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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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The rich assholes in Washington do not care about us. They are set for life with the best Healthcare in the world. Why should they care about us?
Fuck the democrats. Fuck the Republicans more, but these democrats need to fucking go as well. They all need to go.
Dem leadership is ass. Rep leadership is ass.
We’re cooked.
Incredibly relevant discourse for the current US political environment
Apologies for reddit link, can’t upload video directly in a comment on lemmy. The information this individual covers is absolutely vital for understanding modern politics in the US, and needs to be common knowledge if the US is ever going to recover from the exploitation that has led us here.
Most on lemmy will already be aware of the basics covered here, but for anyone confused as to why dems always choose failure in the most frustrating ways, this will explain it for you. This is why we need to support actual progressives who refuse to be bought and paid for.
First we need actual progressives to run.
Can someone explain to me simply (and I’m assuming the answer to that is “no”), why they can’t force the insurance companies to compete with each other on price. That would seem to be the obvious “free market republican” thing to do, and a prerequisite for removing the fat subsidy to the insurance companies that they’re currently trying to remove.
Because insurance doesn’t work like a normal product or good.
What ends up happening is they charge as much as they possibly can. The book “an American sickness” explains all the problems if you’re interested.
The ACA was never going to be great. It was the best that could get passed.
It wasn’t the best that could get passed. The Dems had a super majority during Obama’s 1st two years and could have gotten us Medicare for all, but Rahm Emmanuel blocked it.
Joe Lieberman blocked it. Rahm Emanuel was just the president’s chief of staff who tried to talk him out of it. Joe Lieberman was the senator from Connecticut, where all the old money lives.
The Dems had a super majority during Obama’s 1st two years
Nope. Even for the ~60 days they technically had it, they still had to contend with Senator Byrd being out of session due to health issues.
Mostly because:
A) Insurance companies collude with each other
B) are only half the problem (the other half being hospitals and pharmaceutical companies cranking prices up)
C) Most Americans get their insurance through their employer
and
D) Healthcare costs are complicated because they’re split between insurance premiums and out of pocket expenses and typically raising one lowers the other and vice versa
Insurance was always a terrible way to handle healthcare expenses because healthcare costs are generally non-discretionary and have far too many moving parts and payers.
Those are all caused by them not needing to compete. Throw a few execs in jail for collusion to defraud their clients (the employers), and the other issues all go away.
Only the first one can be fixed by competition, the rest aren’t impacted by that at all. There are too many moving parts for it all to magically go away by just saying “make them compete”. For instance what happens when insurance companies compete to offer the best deals on group rates to employers but then charge exorbitant premiums to employees? Or what if insurance premiums all magically came down but pharmaceutical prices kept skyrocketing?
Medical costs are an inelastic demand as well as a non-discretionary expense. That’s an absolutely terrible combination which means they’re almost entirely isolated from market forces.
Consider for instance a situation I find myself in. I need a certain medication for a permanent medical condition. Fortunately there are multiple medications available (often due to patents there’s only a single option). Unfortunately I’m allergic to all but one of them. That means it doesn’t matter if the pharmaceutical company is charging $5 or $5000 I’m paying for it. I literally have no choice. Whether my insurance pays for 100% of that or 0% doesn’t change what the pharmaceutical company is charging. Further for insurance I was offered a choice of about 5 different plans through my employer (which is a lot by most standards, often employers only offer one or two plans). My insurance is by all metrics terrible, I pay thousands of dollars every year in deductibles, but once I hit those deductibles it covers everything at 90% which with my medical expenses save me tens of thousands of dollars a year. There are cheaper plans of course, but then the tradeoff is that I’m restricted to a tiny handful of doctors who are all terrible and every single medical decision has to be pre-approved by the insurance company or they don’t cover it and I’d rather pay the extra thousand dollars a year to keep those decisions between me and my doctors.
The US medical system is a hydra and fixing any one part doesn’t actually solve anything. The entire system needs to be overhauled top to bottom. Switching to a single payer system is just the first step in that process but it’s a necessary one because otherwise the problem is intractable. It’s likely the patent system is going to need to be overhauled at least with regards to medications before it’s fixed as well.
The Republicans know the free market is a myth and the only way to win in a capitalist system is to start rich and cheat. This involves convincing the plebs to believe in a free market.
What if all American’s cancel their insurance. Why are we paying these people for a service that they don’t provide!? If I’m going to be sick and broke because my insurance is too expensive to actually use, why not be sick and broke while not giving them our money.
well because 3 times the premium cost is still far below the cost of surgery. i am currently recovering from the removal of a cyst in my jaw that ate half my jaw leaving bone barely 3 playing cards thick in some areas. there was nothing i could have done to avoid it. the surgery too make the marsupilisation to drain the area alone was $3500, with only pain numbing. still awaiting the final surgery cost, but the anastegeologist is $1500 that i have to pay. and the stitches from my mandolin accident costs me an additional $1500.
this is ALL what i have to pay, while i have silver level coverage
marsupilisation
anastegeologist
mandolin accident
Hmm
two separate incidences, one involving acyst in my jaw, one slicing my hand in a food processor, and a constant fight with the auto correct, and bad spelling
Just send the bill to your congress person. It’s on them to solve this problem. That’s kinda why we put them in office.
Asked if Schumer should be replaced, Sanders replied: “By whom? That’s the point.”
But he offered a less-than-ringing endorsement of the top Senate Democrat, who Sanders said belongs to the party’s “corporate wing.” Sanders also said “it goes deeper than Schumer.”
A politician is just a politician at the end of the day, but common sense should tell you that there are still degrees trustworthiness even among politicians. Comparing the immediate responses yesterday to the news that the Dems had caved, should make everyone really think about Sander’s response to this question, and what he’s really saying here.
When I compare the immediate response of the Dem I trust the most to the response of the Dem I trust the least, both seemed upset by this news. However, only one seemed genuinely perplexed, and immediately expressed his frustration on behalf of the Americans who would be harmed by the decision to cave. The other immediately began to push a strategy narrative calling for new leadership in the party.
Both gave subsequent interviews. One used every news outlet that would have him to continue spreading the narrative calling for new leadership. The other, again focused on the harm this would do to Americans. 24 hours later, guess which talking point has received the most attention?
When asked how he felt about calls for new leadership, for some reason the Dem that I trust the most didn’t immediately hop on the band wagon that everyone else has been hyper focused on for the past 24 hours, but it’s definitely not because he thinks the current leader of the party is the strongest and the most effective.
Replaced by whom? That’s the point.
There’s been a weird trend of negative/mentally defeated comments lately in these political posts on Lemmy for a EU, Canada and US. Anyone else catching this? I get it that it sucks right now but this isn’t healthy for anyone and it’s a bad position for them and everyone else. I hope there isn’t spam/bots happening here.
It’s hard to be upbeat when Dems were leveraging the single piece of power left to them, saw fantastic special election results I would bet in part to that, and then flush it down the toilet for nothing.
I hope there isn’t spam/bots happening here.
The Trump administration declaring a war on judges followed by spam attacking all the useless judges for doing nothing to stop Trump? Sweeping victories for Democrats in local U.S. elections, followed by a sudden surge in doomerism mainstream media, and spam pushing a divisive and defeatist gatekeeping narrative for the “left”? (btw did you know you can’t really be left if you show any support for Democrats?)
Nah, more likely everyone has just accepted we’re all hopeless victims, and a vote for any progress is a vote for capitalism and genocide. We should all just give up and curl into a ball because we will never win against the unstoppable strongmen. Have you not noticed how strong they are? /s
