You get sick, can’t go to work, lose your insurance, can’t afford the cobra payments and the cushy world you live in starts to crumble.
I am not in any way condoning what Stanley Reimer did. It is heartless and horrific, but it is a symptom of a larger problem. It is hard to imagine being in a place that desperate but it isn’t that big of a leap for any of us to lose it all. We can plan and we can hope but there is no net to catch us when we fall. We don’t have a system that works for everyone and without that we will all suffer. I just felt I needed to put this out there and hopefully we will all start paying more than just lip service to the problem.
Technorati Tags: insurance, health, Stanley Reimer
Filed under: Health, health benefits, health insurance
How sad! I can’t understand the act, but I can certainly understand the desperation. We don’t have health insurance, and I have been in the hospital twice in the last year. We will be paying bills for awhile. We work temporary projects so we don’t have a health care plan. We could not afford one anyway. We can’t save any money. We don’t own a home. We really have no life.
How very sad …………what is wrong with our health care system….and yet we give free health care to undocmented immigrants……….a tragedy.
I understand… here we are alone, no sense of community, just that furious, agressive capitalism, rich getting richer, poor, getting poorer…. and who cares?
This story made me cry. I mean the pain that he now has to endure that he killed his own wife instead of letting her die naturally. This is something that should have been talked about between the two of them. Did she agree to this act of desperation? IF SO, there were better ways to handle this problem. For one, I would have just pulled the plug as in the case of Terry S. It needs to be something we both agree and tell the greedy doctors, “Stop the treatment, we can’t afford it anymore. She will die when the time comes, and I will be there the whole time she lives through it. That way she will not feel scared.”
As for this idiot who couldn’t think of a better plan, he will die of his own shame in prison.
I am so angry at this whole situation and scared also. First I am angry at the neighbor who does not see the desperate state of mind that this man is in or was in. I am presently facing my husband going on to permanently disability. For him to continue his insurance, it will go from $192.00 every two weeks to $542.00 a month plus we must pay for the medicare which is $300.00 every three months so what would have covered myself so that is approximately $642.99 a month - a $400.00 increase and that does not include prescriptions. He is a kidney patient with a transplant that no longer works and is on dialysis. I am really wondering how on a secretaries salary and what little that will be coming in from SS disability,how will we manage and to boot we live in New Jersey - the highest taxed state around! I don’t believe he was right to take her life, but you tell me what are people with serious sicknesses supposed to do. The government needs to wake up to what a horrible state of affairs it is in with regards to our medical and our insurances.
Lin Kruez,
What free health care do you think that we give to undocumented immigrants? I hear this alot and it is simply untrue.
Anyone can go to any hospital and if they are in dire need will receive services and but they are still charged for it. Now, whether they pay it or not is a different story but there is no FREE healthcare for undocumented immigrants. My ex was born and bred in the USA and when he gets sick he runs off to the emergency room for his “free” health care. He just ignores the bills. Undocumented immigrants do not have a corner on scamming hospitals. The illness we are talking about here is not an emergency room situation it is long term medical care which no undocumented immigrant can get for free. We do have some programs available such as Medicare (which is almost beyond repair right now) but those are not offered to non citizens.
I am sorry if this sounds nasty but I am horribly sick of people spouting that we provide health care for undocumented immigrants when that is not even remotely close to the facts.
Mary, Angel, Helena and Scared,
I am with you all. It is such a mess. I have been without insurance several times in my life and it is frightening and I just don’t see how people don’t look at the issue and realize it can affect them at any time. We are all just a few short steps from utter despair. The rich do keep getting richer and Haliburton moves to Dubai with our tax dollars.
“I am horribly sick of people spouting that we provide health care for undocumented immigrants”
It is a simple fact that health care is provided to illegals. When federal law states that anyone can go into a hospital and the hospital MUST administer emergency care, that is healthcare. The only avenue a hospital has to get payment is to threaten to put the cost of the care on the patients credit report. I’m pretty sure illegals for the most part don’t care about their credit, which eliminates the hospitals ability to collect payment.
When you get something without having to pay for it, that is considered free. It is a fairly simple concept. The only real argument you can make is that illegals don’t have access to healthcare beyond emergency services, which I will concede to you.
Glen,
Did you simply not read my comment? I said that anyone in dire need could go to a hospital and skip out on the bill. Not sure what you are arguing since I made that point myself. Everyone has the same ability to go to any emergency room and get “free” care if they choose not to live up to their obligation.