tl;dr insurnce companies bad, drugs bad, Trump bad, Rooooskie bad, we're fucked, etc.
Not every state expanded Medicaid, by the way. Some people got jack shit.
Amphetamines are especially profitable. You see the doc once a month to get your script. You're in and out in 15 minutes. The profit margins on the drugs themselves are insane.
I don't really care for Adderall, and I have mixed feelings about prescribing it to kids. But I think if I were on it from a young age I'd have had an easier time sitting still in school. Looking back, what I got instead of amphetamines was worse for me than the amphetamines would have been.
The real problem with prescribing it to kids is it's an easy out for everybody around them, just like the other drugs they put kids on. Almost everybody always wants the easy answer. The school district is often the worst offender in this regard.
You're paying a premium for the priviledge of having an insurance company pay out when you want/need medical services. It's either a well-hidden cost (nothing out of your paycheck, but you're getting paid less because of it), an obvious cost (a payroll deduction you justify because of what you're getting), or in the case of trade unions and the USPS, they take a per hour amount off the top (example, $50 per hour wage + $30 per hour healthcare contribution). You're paying for it no matter what.
Construction is a bit of an anomoly though. There's a ton of money flowing through contractors and a lot of interests keeping the status quo. A lot of "good jobs" in other industries have shit benefits because corporations want to keep costs down to keep profits up. For those jobs, either the cost of employment has to go up or the wage/salary has to go down. Where things are at now just happens to be what corporations think the sweet spot is.
If you could cut out the entirety of the general health insurance industry, a lot of money could be saved. And I mean that with a capital T. People can pay in according to how much money they make, without caps, through their taxes and the only ones profiting from this would be the medical providers. Big pharma could still make a ton of money, just not as much as they do now. The government, in it's role as insurer, can operate at cost. No more profiteering insurance companies soaking up all the value.
The reason we have laws to protect the public from this is because it's bad for all of us when a large portion of our population falls for scams and loses a lot of money.
There is still room for smaller scale scams though. Like oh so many crowdfunding campaigns, Josh's griftraiser where he absolutely did not sue LFJ into the ground like he said he would, or even that "smokin' deal" rustbucket car on Marketplace with the hack-n-pack rocker panels and the hidden rod knock you won't know about until you change the oil. People who fall for that need to look a little closer into what they're buying when they get into shit like that.
Elon Musk, a ketamine-addicted, narcissistic, unelected immigrint loser with significant monetary interests, should be nowhere near the government, and yet he's there dicking around firing nonpartisan government employees to cripple the government, but under the guise of eliminating "waste, fraud, and abuse". It's no surprise he's done a lot to benefit his own companies in his short time as Special Agent Kaffir Dumbfuck. And why cripple the goverment? Well, aside from the obvious direct benefits to Tesla and SpaceX, it lays the groundwork for Trump and the Republican Party to privatize even more of the government so they can make money off of it. That's extra money you and me will have to pay, mind you, since the government doesn't turn a profit by design. Those dollars have to come from somewhere. On top of increased costs, it will also bring shittier quality of service and it will incentivize predatory behavior on the part of the profiteers as well as the parts of the government they have influence over. For example, private prisons and judicial kickbacks. To date, DOGE (a meme, yes it's a fucking meme) has found zero fraud, waste, or abuse, while wasting tons of taxpayer money in the process and effectively usurping Congressional consent.
Trump started a trade war with our two closest allies as well as China, crashed the stock market on purpose so he and his buddies could make a cool three billion (coming out of YOUR 401k, buddy), and continues to LIE about his insane tarriffs, the most damaging aspects of which we have yet to see. The US is highly dependent on China for their cheap exports, their lithium-chemistry batteries, and their apetite for US Treasury bonds, whereas China doesn't really need us in order to get by. They have the entire rest of the Western world to sell to, and since they're an authoritarian dictatorship with a thin veil of communism, they can afford to eat shit for a lot longer than we can, meaning they can beat idiot Trump at his own game, plus the next President and the one after that as well. The China trade war will be as everlasting as the worthless War on Terror and it will cost us dearly. Things seem normal now, because at the moment we have stocks of almost everything we import from China and many importers are trying to stuff the ports with as much product as possible before the tarriffs go into effect. Once that stock runs out, and the tarriffs jack up the price of Chinese imports, you'll see that reflected in the prices of a majority of things you see on store shelves. Not everything, mind you, because some products are made in other countries, like Vietnamese apple juice and solar panels, Mexican flat screen TVs, Korean washing machines, etc. But the impact will hit you like a brick wall when it does finally get here. Not to mention the rest of the world boycotting our exports in large numbers.
