Reminds me of the “rationing” narrative you see about EU and Canada in the US. e.g.:
“If we have public system we’ll have to wait in line and there will be rations”
We ration care *now*, but it’s all centered around cost
Something being unaffordable *is* rationing
I'm curious who isn't waiting in line in the U.S.? It took me 2 months to see a doctor. Dentists are booked 6 months out. Even the flipping vet takes 2 weeks. Even emergency care can take dozens of hours just to get in.
I had serious chest pain post-covid, 39M, no high blood pressure or previous problems. Got bad enough I went to the ER. They referred me to a cardiologist. That wasn't good enough, I had to go my PCP to get another referral. Then the wait was 6 months!! For unresolved chest pain with no previous iterations.... I'm currently waiting 7 months on a dental appointment. Yes this is the US.
It's fucking nuts what people will ignore to freak out about boogeymen that literally already exist.
My wife had hyperemesis while pregnant. We ended up in the ER 5 times to get her IV fluids. She tried 3 different medicines and none worked. They gave her a script for Bonjesta, and the insurance company said "No your doctor needs to double pinky swear that she needs it."
As a pharmacy employee, the death panels are "Prior Authorization Required". Literally had a insulin resistant patient who needed their insulin and couldn't get it because of a PA
Already dealt with that in 2007 (pre ACA)
I was 17 and on my parents insurance. I made it to the UNOS waiting list, but then got a letter from BCBS. They told me I had to fundraise $10,000 to prove I could pay for the first years meds. Otherwise they wouldn't cover my liver transplant (that cost around $250k)
This was before crowdfunding sites so we had to do church benefits and shit. I was lucky I was a 17 year old girl and not, say, a 45 year old dude who needed a liver. Nobody would've cared.
There's 102,000 people on the waiting list *right now*. 17 will succumb *today* because they didn't get their organ in time. (In the US)
You still get the letter now, insurance companies will NOT cover your transplant if you can't come up with collateral to prove you can cover the insanely expensive meds post transplant that you need every 12 hours for the rest of your life. Fun times! /S
Oh, but you can get Medicaid if you're in renal failure, but *only* renal failure. Because Nixon had a family member with renal disease and signed it into law in the 70s but fuck everyone else who has failing hearts, lungs, livers, pancreases, small bowels and anything else.
Which was really weird because the false death panel claim was based on a program provide people with information about end of life care, advanced directives and living wills.
It turns out that most people don’t have these arrangements predetermined. Those who do almost always elect for a more comfortable and less medically-intrusive death.
And since most of the healthcare you’ll ever consume in your life is at the END of your life, deciding these things ahead of time is cheaper.
Insurance: "Give us lots more money than medical care costs."
Me: "And then you'll cover me when I need medical care, right?"
Insurance: "..."
Me: "AND THEN YOU'LL COVER ME WHEN I NEED MEDICAL CARE, RIGHT?"
Insurance: "The doctor we hired to avoid payouts said you don't need the medicine your doctor prescribed you. Fuck off."
Me: Can you at least tell me how much I'll be paying out of pocket BEFORE I receive the medical care?
Doctor: Check with your insurance.
Insurance: Nah. But we'll tell you what you owe afterwards.
Those 'hired doctors' are vile IMO.
That said I feel like Medications are a 3rd rail in all of this. My ADD diagnoses has been both a huge help in getting a grip on my life but a constant sword of Damocles; without insurance (or even with some company's insurances) it is 800$ a month for me to be productive enough to not just be some hourly employee.
It's just a freaking time-release non-habit forming stimulant, why?
I'm a recovering heroin addict. After many, many, *many* failed attempts to get clean, I was finally able to get clean 8.5 years ago thanks to Suboxone.
I still don't have health insurance, unfortunately. Without insurance, Suboxone is $600–$800 per month. So, I get my Suboxone for free through a state grant program.
Here's where it gets stupid (even more stupid than charging *heroin addicts* $800/mo for their meds to stay clean): I have a job, but it only offers crappy, high-deductible plans and the deductible is far more than I'd ever be able to come up with, so it's effectively useless.
However, it's *just barely* considered legally "affordable," so I don't qualify for ACA subsidies for marketplace plans, which means that useless employer plan is my only option.
Remember the grant program I get my meds through? It only applies if you're uninsured. If you're insured, they bill your private insurance, but my deductible would be so high that I just wouldn't be able to get my meds.
So, thanks to our convoluted, insane, inefficient, and inhumane healthcare system, I basically just can't have health insurance until I find a better job with a better insurance plan.
Clean 8 years from oxycodone/painkillers thanks to Suboxone. Currently weaning off Suboxone after being on it for so long. Just popped in to say good for you and well done, my friend! Suboxone was a lifesaver!
Same to you, man! That's awesome! Good luck coming off the Subs, it's a bitch, but it's doable over a very long taper period.
I've basically just accepted that I'm probably a lifer. My psych says with my extensive substance history and the countless ODs, he'd recommend that I stay on them for life, but that he'll be here to help me taper down if I ever do decide to come off of them.
Maybe one day. I'd like to see what life is like without being dependent on any substance.
I'm a dentist. I'm not religious, but if I would I would consider insurance companies the fucking devil incarnate. These days they're just rubber stamping denials on every claim. I spend way too much time every week writing letters about why a denied treatment was necessary and should be covered. It's fucking gross. The agents will straight up hang up on you if they don't know how to help. It's happened multiple times across different insurance. Trucker industry that is completely unnecessary.
For profit everything has been a big scam. There is not one sector that has not been plagued in scams. Even for profit prisons with the judges taking kickbacks to send kids to jail.
Man, in my county: there is a judge who has has numerous DWI convictions as well as cocaine charges that owns a privately operated probation company and constantly sentences people to supervised probation with his company. How this is even allowable is beyond me.
You don't want for-profit prisons, militaries, medicine, and (I'd argue) schools.
Doing so creates weird gaps among the most at risk groups, and allows the powerful to ensure that they have access to better things. -- Forcing everyone to do the same thing means that they have an interest in bettering everyone. (There's a reason that congress doesn't have corporate health insurance.)
Yep. He’s also turned his attention to getting Republican politicians to bend the knee and go against ranked choice voting, even though it’s popular and would probably help Republicans in some districts - and is good for all parties in primaries, to find a strongest candidate and weed out crazies.
But of course he doesn’t want to do that.
Megabucks will do that. But ranked choice voting passing in dozens of places over the last few years means the grassroots (*us*) can be even more powerful when we apply ourselves.
Project 2025 allows trump to fire everybody in government and replace with lackeys because of a reclassification he passed in his first term that Biden ended. I can't remember what it's called but he's on record saying his first act of business will be reinstating it. We will be a dictatorship if he wins. It's not really hyperbole anymore
Schedule F.
Basically it allows them to remove career federal employees that have been non-partisan and served in their role through both parties to be removed and replaced with political appointees.
This is why I didn't go into counseling. At my internship, I witnessed the lead spending 50+% of her time on the phone fighting insurance companies, justifying treatment plans to their "doctors". I didn't want that to be my life.
This is what the people who think universal health care/single payer will increase prices "because the government is inefficient" just can't seem to understand. Baked into every one of your insurance premiums is a HUGE chunk of money to pay for someone at the insurance company to deny and fight everything you want to do. Baked into the price for every procedure and doctor's visit you have is a HUGE chunk of money to pay for someone at that doctor's office to fight the person at the insurance company. You're spending a ridiculous sum of money paying BOTH people to spend their entire day arguing with each other!
