Billed $2000 for talking about suicide

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Tonight, I learned that hospitals, through the aid of the government, can snatch thousands of dollars from the pockets of American citizens just for speaking one word: 'suicide.' In a country that prides itself on free speech, it is so shocking to me to see people's possessions torn away from them in a supposed effort to help them live. But I don't think help is even what they intend.

Perhaps in an effort to instill 'fear of God' and also to control the lower classes like greedy, dominant baboons, the government may be charging ludicrous fines for even the most intellectually-toned philosophical discussions about the ethics of suicide. Do we even have free speech? Do we even get to be philosophers in America anymore? If not in America, where else?

I must say quite frankly that if idiots are going to stifle our intellectual creativity by fining a word, they must be prepared for the possibility that they will set back the progress of all humanity, not to mention create loads of fury and hostility among the people who are forcefully 'helped.'

Until we are allowed to speak freely in our quest to end human suffering, then humanity may very well remain what it is: a species of primitive little monkeys that can't learn to have fun without its victims of schadenfreude.

To the government, if these fines are real: You have brought great disappointment unto me. If you keep it up, you could fail humanity.

Hey Mike;
I kinda get it but am kinda lost - is there more detail you could give on what the process leading to the 2 grand money grab is?

In California, if you are involuntarily committed you don't pay.

My guess is that the OP was talking to someone and mentioned he was considering suicide and was involuntarily committed. Yep, you can be billed for that in some states, I think. Considering it was only for $2,000, it must have been a very short confinement.

Yep, nothing like slapping a $2000 fine on somebody to make them feel better about their life... /sarcasm.

There were about three other students in my classroom at the time, and I told them I was contemplating suicide. Why? To see if anyone out there really wanted me to end my life. Was I too annoying? Or scary? Did I have some other personality trait that people secretly didn't like? I thought I was being compassionate.

So anyway, this kid looked at me and grinned at the moment I mentioned suicide. Next thing I know, I'm Baker acted when I get home. The police told me I wasn't a rational person (despite not even knowing who I am), questioned my fathering ability, and took me in by force.

Baker herself said, "In the name of mental health we deprive them of their most precious possession -- liberty." In spite of this, and even though she might've been a torturer, I'm going to be careful not to call her the B-word.

Look, government, these fines aren't helping. Do you rob multiple thousands of dollars from people in encouraging them to stay alive? We see right through that.

"I can't pay these bills. If things gets any worse, I'm shooting myself!"
"That'll be $2OOO." *bang*

Never having even visited Florida, I'd never heard of this Baker Act before. Having read the Wikipedia entry, however, it seems to me that you might have a good case against the state, should you wish to engage an attorney. The act apparently specifies that in order to receive a 72-hour involuntary commitment for assessment, you must a) possess a mental illness, as defined by the act, and b) present a realistic danger of harm to self or others. I doubt very much that any reasonable interpretation of what you said (unless it was along the lines of, "As soon as I get home, I'm going to get the shotgun out of my closet and blow my brains out, anybody care to join me?") could fulfill part B of the requirements, and although I don't know the specs in the Act, it seems unlikely that AS fulfills part A. In other words, your incarceration violated both the spirit and the letter of the Act, in my opinion.

America is the greatest hypocrisy to ever exist.

If I resided from America, (in all honesty) I would've shot up my school, and blown my f*****g brains out to high heaven.

This comment is in no way an act of encouragement. It's just my opinion that's all.

They're probably afraid of me after all the false statements I exposed! "Mike's thought process is irrational. Mike has bizarre delusions." I wrote an entire essay, Expected Reward and Psychosis, challenging each and every one of these claims, and took it into the hospital with me. (My real name, Scott, was used in these reports.)

What do they want now? To put me on the streets, so that I won't be able to reveal their medical malpractice? Shame on them!

I don't know about you guys, but I smell a rat.

Hey There;

I've read several of your essays and would like the mental health professionals to show me how such a delusional and paranoid psycho consistently writes at that level.
That ought to be interesting.

And that's different from any given political candidate's election promises, how?

It would stink to have "treatment" you never asked for, and needed to pay for it. USA is freaky that way. Know someone who passed out (nothing serious, but someone thought they were severely ill or having a seizure and called an ambulance), and had to pay for the ambulance they really didn't need at all... Like.. wow.. great.

Freedom of speech... yea right... only if you say the "right" things.

Wouldn't they just invoice your estate?

Yeah, one time I was having some strange symptoms that I now believe were brought on by a food intolerance (and the symptoms worried me, so then there was the anxiety), so, not knowing what was wrong, I called the doctor. It was Sunday, so I had to leave a message for the on-call doctor. About twenty minutes later, I got a call back saying that the doctor said I should go straight to the emergency room. Now, I was pretty sure I wasn't having a heart attack or immediately life-threatening, but I did feel pretty bad, and that was the doctor's instructions. I go, and they do MRI's and chest X-rays and all kinds of stuff. They couldn't find anything wrong, so they basically chalked it up to me being a nutcase. During the next month, I got a continuous stream of bills. One from the Hospital. One from the doctor in the hospital. One for general breathing the air in the hospital and taking up space. One from the x-ray technician. One from the doctor who read the x-ray. Ditto for the MRI. The insurance paid for some of it, but not all, because we have a huge co-pay. So, we were not able to go to Legoland this year, like we had hoped.

So, every time you feel sick, and you aren't sure how serious it is, you have to ask yourself, "Am I bleeding to death?" If not, don't go to the hospital. It's better to just take the chance of dying than to have to deal with all that expense and frigging red tape.

My advice is to just argue, up the chain. There is someone on that chain who won't want something like that going on (or getting out).

I've been committed involuntarity myself, it gave me a really good perspective, and fortunately for me, I didn't end up paying. The bottom line for me is that as long as I'm on Zoloft, I won't do anything stupid.

Examples like this make the U.S. an easy place to criticize, there's just a complete lack of common sense in this logic.