whileromeburns88

I just want to emphasize that hospitals do not expect you to pay that entire amount in full (though many people will try, and even declare bankruptcy in the process, because they don't know any better). Contact someone in their business office about paying a reduced amount. I don't know what those charges are for, but insurance companies rarely pay more than 20% for inpatient hospital services and Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP rarely pay more than 10%.

If your account has already been referred to a collections agency, you're actually in a better negotiating position because the collector cares more about settling the account than actually getting all of the money. I don't know where you're located, but in most states, if you pay something towards a bill that is in collections, they aren't allowed to contact you about it for 30 days (even if you only send them a check for $5).

Every statewide official in WV other than the attorney general is a Democrat. Both houses of the state legislature have Democratic majorities. Not sure where those hostage-keeping Republicans are.

It boggles my mind that whenever a business seriously fucks shit up, whether something like this or the Texas fertilizer explosion or the financial crisis, everyone gets mad at the government. We might be the only country in the world with this much misdirected anger.

After that textile factory collapsed in Bangladesh, the owners were charged with homicide. If a textile factory collapsed here, you'd have people complaining about "corrupt government officials" and the factory would probably get a slap on the wrist and pay a small fine.

It's worth pointing out that Israel's diplomatic relationships with most Asian countries range from civil indifference to outright hostility. Nepal, simply by virtue of allowing Israelis to enter their country to begin with (many countries do not), would be an attractive place for them to visit.

Are you planning on getting a college degree at any point?

I ask because I'm in my 20s, meaning people my parents' age made up that first tech generation where guys were getting into programming without going to college or going to college and leaving without a degree. I was a teenager when the dot com bubble burst in 2000 and saw a lot of my friends' dads being among the first to get laid off and the last people to find new jobs (usually with a considerable pay cut) for no substantive reason beyond their lack of a college degree. One of them was, like you, someone with zero college who was making six figures, living in a big house and driving a Mercedes; he got laid off in 2001 and to this day hasn't been able to do anything but freelance and contract work for a fraction of his former salary. He's in his 50s and figures going back to school now would be a waste of money and he can barely pay for his kids' college at this point anyway.

(1) What prompted your family to move there? Is your mother/her family from Ramallah or from a different part of Palestine?

(2) Has being biracial caused any problems for you or your dad? Middle Eastern societies can sometimes be intolerant towards black people (i.e. Egyptian and Sudanese treatment of black Sudanese; Israeli discrimination against Ethiopian Jews).