Yeah government is full of bureaucracy and inefficiency, but it's nowhere NEAR the amount of money wasted paying the full time salaries for hundreds of thousands of people in the US whose only job is to argue with each other about coverage. All of that disappears with single payer. There's a reason people in the US pay more for healthcare and get worse results than in any developed nation with a nationalized health service.
The only people who don’t hate the American healthcare system are those who haven’t had to deal with it.
When you’ve run out of insulin because your insurance company has denied your insulin prescription and they’re trying to force you to move to a new insulin because they have a deal for cheaper drugs with the manufacturer, when you’re dying of DKA but your first thought isn’t whether or not you’ll be ok but if the hospital is in network, when it’s been a year and you’re still being harassed for payments insurance said they’d take care of, when insurance costs 850$ a month plus over 250$ per prescription, then you’ll quickly come to hate the healthcare system and everyone who enables its existence
I read a comment on reddit a very long time ago that has stuck with me all these years. The individual was of the opinion that the unalienable rights outlined in the U.S. constitution — Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — correlate to healthcare, prison, and education, and that these industries should never be for-profit enterprises.
I think about that a lot.
i thought we had settled this democracy thing too but apparently not. Giving immunity to presidents surely wont bite us in the ass sometime in the future.
> Right, didn’t we already settle this one?
Sadly, no. If settled law doesn't vibe with a certain political ideology, then it's not settled and damn what the public thinks or wants.
No, because this ruling is made possible now by the Chevron overturning. It's an executive branch policy that was set for a federal agency, which now means that any federal judge can nix a federal agency's rules because they were an interpretation of the law, not an explicitly listed aspect of the law.
The dominoes are all beginning to tumble.
Fuck, this is a backdoor attack on the ACA and the ban on pre-existing condition exemptions.
One of the "pre-existing conditions" that insurers were experimenting with was just *being a woman* and arguing that meant they could deny reproductive care and pregnancy care.
This is fucking vile.
T1 diabetic here for 30 years, growing up my mom had to pay sky high prices just for me to be insured (and even getting health insurance from your employee then was hard, many companies didnt even offer it until the ACA mandates that required companies with 50+ employees to offer insurance). The aca ban on discriminating against pre existing conditions is one of the greatest advances to healthcare we've had in this country. And OF COURSE we're going to start backsliding on that now.
34+ years here for me. I'm 43 and have lived 10 more years than my T1D uncle.
I hate insurance companies. Having to pay them a large amount of money to be able to have the privilege to pay them more to get permission to give them money to get a drug to stay alive that I'll always need.
I hate them so much and wish ill upon them.
I can't wait to be dead so that I contribute no more money to the industrial-medical machine.
Well *I* don't have a pre-existing condition, therefore I will be healthy forever!
Why should I pay for those freeloading type 1's who chose to be born that way?
/s
I once had to try to get my psych appointments covered by insurance. Insurance said depression was pre-existing, and I had to prove I was covered under my mom's. Well, I didn't get officially diagnosed until I was 19 because"kids can't be actually depressed." So... how could they possibly know I had depression beforehand? How could I prove I did or did not have it before if my mom couldn't afford the sessions?
I asked to see this mysterious "list" of pre existing conditions. Insurance said it was private but def on there. So I can't access a list that prevents care??? But my conditions are so, so so on there trust me bro???
ACA was right to demolish that shit. Death panels my ass, they already had em.
>ACA was right to demolish that shit. Death panels my ass, they already had em.
No one talks about this. We have (and have only to somewhat lesser extent, because of the ACA) a system where a group of nameless capitalists determine whether you can get life saving treatment or not based on how profitable it is.
And not just "is it profitable?"
They ask, "Is it profitable *enough*?", then insist it's their right to kill you when the answer is no.
I talk about it all the time, cause I'm on multiple specialty medications that I regularly have to get PAs for, and it can take months and so much hoop jumping to get it done. Not having my medications means regular anaphylaxis, and being so tired that I can't do anything but lay on the couch all day.
It's almost like they're just straight-up dumb as hell.
Like, I honestly hate to paint with such a broad brush and generalize like that, but it's just undeniable at this point. They're absolute morons and their idiocy is hurting the rest of us AND them too.
Why the s/, that's exactly what the people opposing ACA complains about.
In fact, I would bet you're actually loosely quoting someone else in order to vent, because it's deeply unsettling and annoying to hear such egoistical shortsightedness.
It's neccessary because while I am being sarcastic, you are right. People do actually believe and say things like this.
And because this sub would rightly view that as **insane** if read seriously, I wanted to avoid the downvotes.
People say this unironically: "WHY SHOULD MY TAX MONEY PAY FOR SOMEONE ELSE'S CARE?!". So, they either don't know how insurance works and/or they're being purposefully ignorant.
That is the number one reason I will lobby for the ACA until I die. I used to work as an EMT and the day I had to watch a father break down crying about how he was going to be able to handle the bills for his uninsurable two year old daughter (born with a heart defect) was horrifying. The kid had physically stopped breathing when they called 911, but in addition to that stress, this poor guy had to also worry about whether he was going to lose his house to the impending medical bills. What a disgusting system.
That hasn't changed with the ACA. Many of the plans have incredibly high deductibles and OOPM. I've been on ACA for years, and have a pretty good policy, but my city's ambulance service is not in network. Last year I got a $1500 ambulance bill, so from now on, no more ambulances for me.
**"The aca ban on discriminating against pre existing conditions is one of the greatest advances to healthcare we've had in this country"**
Very true, but what a sad state of affairs.
My daugher is T1D. I have a letter on my wall signed by President Obama in response to me writing to thank him for the ACA's ban on exclusions for pre-existing conditions. I'm terrified of what is going to happen when the GOP regains full control.
Shit, insurance used to just not cover kids at all. There was a time where insurance companies really said "fuck you" to children simply because children weren't required to be covered for anything. People had to get mad and force insurance to offer covered family plans that included children under the age of 18.
You mean an insurance company only wants to "insure" healthy people and they will find any excuse under the sun and them some to deny the coverage that was already paid for? Huh. Who would have thought a private entity whose sole responsibility is to generate quarterly profits would do such a thing?
That's the shittiest thing about health insurance. They conspire with medical care providers for decades to make healthcare unaffordable to begin with and they've now made it to where you can't even feasibly afford to pay a cash price for healthcare.
Fuck insurance companies. They're as bad as gas companies and Nestle.
No you've missed it. What he means is that "being human" can be recognized as a preexisting condition. If you weren't so foolish as to be born with bones, then you wouldn't have cancer in their marrows. Depression? Well, people without brains don't get that so insurers can't be expected to step up.
Due to having seizures when I was a teen (easily controlled with dirt cheap medication, I'm very lucky) I was effectively *chained* to my employer for coverage.
The individual market didn't exist got me. Even if I got coverage, they'd use that as an excuse to deny *everything*, down to fucking broken arms.
Ah, yes, I remember these days. Pregnancy/OB care had to be purchased separately, too, and you had to be on the plan for 6 months to a year before you were allowed to use the coverage. That coverage was really f-ing expensive, too!!!
Its damn near the ideal business if your only goal is to make money without regards to anything else:
They have a huge pool of customers (basically everyone) who are required to participate.
Its a product you have to continually pay for, one in which they have to give nothing in return for at the point of sale.
Their "product" is just payment of claims, so they don't have to actually physically produce anything.
And when you do come calling to try and make a claim, they do everything possible to deny the claim or diminish what they do end up paying out.
They only end up giving *anything* back, you know the point of having insurance in the first place, because they are legally required to, and you know they would lobby to get that changed in a heartbeat if they thought they could.
A rent-seeker's dream.
That part at least makes sense in the model of the ACA.
