True Customer Tales: Best Health Care System in the WOOOOORLD!

A frail older lady wearing a germ mask brought in a bunch of books. Usually an indicator of mental illness, but this gal was really sick. She was having to liquidate her possessions to help pay for medication after her insurer dropped her for getting expensively ill- the same thing happened to my mom, who held yard sales to help pay for groceries.

I've had other buys like this over the last few months, including one couple who were being evicted from their home after medical bills bankrupted them.

I do what I can, but in the context of modern medical bills you're bailing against the tide unless you happen to have a substantial library of genuinely rare books. Many years ago a friend of the store who'd been a Hollywood producer in the 60's had the boss liquidate his substantial, tremendously impressive collection of Beat literature (including rarities like a pamphlet of film criticism that was given away at a theater in SF, signed lithographs of his poetry and a completely pristine copy of Excerpts of Visions of Cody, notorious for its temperamental deep purple cloth binding) to help cover medical bills.

Even so he was deep in debt when he finally passed, existing on the largess of his friends.

I found a few things to buy and spent 30 odd minutes explaining how better to filter the next batch, but thirty bucks doesn't stack very high on the scale she's forced to use in this country.