Some states recognize domestic partnerships for health insurance and other things. It's also not always the case that filing taxes married (jointly or separately) is as beneficial as filing as single people.

A possible financial downside to marriage, especially in community property states, is joint liability for debt.

The benefits for many people are the legal problems, especially if they have not made wills, certainly in the UK the surviving partner would get nothing if there was no will.

As we age, the benefits of being unmarried may start outweighing the negatives - we are aware of that are have discussed the possibility of getting married simply to make life easier in our latter years. But when we were both hard-working professionals, our tax situation was far better filing single (filing married / separately is beneficial when one person earns a lot and the other doesn't; filing single is beneficial if you are both equally high earners). Also, we each want to leave our money to our respective families - we don't WANT our money to go to each other, and that's taken care of nicely by being unmarried. If we get married we will have to put together complicated wills to handle our money the way we want to. But - as I said, there are other benefits we are seeing now that may sway us towards getting married. But the point is - being married or not is really just a bureaucratic process (we are not religious).

Today found out a relative's daughter suffered a severe concussion while plating football. Passed out initially, and eventually coach took her off the field When she came too a parent noticed girl was disoriented. Ambulance came, but when dropping off the girl at home, rather than emergency room, left saying their $1,000 fee would need to be paid direct as they did not bill insurance. Regular doctor said no appointments until December, and no other doctor in this relatively small city would give an appointment. So then at emergency room, told by billing office that the only specialist was over an hour away. but would have to get pre-approval for appointment as the in-network specialist had no appointments until November. Beside the parent's insurance , school's insurance initially claimed would not pay for because was just across state line and medical care should have been sought there even though hospital was even further away.

Meanwhile on next door field in middle of game drug dealer leapt over fence and in middle of came began beating one of the players, presumably over- drug deal- coach in this instance was ex-military and stepped in to break up fight. Two hours later social worker called coach asking why he had "roughed up a minor".

I am always quite astonished at life in America.

The ruler of the free world cannot be seen sweating - having hot flashes - in sticky situations... That is one reason...
It also shows why obama was elected before a women... It will be a hispanic male before a women.
We have had our catholic pres - that did not last long, our African American pres, the next is an hispanic, not a women... There is a line and they are at the end. Probaby after a muslim pres...

Isn't that a contradiction?

I think you’ll find that the phrase that was current during the Cold War was “leader of the free world.” Not “ruler.”

Presumably, by definition, the free world doesn’t have a “ruler?”

The 2nd cold war is now.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/new-cold-war-0
Mine does and it is the President of the USA; surely not Macron, Starmer or Trudeau...

holy god there are no words

We shall see but there is currently slightly better than a toss-up chance that the next one will be a woman.

Never had you to be bigging up Biden.

Sad but true....

Story yesterday about "new evidence" of innocence emerging a couple of days before someone was to be executed.
He didn’t do it’: days before execution in South Carolina, key witness says he lied

But they executed him anyway.

South Carolina executes first man in 13 years despite new evidence of innocence

I wondered why the long gap and why it "could be the start of a rapid series of executions in the coming months." The answer? So there are enough people in the state unhappy enough (about the death penalty) to have put pressure on the pharmaceutical companies and for those companies to be worried that it could negatively impact their profits reputation but not enough people to put pressure on the state's politicians?

And the pharmaceutical companies don't like the backlash so they stopped selling the stuff but now, because they can do it secretly, they'll start again?

The number of 'God and guns' bumper stickers in this state should go a long way toward explaining why state politicians haven't seen the right sort of pressure.

I'm not overly sure that the state is sourcing from the larger pharmaceutical companies, rather they engage small compounding pharmacies to supply them with small batches that are made in-house. Regulations are a lot less strict for compounding pharmacies than they are for pharmaceutical manufacturers and small mom and pop stores tend to fly under the public radar.

I'm not overly convinced about the credibility of the witness in this case but have been following the case of Marcellus Williams, Missouri, on and off for some years now. The prosecutors and family have been calling for the state not to kill him, rather than invest time and money into the case the Governor gave the go ahead for his murder on Tuesday saying that 'it gives finality for a case that's languished for decades'. Absolutely unbelievable.

Anybody up for a WTF read should Google (or use whichever search engine that suits the cut of their jib) Gettysburg College. Seems that one of their male student athlete swimmers has been ejected for carving the N word into one of his black team members chest with a box cutter!
WTF is wrong with these people?