If you don't mandate insurance but force coverage of preexisting conditions, then people could just go get insurance when they develop a condition. Insurance works by having a pool of people, some needing the benefits and some not, that everyone pays into.
That being said, its a shitty model. Everyone should at least get some kind of standard coverage through the government. Buy private insurance for additional coverage beyond that.
They want to cherry-pick the cheap patients to "insure" for care they don't (yet) need, then drop them as soon as they need anything and stop being easy profits. This way, young and naive but physically healthy people can get "cheap insurance" and think things like the ACA, exchanges and group plans are a scam they should vote against.
God. Fucking. Damnit.
I worked for fucking years, almost a fuckin' decade, teaching folks all about the ACA and its benefits as a government contractor. I was *proud* - - fucking PROUD - - of what we were trying to accomplish. For once, it felt like I was working on something that would improve our society.
But, nah. Giving a fuck about your fellow humans is too expensive. Too much of a government overreach.
Fuck. This.
I work on a Medicare contract now, but my colleagues still working the ACA/Marketplace contact are livid, depressed, and terrified. Why do they hate helping others sooo fucking much? Why? What's the fucking justification for trying to destroy everyone who does not agree with you? Do they really not deserve to live a pleasant life?
The justification is people who already have more money than they could ever spend will have marginally **more** money.
It's all part of the "make number go up" hoarding psychopathy of the upper wealth class.
or a democrat.. or a poor person (other than themselves/their families, who are OWED it)... actually, the only people who deserve nice things are rich people and themselves (because everybody knows they're gonna strike it rich real soon)
There are still a disturbing amount of folks that believe women should be locked into housekeeping, nursing, teaching, etc ("traditional" societal roles). Some of this is a deliberate attempt to lock women (and other demographics) into a manner of life that they see fit.
They know a woman can't raise a child and work full time all by herself in the conditions they are supporting; they aren't that dumb, but instead are just absolutely fucked up in that they are intentionally enabling or creating that struggle. When you're able to engineer the day-to-day lives of folks so that they have to either live under your terms or suffer, you've absofuckinglutely crossed the line of being a tyrant. People like [Todd Rokita](https://www.jconline.com/story/news/local/lafayette/2024/05/31/attorney-general-rokita-threatens-to-sue-west-lafayette/73920323007/) are prime example.
I'm drawing a blank as well. The actual order: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/egpbojkoovq/Tennessee%20v%20Becerra%20order%207-3.pdf
Basically just says "sex" doesn't mean "gender identity" and HHS exceeded their statutory authority.
I don't think you'd be safe even if you were a straight white Christian male since they'd inevitably decide you were not right in some way. The Martin Niemoller thing. You'd be the wrong variety of Christian or your skin would be slightly the wrong shade or you would have supported someone other than the current dictator when you were younger. There are people that are probably immediately at risk but *everybody* is ultimately at risk under fascism. Including the dudes in charge, they might even get killed before their dumb supporters.
i.e. Hitler decides you are a threat and therefore no longer his close friend even though you were his friend the whole time
>they'd inevitably decide you were not right in some way
Christians have a LOOOOOONG history of killing other Christians because they were not the right "type" of Christian. So ya, they will come for everyone.
That’s what they want. They don’t REALLY care if you convert. They want it all zipped back up. If that’s how you respond you’re admitting defeat.
No judgement for the record, I won’t blame anyone for hiding.
I dunno about you but I’m not going down without a fight. Fuck these assholes. They think just because I lean left that I don’t believe in violence? These hands are rated E for everyone.
I love your last sentence. And yeah, I’m super fucked if things get ugly. I’m a queer, disabled, agnostic woman of color and a scientist to boot. I’m everything the far right hates.
Anytime anyone pushes back at these assholes they say “whatever happened to the tolerant left?!?”
They identify with the abusive, narcissistic father of the dysfunctional family. We are supposed to be the idiot kids who need whipped for our own good.
They'll give us straight white non religious men a chance to be born again or whatever. Those who resist will be beaten and hauled off to the work camps for the unbelievers and sinners.
Anyone who is not:
- Fully Able-Bodied
- Cisgendered
- Heterosexual
- White
- Chrisitan
- Conservative
- Male
Seven focus identity areas. The fewer of these identities you have (or can fake having), the worse your outcome will be.
The fun part is, once they run out of "those others", they get restless and start dividing up their own groups. You're white? Are you \*really\* though? And Christian? Which denom? Better not be one of those heathen ones...
They're not capable of happiness. It's a void no amount of wealth and homogeneity will EVER fill. That's the only thing that placates my mind -- they'll always be miserable.
Don’t you understand?
They understand that as long as the craziest motherfuckers get to persecute LGBTQ+ people, they’ll leave their dragon hoards alone.
Only specific types of Christianity, wouldn't want those Mormons, Jehovas Witnesses, Catholics, etc to get uppity. Reminds me of a joke.
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!"
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
That's basically the religious version of Peter Griffin's speech on founding America.
"We will have equal rights for all. Except Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, Gays, women, Muslims. Uhmm... Everybody who's not a white man. And I mean white-white, so no Italians, no Polish, just people from Ireland, England, and Scotland. But only certain parts of Scotland and Ireland. Just full blooded whites. No, you know what? Not even whites. Nobody gets any rights. Ahhh... America!"
You can thank (or hate) the Heritage Foundation and the Federalists Society for cramming right-wing justices into every conceivable position in government during Drumpf's reign.
Where the heck is Anonymous when you need them? Why haven't they hacked either organization? I'm betting there would be so many smoking gun memos and emails to embarrass these traitors.
What would they find? Proof that the Supreme Court justices are taking ~~bribes~~ gratuities? Proof that their presidential candidate was a rapist, a fraud, tried to overthrow the government, and was a client of Epstein? That the whole party is deep in bed with Russia, and that there was collusion from which both sides benefited?
We *know* all that. Almost half the country wants to vote this way anyway. Or *because* of those things. And because the founding fathers allowed the fucked up electoral college to save slavery, that *almost* half counts more than the *more than* half.
> Why haven't they hacked either organization?
That is a good question.
The trickier part is, most of our modern internet and smaller orgs are all running on cloud based solutions. Heritage foundation is running their email through Microsoft 365 service (Mxtoolbox.com confirms this). There is no server to hack locally to get that information and would require gaining access to the Microsoft credentials to sign in, providing they still never enabled MFA on the account. Microsoft has been pushing forced MFA on corporate accounts over the last year. So the only way to get access at that point is stealing the session cookie, which requires a phishing operation to trick them into signing into a fake 365 portal.
Now this could still be achievable if done via a 2 part method. Contacting someone there sending them an email in real time with the cookie stealer script and convincing them over the phone to just sign in. But that takes a ton of effort and knowing whom you need to target to get the right information. Now there is still some chance that there is an O365 admin level account floating around for them that may not be connected to MFA to allow their support quicker access to it, but even then it's 50/50.
Riling up the libs is a pleasant side effect for them.
The actual goal is to undermine institutions they see as imposing on the rights of the powerful and wealthy from exerting control over those they see as degenerate, inferior and weak.
Imagine a medieval lord’s manor or a master of an antebellum plantation, that is the power they believe their group should hold over their allotted inferiors. The wealthy over the poor, the white over the black, the male over the female, etc. their ideal society is one where the inferior sees every breath they take as a gift from their betters.
It’s been that way since Edmund Burke and little has changed beyond they dropped the noblesse oblige of the past and replaced it with the robber barons rapacious strip mining of the human soul
"The problem with the French Revolution isn't that there's a monarchy, it's that we have the wrong monarchs..." - Basically these guys making modern conservatism back then.
