To think the most shocking thing about James VDB's death is...

I agree with you and it seems that as we are in the minority it is not talked about. You are correct about the widow’s payment, my partner died in his 30’s and we were unable to claim anything at that time as we were unmarried. Later, obviously this was changed and people were able to claim a level of back payment if they met certain criteria. The widow’s parent’s allowance was a weekly sum, based on NI payments, paid until children were 18 (if in f/t education), just to add it was taxable. This was replaced as you say by an allowance of up to £3.5k and a monthly payment of up to £350 a month (not taxable) for 18 months. That is a huge difference from being paid up to 18 but also when I was widowed I received nothing as we weren’t married.
There is also a disparity with receiving life insurance where there is no amount disregarded for this and everything is counted as savings for benefits, meaning many widows are unable to claim, yet divorced parents can be getting huge amounts of child maintenance and these are totally disregarded for benefit purposes.
Having said all this, I agree with op, I cannot imagine having to worry about also paying for medical bills alongside this. I would have been bankrupt and on the streets with 4 young children. Also, as far as I know, the US benefit’s system is nowhere near as supportive as the UK’s.
I am so sorry for your loss, it is very tough. I was lucky that we had some life insurance, I managed to work p/t and keep everything ticking over. They are all teens now.
For all those mentioning a European system, pls can I ask which system you are referring too. I only really have good knowledge of one of them and it is very different to the NHS.

I’m also very saddened by his death and the financial circumstances his family have been left with.

However, I don’t think the UK is currently the shining light people think it is. I have private medical cover through work and have paid to add on my partner and kids for the very reason that I’m worried the nhs would act quickly enough with treatment. I also pay for critical illness cover so that if needs be I can also pay for additional drugs that the NHS won’t cover.

That’s conjecture and you don’t know that. You can’t just ‘sell the NHS’ without bankrupting the country. He might not be a good person but he’s not that stupid.

I thought this. I will never understand why people donate financially to those better off than them. No child needs to be privately educated if you can't afford it yourself, let alone several.

I was just going to say something along the same lines. The US healthcare system seems to have galloped out of control but likewise I imagine there will be more to James’ story - e.g perhaps seeking alternative treatments which were out of the scope of insurance etc. Absolutely nothing wrong with that but the US healthcare system isn’t as black and white as ‘pay or you die’, there are alternatives if people genuinely have no funds.

I don’t like the US system at all but i think it’s quite the leap to assume Farage will sell off the NHS and transport us to US-style medicine. Reality is, with our ageing population, a NHS-system really isn’t sustainable in the future and I too would support a European style healthcare system.

So in France for example, it’s part funded by taxes and part funded by individuals who might choose to take out reasonably priced ‘top up’ insurance. Overall, people are no worse off financially but they have far better and quicker access to specialist treatment. It’s nothing like the US system but seems to be a happy middle, which my French friend tells me works very well.

I agree, and we have life insurance. Due to my husbands pension I would get a significant 'death in service' payout and his pension, but if I didn't I would struggle to cover our mortgage and bills, and couldnt claim housing benefit due to owning our home. Which is very frustrating to have paid in for many years and never claimed any benefits, to then not be able to get support if needed.

I also worry we are heading for a Reform government, and place the blame on Starmer and Co for this. They have suppressed our economy, raised taxes, and education funding is worse than under conservatives. When people feel that no reasonable option works for them, they turn to the unreasonable one. Labour better turn this around and fast, or I dread to think where this country will end up.

Surely we have to be responsible for ourselves at times? This is literally what life insurance is for.

JVDB widow is hardly struggling- they've got their mansion rented out so that's easily a few hundred $K a year.
They bought a huge $4mil ranch. She's asking for donations to keep 6kids in private education the day he died as she knows when to cash in on fans grief. She's a grifter.
I suspect the majority of donations are coming from people in a much worse position.

I was shocked to read that too. I have family in the US who were upset Obama care didn’t go further, they had to delay retirement due to healthcare costs and actual treatment for chronic illness seems worse than you’d expect in the UK. NHS ain’t perfect but the US is just awful, worst of all worlds.

I don't live in the UK, but was shocked to recently hear how appallingly poor the supports offered to bereaved families are.

In case this is of help, this is a link to a petition to bring this issue before parliament...

