People that are choosing to use this forum to indict Nick or make personal judgement calls about him is rather poor form, in my opinion. There have been more than a few occasions in my life where people have fallen on hard times in their life i.e. no insurance, house burns down, stolen car, house broken into, accident that prevents tem from working, etc.. Granted, not having insurance was a bad decision, but we all make bad decisions every day albiet some not as costly as others. It is often in times like these that people who are your friends or colleagues will rally around and help you, should they so choose. If you elect not to help, then fine, but it's pretty crappy to snipe about the guy and the situation when you really don't know them personally or the situation they were in.
If you really want to turn this into a a quasi-political discussion about costs being passed on to taxpayers, you really shouldn't cherry pick your numbers. I know that a large chunk of the posters here are conservative, so, if you want to use this forum to get on your soapbox about how much uninsured Americans (47 million of them) are costing all of us in tax dollars, then I have a few other numbers for you that so many people choose to ignore.
Total cost of health care for uninsured Americans assumed by local, state and federal governments: $35 billion
Most recent spending bill signed by the President containing 8,993 earmarks (state and federal pork barrel projects) including $700,000 for a bike trail in Minneapolis - $65 billion
The Iraq War - $497 billion (and counting)
And this is my personal favorite - Interest payments last year on the $9.1 trillion National Debt to Treasury Bond holders, Treasury Note holders, and foreign lenders (i.e. other countries we've borrowed money from) - $406 billion
So, just those 3 items equal roughly $1 trillion in taxpayer money spent against the $35 billion spent on uninsured health care people always like to complain about. Oh, and just to head this comment off at the pass, I'm sure someone will want to chime in about welfare. That number was $400 billion, but it includes not only traditional welfare payments, but also education (federal student loans and Pell Grants), monies set aside for medical and scientific research and development, and transporation and infrastructure.
So, the $35 million seems a bit smaller, doesn't it...
Oh, and if you really wanted to get nitpicky and look at just the pure waste. There was a loss item in the most recent Financial Report of the United States Governement issued by the Department of the Treasury citing these little gems:
Unused commercial airline tickets purchased by the Department of Defense in which the never sought the refund - $100 million
Overpayments from the IRS to people recieving the Earned Income Tax Credit - $9 billion.
And, another favorite, a line item for "Unreconciled Transactions", in other words, the "we don't know where the money went, but it isn't there" item - $25 billion
Anywho, my point is, if you have stong feelings about where your money is going, there are much bigger issues than kicking in $20 to help out a guy who sounds like he a pretty good dude and has, even though it was through possible bad decision making, has had a tragic life event.
But what do I know....