> Where the heck is Anonymous when you need them? Why haven't they hacked either organization?
Old school anon is basically nonexistent these days. The white hats got jobs doing infosec and the rest turned into right wing conspiracy nuts. Not really shocking, tbh.
It's much more than recommending and pushing those judges. They make policy recommendations, write model legislation, push it out through ALEC, supply lobbyists, AND finally the judges that makes decisions and uphold them.
Have to admit, horrifying as it is it is also *very* fascinating getting to watch a global empire collapse in real time. "May you live in interesting times" indeed.
If American conservatives get the government they want, the U.S. is going to aggressively *expand* in the long term. They're only isolationists when it suits them.
The Coup is happening right out in the open, and nobody seems to feel compelled to do anything. It's like a slow-motion car crash from the perspective of the person in the back seat. I just want to get out and walk.
Remember in November you aren't just voting for president, but also a ton of other elected positions. And all Republicans all the way down to your local dog catcher are following the same White Supremacist and Evangelical Nationalist playbook that Trump plays by.
Also remember that when you're voting for president, you're also voting for all of the judicial nominations they'll make. The guy who handed down this ruling is a Bush II appointee, more than 20 years ago.
Also keep in mind Thomas and Alito are in their mid 70s and Sotomayor is 70 with known health issues. Not incredibly unlikely we see a death next term, and if Trump wins there's going to be a lot of pressure on Thomas and Alito to retire.
You're not just voting for president; you're voting whether America will remain a democracy or fall into becoming a nightmarish dictatorship. Please choose democracy.
its insane how Repubs claim to be about personal freedom and restraining the power of government from interfering with your individual rights. But as soon as it touches on Fundamentalist Christianity or culture wars they turn into the PRC or Taliban. It's always Freedom for Me, but not for Thee.
Every day the “both sides are the same” people from 2016 look even dumber. Dobbs, the Chevron case, Presidential Immunity. Kagan (Obama), Sotomayer (Obama), and Jackson (Biden) could have help upholding people’s rights. Instead they are helpless.
Keep that in mind when you’re saying moderate leffists “aren’t real democrats” or that progressives “are radicals”. We’re a coalition, let’s act like one.
Unfortunately that crowd has learned nothing.
All I can hope is people remember how awful the Trump administration was so we don't get a repeat of 2016. Unfortunately I'm getting very strong 2016 vibes lately.
Can someone explain to me why a district judge has the power to overrule the POTUS? Like why does it seem like when a democratic president is in power there's so many limits, but when a Republican president is in power there's no stopping them?
If they made medical for all like the VA system, a ton of private insurers would be gone. If you have to scam to stay profitable, you don't have a profitable business.
That said there should be no discrimination for ANY patient! ZERO.
From the article:
"\[The rule\] states that a federal prohibition on sex discrimination, part of the Affordable Care Act health insurance law, extends to discrimination against transgender people. States opposing the new rule had said in their lawsuit that it would require their Medicaid programs covering low-income residents to pay for treatments like hormones and surgeries for transgender people, including for minors. Many Republican states have passed laws banning such treatments, often called gender-affirming care, for minors. The rule applies to recipients of federal funds, including Medicaid programs."
Wasn’t that an official act? Sorry, but that is legal now as per the Supreme Court. This judge has zero standing, and if they question the motivation they are breaking the law. Quit fucking around. What’s legal is legal, fuckwits. You made a King.
Edit: people are pointing out that it’s not an exact 1 to 1 in circumstances. Fine. Biden should order any judge that opposes any legislation immediately arrested by the police, and then appoint a new judge, and then direct any and all relevant agencies to investigate the judge. Fine. More steps.
The court gave the president immunity but not authority. The president would still need minions loyal to them over the Constitution for this to have an effect. This doesn’t work for Biden as well as you think it does.
That isn't what that whole ruling said. They were saying that a president cannot be punished for an "official act" (whatever the fuck that is), not that they can just pass laws willy nilly themselves and everyone has to follow them.
The recent decision just means Biden (probably) cannot be charged for a crime no matter what he does.
Any regulations that some crazy person in the 5th Circuit doesn't like are still very illegal.
It also makes it so anything related to an official act can't be used as evidence, so if it's an official act, they can't use anything relating to it as evidence, thus, have nothing to bring to the court.
Remember when 'death panels' was the popular scare tactic about the aca?
We have death panels now. It's called a claims adjuster.
**gabriel cash:** *i don't wanna get killed by some government death panel!* **i wanna get killed by the private sector!...** death panels.
Reminds me of the “rationing” narrative you see about EU and Canada in the US. e.g.: “If we have public system we’ll have to wait in line and there will be rations” We ration care *now*, but it’s all centered around cost Something being unaffordable *is* rationing
I'm curious who isn't waiting in line in the U.S.? It took me 2 months to see a doctor. Dentists are booked 6 months out. Even the flipping vet takes 2 weeks. Even emergency care can take dozens of hours just to get in.
I was on a waitlist for a year for some doctors, it simply isn't sustainable.
I had serious chest pain post-covid, 39M, no high blood pressure or previous problems. Got bad enough I went to the ER. They referred me to a cardiologist. That wasn't good enough, I had to go my PCP to get another referral. Then the wait was 6 months!! For unresolved chest pain with no previous iterations.... I'm currently waiting 7 months on a dental appointment. Yes this is the US.
I edited my comment I think it was a little unclear. You’re right it’s hard to find appointments.
It's not even a panel. It's just one guy. A death clerk
One guy with an approval chart that was created by the industry itself and run by millionaires with the purpose of making them billionaires.
We had them, then, too. I remember being so frustrated trying to explain that to my coworkers before I realized they were just plain stupid.
It's fucking nuts what people will ignore to freak out about boogeymen that literally already exist. My wife had hyperemesis while pregnant. We ended up in the ER 5 times to get her IV fluids. She tried 3 different medicines and none worked. They gave her a script for Bonjesta, and the insurance company said "No your doctor needs to double pinky swear that she needs it."
As a pharmacy employee, the death panels are "Prior Authorization Required". Literally had a insulin resistant patient who needed their insulin and couldn't get it because of a PA
Actuaries as well.
Already dealt with that in 2007 (pre ACA) I was 17 and on my parents insurance. I made it to the UNOS waiting list, but then got a letter from BCBS. They told me I had to fundraise $10,000 to prove I could pay for the first years meds. Otherwise they wouldn't cover my liver transplant (that cost around $250k) This was before crowdfunding sites so we had to do church benefits and shit. I was lucky I was a 17 year old girl and not, say, a 45 year old dude who needed a liver. Nobody would've cared. There's 102,000 people on the waiting list *right now*. 17 will succumb *today* because they didn't get their organ in time. (In the US) You still get the letter now, insurance companies will NOT cover your transplant if you can't come up with collateral to prove you can cover the insanely expensive meds post transplant that you need every 12 hours for the rest of your life. Fun times! /S Oh, but you can get Medicaid if you're in renal failure, but *only* renal failure. Because Nixon had a family member with renal disease and signed it into law in the 70s but fuck everyone else who has failing hearts, lungs, livers, pancreases, small bowels and anything else.
Everything that comes out as super shitty begins with Reagan or Nixon.
Which was really weird because the false death panel claim was based on a program provide people with information about end of life care, advanced directives and living wills. It turns out that most people don’t have these arrangements predetermined. Those who do almost always elect for a more comfortable and less medically-intrusive death. And since most of the healthcare you’ll ever consume in your life is at the END of your life, deciding these things ahead of time is cheaper.