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/752501?fbclid=IwdGRjcAP6iO9jbGNrA_qIzWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHlxg1E7XeI-XFhKo-F-uwENrxOoZpBeFbFG2QnSDwkFcRkosnJ10qvBxFb6k_aem_dlW-ujcQ1xTozC8gljTUew

Why on Earth do you think any politician would ‘sell off the NHS’ and ‘hand it over to US health insurance companies’ when neither they nor their party, nor their party’s MPs would ever be voted in ever again? We have a parliamentary system where such a major change would have to go through parliament. You think the US insurance companies have enough money to pay off a majority of MPs? All of whom would know they’d need to find a new career afterwards?

This ‘X will sell off the NHS to US insurance companies’ has been a scare tactic ever since I can remember, starting with Mrs Thatcher, Tony Blair and successive
Tory leaders. Strangely enough, after nearly 50 years, no one has sold it off yet. Because whatever their political views, they recognise political suicide when they see it.

So because we can't trust anything he says, that means we can assume his intentions to be whatever we think they are? This is a bit weak OP.

Perhaps you could explain exactly why you think he'll sell off the NHS to US-style insurers. Give us a bit more than 'he's friends with Trump'.

Personally, I think it's very unlikely that would happen. Firstly, it would be politically impossible in this country. It would be a hugely unpopular policy. Secondly, you're ascribing financial motivations - basically you're saying Farage is corrupt and that's why he wants to sell the NHS. I think there would be much easier ways for him to make money.

This dilemma was the premise for the plot of Breaking Bad.
People knock the NHS, but we are very lucky to have it!

Not all cancer treatments are available on the NHS. Plenty of people start gofundme pages to access US treatments.

And not all celebrities are rich, especially not 30 years after making their name and we don’t know what those actors earned back then. Plenty of celebrities go bankrupt mid-career.

OK. Well there’s no discussion to be had if you can just insist someone plans to do something when there is zero evidence that they will, but statements made to say that they won’t that you simply define as meaningless. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Scaremonger away…

And how do you think people will afford it? And what if they have existing conditions? Neither My DH and I can get life insurance at all. I investigated life insurance for my DD in her 20s and the cost was huge, with major things like cancer being excluded.

This is why we should fight to keep a free at the point of care system paid for by taxation or something like they have in Europe. PFI, private companies paid by the NHS to carry out operations and scans and the whole push to sell healthcare data, data security, Palantir shows that there is a insidious creep towards privatisation. Not that the NHS is perfect mind, it could be more efficient and savings could be made.

When I had pregnancy complications due to placenta percreta with DC3 and required major surgery there were women on my support group in the US with the same outcome as me that were faced with paying off $1 million in fees. I feel grateful that living in the UK meant that I wasn't charged for the emergency surgery required to save my life.

Watch Aaron The Social Worker to see what Insurance in the US is like.

https://youtube.com/shorts/wIInKgnYVY?si=MR78J6umi-4TuU2k

https://youtube.com/shorts/xF3NjoXeqZA?si=LJa6tYOFnZleSYE5

But he hadn't really done any work since DC. I don't think starring in one TV show as a teen will mean you're rich and famous in your late 40s if your adult acting career never really took off. And you didn't decide to change to a regular but more steady career. And with six children.

I’ve just finished cancer treatment for the same cancer and same stage 3 diagnosis. (I’m 45) I’m one of the VERY lucky ones but his story has hit the emotions hard.

because of cancer we almost lost our house! Suddenly we were on one salary and it just didn’t work. (Thankfully my parents gave us a massive loan and I discovered that I had a really good health insurance so we’re winning now)

someone without my parents help or an insurance payout would be screwed!

I applied for PIP and got turned down!! It took a year to fight for it and have now got high rate for both for 3 years which is ridiculous because all I wanted was that financial help when we needed it, when I was too weak to walk and my partner had to care for me, and not a year later!

to think what it would be like without free healthcare? I’m just glad it all happened now before reform gets in!

You clearly haven’t listened to him speak about the NHS. He won’t.

Sorry - I wrote that a bit muddled. His last regular job was apparently from 2017-2021 and he hadn't had anything steady since then. In the USA, steady = healthcare package. A bit of work here and there generally doesn't. I suspect that he didn't have an employer healthcare package, so he and his DW were quite possibly paying for their own health insurance and that can a be a lot. At best, hundreds of dollars a month per person.

It’s partly because he died so young with 6 children under 18 and I don’t think his wife works so he was always the breadwinner. Most people don’t die this young, they have children expecting they will be around to see them into adulthood. I’m surprised they had so many children though, the US is very different in the way things like university education is funded even and schools too so they must have known having six, they’d have a lot to shell out.

I guess they figured he’d always get work to sustain it. They always struck me as an organic vegan wholefoods sort of family, his illness was probably even more surprising for that reason. It’s very sad nevertheless.