Courage My Love - December 21, 2010

Have you ever heard of Dead Pool? I hadn't until I was chatting with someone at work and we were talking about investments. The guy I was talking with had a friend (ya ya, it's always about "I have a friend") who invested in dead pools in the U.S. Because I had never heard of them and could not quite believe what he was saying, I decided to do a little internet research. I now know why the U.S.A. is the icon of all that is evil in the world.

A dead pool is an insurance policy. In effect you are buying someone's life insurance, giving them a cash value payout for it and you become their beneficiary and get the full value of their policy when they die. Is that sick or what? I guess during the Aids crisis, when the death rates were high, this became quite popular.

Think about it, you are sick, you can't work and you know you are going to die. You have a life insurance policy from before you got sick, and it says when you die it will pay out $500,000.00. So Joe Schmoe comes up and says "If you sign your life insurance policy to me as the beneficiary, I will give $150,000.00 cash right now, and I will continue to pay your premiums for as long as you live. Hey you're sick, your life expectancy is about 3 months, the prognosis is death, there ain't no get out of jail free card, but there is this guy willing to give cash right now. What would you do?

So you take the cash, you give it to friends, you throw a last big bash, whatever and then you die. Joe walks away with $350,000.00 profit (his profit decreases the longer you live because he is paying the premiums). Even if the premiums are high, he doesn't care, cause he has you "rated" as a good possibility to die shortly.  If by some miracle, you live for another 50 years, he loses his money but chances are you won't, chances are very good you won't because he has access to all your medical info before he bought your policy.

Since the new drugs for Aids have kind of shrunk that "dead pool", they are now going after seniors. Who cares if the premiums are crazy high, because he knows the one thing you cannot beat is death by old age. Some company will sell you insurance regardless of your age, for a substantial premium.

There are some laws to make this illegal in the States, but it is still quite legal for an "out of state" policy.

What is wrong with people? Don't get me started. They are looking at this as a high return investment. That is beyond sick, it preys upon the most vulnerable, the least able, the sickest, the oldest and the infirm. May the dead pool buyers burn in hell.

Death, especially death, takes courage my love...