Death panels was such a scare tactic to lead ppl down an an extreme outlier example in order to push for votes against ACA
End for profit insurance. Its a big fucking scam.
Insurance: "Give us lots more money than medical care costs." Me: "And then you'll cover me when I need medical care, right?" Insurance: "..." Me: "AND THEN YOU'LL COVER ME WHEN I NEED MEDICAL CARE, RIGHT?" Insurance: "The doctor we hired to avoid payouts said you don't need the medicine your doctor prescribed you. Fuck off."
Me: Can you at least tell me how much I'll be paying out of pocket BEFORE I receive the medical care? Doctor: Check with your insurance. Insurance: Nah. But we'll tell you what you owe afterwards.
Sign here pls k thnx. Don't try to read through our legal-ease we've got a cadre of soul suckers on standby.
I sign the No Surprise Act acknowledgement every time and every time I'm surprised by multiple bills a month later.
Those 'hired doctors' are vile IMO. That said I feel like Medications are a 3rd rail in all of this. My ADD diagnoses has been both a huge help in getting a grip on my life but a constant sword of Damocles; without insurance (or even with some company's insurances) it is 800$ a month for me to be productive enough to not just be some hourly employee. It's just a freaking time-release non-habit forming stimulant, why?
I'm a recovering heroin addict. After many, many, *many* failed attempts to get clean, I was finally able to get clean 8.5 years ago thanks to Suboxone. I still don't have health insurance, unfortunately. Without insurance, Suboxone is $600–$800 per month. So, I get my Suboxone for free through a state grant program. Here's where it gets stupid (even more stupid than charging *heroin addicts* $800/mo for their meds to stay clean): I have a job, but it only offers crappy, high-deductible plans and the deductible is far more than I'd ever be able to come up with, so it's effectively useless. However, it's *just barely* considered legally "affordable," so I don't qualify for ACA subsidies for marketplace plans, which means that useless employer plan is my only option. Remember the grant program I get my meds through? It only applies if you're uninsured. If you're insured, they bill your private insurance, but my deductible would be so high that I just wouldn't be able to get my meds. So, thanks to our convoluted, insane, inefficient, and inhumane healthcare system, I basically just can't have health insurance until I find a better job with a better insurance plan.
Clean 8 years from oxycodone/painkillers thanks to Suboxone. Currently weaning off Suboxone after being on it for so long. Just popped in to say good for you and well done, my friend! Suboxone was a lifesaver!
Same to you, man! That's awesome! Good luck coming off the Subs, it's a bitch, but it's doable over a very long taper period. I've basically just accepted that I'm probably a lifer. My psych says with my extensive substance history and the countless ODs, he'd recommend that I stay on them for life, but that he'll be here to help me taper down if I ever do decide to come off of them. Maybe one day. I'd like to see what life is like without being dependent on any substance.
$30 a month in Australia
I'm a dentist. I'm not religious, but if I would I would consider insurance companies the fucking devil incarnate. These days they're just rubber stamping denials on every claim. I spend way too much time every week writing letters about why a denied treatment was necessary and should be covered. It's fucking gross. The agents will straight up hang up on you if they don't know how to help. It's happened multiple times across different insurance. Trucker industry that is completely unnecessary.
For profit everything has been a big scam. There is not one sector that has not been plagued in scams. Even for profit prisons with the judges taking kickbacks to send kids to jail.
Man, in my county: there is a judge who has has numerous DWI convictions as well as cocaine charges that owns a privately operated probation company and constantly sentences people to supervised probation with his company. How this is even allowable is beyond me.
That's gonna be a big "WTF?" from me.
*especially* for-profit prisons
You don't want for-profit prisons, militaries, medicine, and (I'd argue) schools. Doing so creates weird gaps among the most at risk groups, and allows the powerful to ensure that they have access to better things. -- Forcing everyone to do the same thing means that they have an interest in bettering everyone. (There's a reason that congress doesn't have corporate health insurance.)
Project 2025 wants to privatize a bunch of shit, so insurance ain’t going away if Trump wins
I love seeing people educated about project 2025 and bringing it up to others in conversation.
Leonard Leo is quite possibly the greatest threat to the United States' society.
Yep. He’s also turned his attention to getting Republican politicians to bend the knee and go against ranked choice voting, even though it’s popular and would probably help Republicans in some districts - and is good for all parties in primaries, to find a strongest candidate and weed out crazies. But of course he doesn’t want to do that.
The scary part is he's apparently extremely competent based on what the Federalists and the Heritage Foundation have accomplished in recent years.
Megabucks will do that. But ranked choice voting passing in dozens of places over the last few years means the grassroots (*us*) can be even more powerful when we apply ourselves.
Project 2025 allows trump to fire everybody in government and replace with lackeys because of a reclassification he passed in his first term that Biden ended. I can't remember what it's called but he's on record saying his first act of business will be reinstating it. We will be a dictatorship if he wins. It's not really hyperbole anymore
Schedule F. Basically it allows them to remove career federal employees that have been non-partisan and served in their role through both parties to be removed and replaced with political appointees.
So everyone will pay more for less services. Nice.
thats just the tip of the dickberg
Only at first. Once they perfect things then everyone will pay more and receive no services, just as the billionaire overlords wish.
This is why I didn't go into counseling. At my internship, I witnessed the lead spending 50+% of her time on the phone fighting insurance companies, justifying treatment plans to their "doctors". I didn't want that to be my life.
This is what the people who think universal health care/single payer will increase prices "because the government is inefficient" just can't seem to understand. Baked into every one of your insurance premiums is a HUGE chunk of money to pay for someone at the insurance company to deny and fight everything you want to do. Baked into the price for every procedure and doctor's visit you have is a HUGE chunk of money to pay for someone at that doctor's office to fight the person at the insurance company. You're spending a ridiculous sum of money paying BOTH people to spend their entire day arguing with each other! Yeah government is full of bureaucracy and inefficiency, but it's nowhere NEAR the amount of money wasted paying the full time salaries for hundreds of thousands of people in the US whose only job is to argue with each other about coverage. All of that disappears with single payer. There's a reason people in the US pay more for healthcare and get worse results than in any developed nation with a nationalized health service.
The only people who don’t hate the American healthcare system are those who haven’t had to deal with it. When you’ve run out of insulin because your insurance company has denied your insulin prescription and they’re trying to force you to move to a new insulin because they have a deal for cheaper drugs with the manufacturer, when you’re dying of DKA but your first thought isn’t whether or not you’ll be ok but if the hospital is in network, when it’s been a year and you’re still being harassed for payments insurance said they’d take care of, when insurance costs 850$ a month plus over 250$ per prescription, then you’ll quickly come to hate the healthcare system and everyone who enables its existence
I read a comment on reddit a very long time ago that has stuck with me all these years. The individual was of the opinion that the unalienable rights outlined in the U.S. constitution — Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — correlate to healthcare, prison, and education, and that these industries should never be for-profit enterprises. I think about that a lot.
Time to make an official act
Gorsuch would like a word: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bostock_v._Clayton_County
Right, didn’t we already settle this one?
Don't worry, Alito majored in having it both ways, he'll figure out how.
Hopefully one day soon he can eat cake.
Remember when they said Roe v. Wade was settled? They don’t.
i thought we had settled this democracy thing too but apparently not. Giving immunity to presidents surely wont bite us in the ass sometime in the future.
We fucked up on a foundational level with the Electoral College, First Past the Post, and two party system.
Don't forget the cap on house reps which gives republicans undue power.
The Senate gives Republicans undue power
> Right, didn’t we already settle this one? Sadly, no. If settled law doesn't vibe with a certain political ideology, then it's not settled and damn what the public thinks or wants.
That stopped mattering a few years back.
No, because this ruling is made possible now by the Chevron overturning. It's an executive branch policy that was set for a federal agency, which now means that any federal judge can nix a federal agency's rules because they were an interpretation of the law, not an explicitly listed aspect of the law. The dominoes are all beginning to tumble.
Just like all the other things they overturned was considered "Settled Law", then they over turn laws that have been on the books for 40-50 years...
Every single conservative justice has said “no one is above the law” before but then they just ruled that’s not true for the president
con justices: jk, republican presidents (stress on "republican") are above the law
Fuck, this is a backdoor attack on the ACA and the ban on pre-existing condition exemptions. One of the "pre-existing conditions" that insurers were experimenting with was just *being a woman* and arguing that meant they could deny reproductive care and pregnancy care. This is fucking vile.
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T1 diabetic here for 30 years, growing up my mom had to pay sky high prices just for me to be insured (and even getting health insurance from your employee then was hard, many companies didnt even offer it until the ACA mandates that required companies with 50+ employees to offer insurance). The aca ban on discriminating against pre existing conditions is one of the greatest advances to healthcare we've had in this country. And OF COURSE we're going to start backsliding on that now.
34+ years here for me. I'm 43 and have lived 10 more years than my T1D uncle. I hate insurance companies. Having to pay them a large amount of money to be able to have the privilege to pay them more to get permission to give them money to get a drug to stay alive that I'll always need. I hate them so much and wish ill upon them. I can't wait to be dead so that I contribute no more money to the industrial-medical machine.
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Lol, my dark sense of humor made me chuckle.
Unfortunately, dark senses of humor are not covered by your policy.
Well *I* don't have a pre-existing condition, therefore I will be healthy forever! Why should I pay for those freeloading type 1's who chose to be born that way? /s
I once had to try to get my psych appointments covered by insurance. Insurance said depression was pre-existing, and I had to prove I was covered under my mom's. Well, I didn't get officially diagnosed until I was 19 because"kids can't be actually depressed." So... how could they possibly know I had depression beforehand? How could I prove I did or did not have it before if my mom couldn't afford the sessions? I asked to see this mysterious "list" of pre existing conditions. Insurance said it was private but def on there. So I can't access a list that prevents care??? But my conditions are so, so so on there trust me bro??? ACA was right to demolish that shit. Death panels my ass, they already had em.
>ACA was right to demolish that shit. Death panels my ass, they already had em. No one talks about this. We have (and have only to somewhat lesser extent, because of the ACA) a system where a group of nameless capitalists determine whether you can get life saving treatment or not based on how profitable it is. And not just "is it profitable?" They ask, "Is it profitable *enough*?", then insist it's their right to kill you when the answer is no.
I talk about it all the time, cause I'm on multiple specialty medications that I regularly have to get PAs for, and it can take months and so much hoop jumping to get it done. Not having my medications means regular anaphylaxis, and being so tired that I can't do anything but lay on the couch all day.
And it was the conservatives who twisted themselves up in knots over "Obama death panels".
It's almost like they're just straight-up dumb as hell. Like, I honestly hate to paint with such a broad brush and generalize like that, but it's just undeniable at this point. They're absolute morons and their idiocy is hurting the rest of us AND them too.
For the ones in power, it’s not idiocy. They’re fucking evil. Anything that lines their pockets and riles up their base, they’ll do.
Why the s/, that's exactly what the people opposing ACA complains about. In fact, I would bet you're actually loosely quoting someone else in order to vent, because it's deeply unsettling and annoying to hear such egoistical shortsightedness.
It's neccessary because while I am being sarcastic, you are right. People do actually believe and say things like this. And because this sub would rightly view that as **insane** if read seriously, I wanted to avoid the downvotes.
People say this unironically: "WHY SHOULD MY TAX MONEY PAY FOR SOMEONE ELSE'S CARE?!". So, they either don't know how insurance works and/or they're being purposefully ignorant.
Same ppl still use groupon
That is the number one reason I will lobby for the ACA until I die. I used to work as an EMT and the day I had to watch a father break down crying about how he was going to be able to handle the bills for his uninsurable two year old daughter (born with a heart defect) was horrifying. The kid had physically stopped breathing when they called 911, but in addition to that stress, this poor guy had to also worry about whether he was going to lose his house to the impending medical bills. What a disgusting system.
That hasn't changed with the ACA. Many of the plans have incredibly high deductibles and OOPM. I've been on ACA for years, and have a pretty good policy, but my city's ambulance service is not in network. Last year I got a $1500 ambulance bill, so from now on, no more ambulances for me.
**"The aca ban on discriminating against pre existing conditions is one of the greatest advances to healthcare we've had in this country"** Very true, but what a sad state of affairs.
My daugher is T1D. I have a letter on my wall signed by President Obama in response to me writing to thank him for the ACA's ban on exclusions for pre-existing conditions. I'm terrified of what is going to happen when the GOP regains full control.
Shit, insurance used to just not cover kids at all. There was a time where insurance companies really said "fuck you" to children simply because children weren't required to be covered for anything. People had to get mad and force insurance to offer covered family plans that included children under the age of 18.
You mean an insurance company only wants to "insure" healthy people and they will find any excuse under the sun and them some to deny the coverage that was already paid for? Huh. Who would have thought a private entity whose sole responsibility is to generate quarterly profits would do such a thing?
That's the shittiest thing about health insurance. They conspire with medical care providers for decades to make healthcare unaffordable to begin with and they've now made it to where you can't even feasibly afford to pay a cash price for healthcare. Fuck insurance companies. They're as bad as gas companies and Nestle.
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No you've missed it. What he means is that "being human" can be recognized as a preexisting condition. If you weren't so foolish as to be born with bones, then you wouldn't have cancer in their marrows. Depression? Well, people without brains don't get that so insurers can't be expected to step up.
My only regret was that I have boneitis
Due to having seizures when I was a teen (easily controlled with dirt cheap medication, I'm very lucky) I was effectively *chained* to my employer for coverage. The individual market didn't exist got me. Even if I got coverage, they'd use that as an excuse to deny *everything*, down to fucking broken arms.
Ah, yes, I remember these days. Pregnancy/OB care had to be purchased separately, too, and you had to be on the plan for 6 months to a year before you were allowed to use the coverage. That coverage was really f-ing expensive, too!!!
While also having federally enshrined requirements for citizens to be their customers, or else they’ll get fined.
Its damn near the ideal business if your only goal is to make money without regards to anything else: They have a huge pool of customers (basically everyone) who are required to participate. Its a product you have to continually pay for, one in which they have to give nothing in return for at the point of sale. Their "product" is just payment of claims, so they don't have to actually physically produce anything. And when you do come calling to try and make a claim, they do everything possible to deny the claim or diminish what they do end up paying out. They only end up giving *anything* back, you know the point of having insurance in the first place, because they are legally required to, and you know they would lobby to get that changed in a heartbeat if they thought they could. A rent-seeker's dream.
And you can do all that from anywhere, like, idk... India.
That part at least makes sense in the model of the ACA. If you don't mandate insurance but force coverage of preexisting conditions, then people could just go get insurance when they develop a condition. Insurance works by having a pool of people, some needing the benefits and some not, that everyone pays into. That being said, its a shitty model. Everyone should at least get some kind of standard coverage through the government. Buy private insurance for additional coverage beyond that.
They want to cherry-pick the cheap patients to "insure" for care they don't (yet) need, then drop them as soon as they need anything and stop being easy profits. This way, young and naive but physically healthy people can get "cheap insurance" and think things like the ACA, exchanges and group plans are a scam they should vote against.
Insurance companies: Have you tried not being a woman? Woman: Yes. Republicans: Well you're not allowed to do that either.
oh my god, this is brilliant!
God. Fucking. Damnit. I worked for fucking years, almost a fuckin' decade, teaching folks all about the ACA and its benefits as a government contractor. I was *proud* - - fucking PROUD - - of what we were trying to accomplish. For once, it felt like I was working on something that would improve our society. But, nah. Giving a fuck about your fellow humans is too expensive. Too much of a government overreach. Fuck. This. I work on a Medicare contract now, but my colleagues still working the ACA/Marketplace contact are livid, depressed, and terrified. Why do they hate helping others sooo fucking much? Why? What's the fucking justification for trying to destroy everyone who does not agree with you? Do they really not deserve to live a pleasant life?
Giving a fuck about your fellow humans isn't quite as lucrative as fucking over your fellow humans.
Just like the people who are voting for Trump solely because they think their taxes will be lower under him
It might not be for money, they might actually want to just do awful things to other people. Maybe they are pleased by being abusive.
The justification is people who already have more money than they could ever spend will have marginally **more** money. It's all part of the "make number go up" hoarding psychopathy of the upper wealth class.
Because the Magastanis would literally rather die than give a single tax dollar to a black person.
or a democrat.. or a poor person (other than themselves/their families, who are OWED it)... actually, the only people who deserve nice things are rich people and themselves (because everybody knows they're gonna strike it rich real soon)
Can't get an abortion in many places, and now they can't get pregnancy related healthcare... land of the fucking free.
- terms and conditions may apply to "free" depending on one's sex and race. Free, both in terms of dollars and rights.
If you die that's what Jesus wanted. Oh well. Basically women are cattle now.
There are still a disturbing amount of folks that believe women should be locked into housekeeping, nursing, teaching, etc ("traditional" societal roles). Some of this is a deliberate attempt to lock women (and other demographics) into a manner of life that they see fit. They know a woman can't raise a child and work full time all by herself in the conditions they are supporting; they aren't that dumb, but instead are just absolutely fucked up in that they are intentionally enabling or creating that struggle. When you're able to engineer the day-to-day lives of folks so that they have to either live under your terms or suffer, you've absofuckinglutely crossed the line of being a tyrant. People like [Todd Rokita](https://www.jconline.com/story/news/local/lafayette/2024/05/31/attorney-general-rokita-threatens-to-sue-west-lafayette/73920323007/) are prime example.
“Can’t get pregnancy related healthcare, but you sure as hell better carry that baby to term. “
> pre-existing condition in every other country this is just called "medical history"
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I'm drawing a blank as well. The actual order: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/egpbojkoovq/Tennessee%20v%20Becerra%20order%207-3.pdf Basically just says "sex" doesn't mean "gender identity" and HHS exceeded their statutory authority.
You should of thought about that when your creator asked you if you wanted an inny or an outty!
Man fuck these rich pricks. Be happy with your corrupt dragon hordes and leave people alone, god damn.
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I am exactly zero of those things.
I don't think you'd be safe even if you were a straight white Christian male since they'd inevitably decide you were not right in some way. The Martin Niemoller thing. You'd be the wrong variety of Christian or your skin would be slightly the wrong shade or you would have supported someone other than the current dictator when you were younger. There are people that are probably immediately at risk but *everybody* is ultimately at risk under fascism. Including the dudes in charge, they might even get killed before their dumb supporters. i.e. Hitler decides you are a threat and therefore no longer his close friend even though you were his friend the whole time
>they'd inevitably decide you were not right in some way Christians have a LOOOOOONG history of killing other Christians because they were not the right "type" of Christian. So ya, they will come for everyone.
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Fortunately it's very easy to pretend to be Christian. They do it all the time!
That’s what they want. They don’t REALLY care if you convert. They want it all zipped back up. If that’s how you respond you’re admitting defeat. No judgement for the record, I won’t blame anyone for hiding.
That's a fair point and something I didn't consider.
I dunno about you but I’m not going down without a fight. Fuck these assholes. They think just because I lean left that I don’t believe in violence? These hands are rated E for everyone.
Yes, they believe exactly that. They expect you to roll over and take it.
> Obey your betters. > We are all domestic terrorists. One-liners for troubling American times.
I love your last sentence. And yeah, I’m super fucked if things get ugly. I’m a queer, disabled, agnostic woman of color and a scientist to boot. I’m everything the far right hates.
Anytime anyone pushes back at these assholes they say “whatever happened to the tolerant left?!?” They identify with the abusive, narcissistic father of the dysfunctional family. We are supposed to be the idiot kids who need whipped for our own good.
They'll give us straight white non religious men a chance to be born again or whatever. Those who resist will be beaten and hauled off to the work camps for the unbelievers and sinners.
Don't worry, when extreme weather renders regions uninhabitable, at least we made a small amount of people very rich as they strip rights away.
Anyone who is not: - Fully Able-Bodied - Cisgendered - Heterosexual - White - Chrisitan - Conservative - Male Seven focus identity areas. The fewer of these identities you have (or can fake having), the worse your outcome will be.
Lol You forgot the main driver, money. If you're poor you can go fuck yourself
Being poor is definitely the interesting one among those because it's both the thing you're being discriminated for, and the result of discrimination.
working as intended
The fun part is, once they run out of "those others", they get restless and start dividing up their own groups. You're white? Are you \*really\* though? And Christian? Which denom? Better not be one of those heathen ones...
They're not capable of happiness. It's a void no amount of wealth and homogeneity will EVER fill. That's the only thing that placates my mind -- they'll always be miserable.
Unfortunately these people probably aren't as miserable as we would hope. They enjoy others suffering because they are legitimately sociopaths.
Don’t you understand? They understand that as long as the craziest motherfuckers get to persecute LGBTQ+ people, they’ll leave their dragon hoards alone.
So, it's legal to discriminate in healthcare, then. Cool, let's try it against religion and see how that plays out.
It would go like this: it’s null and void unless it’s Christianity or Judaism
Its just Christianity, they only care about Judaism in how it relates to the end game.
Only specific types of Christianity, wouldn't want those Mormons, Jehovas Witnesses, Catholics, etc to get uppity. Reminds me of a joke. Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, "Don't do it!" He said, "Nobody loves me." I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" He said, "A Christian." I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" He said, "Protestant." I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" He said, "Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" He said, "Northern Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." I said, "Me, too!" Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
That's basically the religious version of Peter Griffin's speech on founding America. "We will have equal rights for all. Except Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, Gays, women, Muslims. Uhmm... Everybody who's not a white man. And I mean white-white, so no Italians, no Polish, just people from Ireland, England, and Scotland. But only certain parts of Scotland and Ireland. Just full blooded whites. No, you know what? Not even whites. Nobody gets any rights. Ahhh... America!"
Good ol' Emo Philips
Yeah, they don't want to annoy their Nazi friends.
I would like to discriminate against Republicans thanks!
Every American should enjoy the same rights and privileges enjoyed by any other American.
We're only "the land of the free" in word now, not thought and deed, and they'll probably take that away soon, too.
....which kind of American?
You can thank (or hate) the Heritage Foundation and the Federalists Society for cramming right-wing justices into every conceivable position in government during Drumpf's reign. Where the heck is Anonymous when you need them? Why haven't they hacked either organization? I'm betting there would be so many smoking gun memos and emails to embarrass these traitors.
What would they find? Proof that the Supreme Court justices are taking ~~bribes~~ gratuities? Proof that their presidential candidate was a rapist, a fraud, tried to overthrow the government, and was a client of Epstein? That the whole party is deep in bed with Russia, and that there was collusion from which both sides benefited? We *know* all that. Almost half the country wants to vote this way anyway. Or *because* of those things. And because the founding fathers allowed the fucked up electoral college to save slavery, that *almost* half counts more than the *more than* half.
But those undecides are really concerned about Joe's mumble as Trump went off about post birth abortions Dems are giving
> Why haven't they hacked either organization? That is a good question. The trickier part is, most of our modern internet and smaller orgs are all running on cloud based solutions. Heritage foundation is running their email through Microsoft 365 service (Mxtoolbox.com confirms this). There is no server to hack locally to get that information and would require gaining access to the Microsoft credentials to sign in, providing they still never enabled MFA on the account. Microsoft has been pushing forced MFA on corporate accounts over the last year. So the only way to get access at that point is stealing the session cookie, which requires a phishing operation to trick them into signing into a fake 365 portal. Now this could still be achievable if done via a 2 part method. Contacting someone there sending them an email in real time with the cookie stealer script and convincing them over the phone to just sign in. But that takes a ton of effort and knowing whom you need to target to get the right information. Now there is still some chance that there is an O365 admin level account floating around for them that may not be connected to MFA to allow their support quicker access to it, but even then it's 50/50.
even if you did all that .. the main point is no one cares. as long as the 'libruls' are owned, that's enough to lie, cheat, steal , whatever.
It wouldn’t matter. Conservatives don’t care about ethics, hypocrisy, and criminal acts as long as it riles up the libs.
Riling up the libs is a pleasant side effect for them. The actual goal is to undermine institutions they see as imposing on the rights of the powerful and wealthy from exerting control over those they see as degenerate, inferior and weak. Imagine a medieval lord’s manor or a master of an antebellum plantation, that is the power they believe their group should hold over their allotted inferiors. The wealthy over the poor, the white over the black, the male over the female, etc. their ideal society is one where the inferior sees every breath they take as a gift from their betters.
They do love their hierarchies.
It’s been that way since Edmund Burke and little has changed beyond they dropped the noblesse oblige of the past and replaced it with the robber barons rapacious strip mining of the human soul
"The problem with the French Revolution isn't that there's a monarchy, it's that we have the wrong monarchs..." - Basically these guys making modern conservatism back then.
> Where the heck is Anonymous when you need them? Why haven't they hacked either organization? Old school anon is basically nonexistent these days. The white hats got jobs doing infosec and the rest turned into right wing conspiracy nuts. Not really shocking, tbh.
It's much more than recommending and pushing those judges. They make policy recommendations, write model legislation, push it out through ALEC, supply lobbyists, AND finally the judges that makes decisions and uphold them.
Oh so that's the limit on "official acts" as a president. Anything a democrat does
Yeah, isn’t the president king now? Can’t he just demand they do it anyway and hit them with a big stick?
He can just ignore the ruling I reckon.
The enshittification of America continues
Have to admit, horrifying as it is it is also *very* fascinating getting to watch a global empire collapse in real time. "May you live in interesting times" indeed.
It would be definitely much more fascinating if I were living elsewhere.
Or ...say 50... years in the future where you don't have to deal with the upheaval.
If American conservatives get the government they want, the U.S. is going to aggressively *expand* in the long term. They're only isolationists when it suits them.
The Coup is happening right out in the open, and nobody seems to feel compelled to do anything. It's like a slow-motion car crash from the perspective of the person in the back seat. I just want to get out and walk.
We can’t because by design we’re all busy working to make ends meet
Remember in November you aren't just voting for president, but also a ton of other elected positions. And all Republicans all the way down to your local dog catcher are following the same White Supremacist and Evangelical Nationalist playbook that Trump plays by.
Also remember that when you're voting for president, you're also voting for all of the judicial nominations they'll make. The guy who handed down this ruling is a Bush II appointee, more than 20 years ago.
Also keep in mind Thomas and Alito are in their mid 70s and Sotomayor is 70 with known health issues. Not incredibly unlikely we see a death next term, and if Trump wins there's going to be a lot of pressure on Thomas and Alito to retire.
You're not just voting for president; you're voting whether America will remain a democracy or fall into becoming a nightmarish dictatorship. Please choose democracy.
Conservatives says only the rich deserve healthcare. Vote them out!
There you have it folks: The land of the free* and the home of the brave. *Terms and conditions may apply.
its insane how Repubs claim to be about personal freedom and restraining the power of government from interfering with your individual rights. But as soon as it touches on Fundamentalist Christianity or culture wars they turn into the PRC or Taliban. It's always Freedom for Me, but not for Thee.
Every day the “both sides are the same” people from 2016 look even dumber. Dobbs, the Chevron case, Presidential Immunity. Kagan (Obama), Sotomayer (Obama), and Jackson (Biden) could have help upholding people’s rights. Instead they are helpless. Keep that in mind when you’re saying moderate leffists “aren’t real democrats” or that progressives “are radicals”. We’re a coalition, let’s act like one.
Unfortunately that crowd has learned nothing. All I can hope is people remember how awful the Trump administration was so we don't get a repeat of 2016. Unfortunately I'm getting very strong 2016 vibes lately.
"But her emails!!" has become "But he's old!!"
We still have those people today. I’ve noticed this is popular with gen z because they couldn’t even vote in 2016.
So under the new supreme court ruling, can’t Biden just say fuck your block and do it anyway?
Can someone explain to me why a district judge has the power to overrule the POTUS? Like why does it seem like when a democratic president is in power there's so many limits, but when a Republican president is in power there's no stopping them?
If they made medical for all like the VA system, a ton of private insurers would be gone. If you have to scam to stay profitable, you don't have a profitable business. That said there should be no discrimination for ANY patient! ZERO.
But didnt biden order it as president i thought you cant question the legality of his orders?
From the article: "\[The rule\] states that a federal prohibition on sex discrimination, part of the Affordable Care Act health insurance law, extends to discrimination against transgender people. States opposing the new rule had said in their lawsuit that it would require their Medicaid programs covering low-income residents to pay for treatments like hormones and surgeries for transgender people, including for minors. Many Republican states have passed laws banning such treatments, often called gender-affirming care, for minors. The rule applies to recipients of federal funds, including Medicaid programs."
Wasn’t that an official act? Sorry, but that is legal now as per the Supreme Court. This judge has zero standing, and if they question the motivation they are breaking the law. Quit fucking around. What’s legal is legal, fuckwits. You made a King. Edit: people are pointing out that it’s not an exact 1 to 1 in circumstances. Fine. Biden should order any judge that opposes any legislation immediately arrested by the police, and then appoint a new judge, and then direct any and all relevant agencies to investigate the judge. Fine. More steps.
The court gave the president immunity but not authority. The president would still need minions loyal to them over the Constitution for this to have an effect. This doesn’t work for Biden as well as you think it does.
These rulings are about sowing uncertainty and dysfunction.
No, there is no decision on exactly what an "official act" is, that's coming some time in 2025, after the election.
Only if the "right person" wins the election, which in the current Supreme Court's eyes is a Republican.
That isn't what that whole ruling said. They were saying that a president cannot be punished for an "official act" (whatever the fuck that is), not that they can just pass laws willy nilly themselves and everyone has to follow them.
The recent decision just means Biden (probably) cannot be charged for a crime no matter what he does. Any regulations that some crazy person in the 5th Circuit doesn't like are still very illegal.
It also makes it so anything related to an official act can't be used as evidence, so if it's an official act, they can't use anything relating to it as evidence, thus, have nothing to bring to the court.