Trump and his cabinet, narcissistic morons they are, are especially suspectible to Russian propaganda. The absolute best thing Trump or any President could have done is to put down Russia once and for all. We should have done this in 1945, fresh off the defeat of Japan, but we did not. Russia is at an all time low since the fall of the Soviet Union, and getting rid of them as a threat would be great for the rest of the world, and of course, profits. But Agent Orange is so stupid, and so hellbent on being the world'sdicktaker dealmaker, that he's spent almost three months so far trying to get Ukraine and Russia to play nice, when it's painfully obvious that Russia will never play nice. He's also got an uncomfortable amount of admiration for dictators, and it's clear he wants to be one himself some day. While it's likely the EU will put down Russia to save themselves (and Ukraine as a bonus), it leaves America looking pretty retarded and lonesome. We're supposed to be the superpower of the world, and all Trump had to do was keep his hands off, stay the Biden course for better or worse, and take the credit. But he cound't help himself, and we're irreversably fucked because of it. And that's just one issue in a sea of international fuckups. All this talk about annexing Canada, Greenland, the Gaza Concentration Camp, etc. is extremely damaging to our reputation as a country. Continuing to funnel money into Israel to fund war criminal
Benjamin Netanyahu
(speaking of my tribe again) in his crusade against a two bit terrorist group and the Palestinian people. While these Mudslims did celebrate 9/11 on live televison and voted in a terrorist government, I don't for a second think it makes it okay for Zionists to continue to genocide them or for my tax dollars to be funding such Holocaustesque actions, nor does it make it okay for ANY of the shit the Zionists have done in Palestine over the last 80 or so years.
Trump thinks it's okay to ship people, indluding US citizens, off to a terrorist prison in the Central American shithole El Salvador. Your tax dollars are paying for the detention of illegal aliens who are supposedly gang members (no proof) in this foreign prison. Not to mention, the people running this operation are so fucking stupid, they've "accidentally" (read: we want to find out if we can get away with this) sent a US citizen that they claim they can't repatriate "because he's in a foreign country we have no jurisdiction over" even though we're PAYING El Salvador for his ILLEGAL detention. The US Supreme Court is playing dumb ("they have to file Habius in the jurisdiction of the prison") because they know if they rule against Trump he'll disregard and carry on anyway, and they're in fear of losing their power, which effectively means they've already lost it anyway.
Throughout all of this, Rebulican Congressniggers are variously cheering him on, vying to ascend to the throne of the Kingdom of the USA, quietly getting rich while they wait for the Trump administration to end or for Trump himself to keel over, pissing on the Constitution, cowering in fear of their own voter base, and needlessly antagonising Democrats instead of uniting against the true threat. Meanwhile, Democrat Congressniggers are helpless as ever with their thumbs up their asses knowing full well that the midterms and 2028 will likely be in their favor as the proletariat become increasingly desperate for change. Some Democrats are taking the oppertunity to boost their chances of being the DNC nomination, like the aforementioned Cory Booker, while others are quietly making money while they quietly wait. Some are capituating to Trump's demands, like prominent Zionist Chuck Schumer.
How is this the lesser of two evils? I don't like Scamala Harris, in fact I think she should be in jail, but is she really capable of such sweeping and long lasting damage as Trump has demonstrated in less than three months? I'd rather have "woke DEI twans rights" bullshit that can be easily undone later than have to pay $1500 for a $300 Nintendo Switch 2, or equally batshit crazy tarriff-induced price hikes on things I actually need. I don't want to live in a country where I could be forcibly fucked off to some prison in a spic shithole only to have the government go "oh, my blacks" and pretend they can't do anything to get me back. I don't want to hold half of my fellow citizens in contemt for voting for what was an OBVIOUS scam. I don't want to deal with the long term effects of growing old while being surrounded by an even worse generation than the zoomers. I'd deal with whatever potential bullshit Scamala would have brought, especially having experienced four years of Trump's idiocy already.
I am extremely greatful, not for my US citizenship (natural born citizen to natual born citizens, who were themselves born to natural born citizens) but rather I'm greatful for my EU citizenship (blood rights), because it means I have an out (at great personal sacrifice) in case the US can't get it's shit together.
PS: Don't worry, I won't talk this much on the podcast. I promise.
I got Medicaid through my state's Obamacare program, which is the only way to get on Medicaid where I live. My insurance card was a Medicaid card. I still had to pay out of pocket for a lot of shit, and I could only see "in network" doctors.No I mean in every state they have Medicaid, not Obamacare. Obamacare was a fucking scam. I think you have to make less than like $1,000 a month to qualify for it though, so you might as well not even have a fucking job if you're making that little.
Not every state expanded Medicaid, by the way. Some people got jack shit.
Both the healthcare problem and the skirting regulations problem are problems caused by greed.Jobs that do that should be penalized or not given tax breaks by the government. Walmart comes to mind when I think of things like that. Purposely working people only 39 hours a week so they don't have to give them healthcare.
Again that's not a socialized medicine problem, that's a we need to close the fucking loopholes problem.
Union shop?The differences with socialized medicine even though I help manage a business, instead of having the badass company insurance that I have currently, I would be paying out even more taxes to get the same shitty bottom shelf insurance that everyone else got. So I would be paying a lot more to get a lot less. That's retarded.
Why is this?Have you ever been to a doctor or an emergency room in a country that has socialized medicine? It fucking BLOOOOWS.
No and I mean there are legitimately people who have ADHD or gender dysphoria or depression or anxiety. I'm not saying that these ailments don't exist, I'm just saying that they are very overdiagnosed because the lifetime of pills that come with these things are lucrative as fuck for the pharmaceutical industry.
Same reason why troons are put on HRT and referred for surgeries, instead of being put on schizophrenia meds. Because the former is more profitable and it has favorable optics among the libshits.CBT is cognitive behavioral therapy isn't it? I didn't know that did anything for ADHD, but if it does that makes me even more fucking enraged thinking about how many prepubescent children are put on legal meth as the first option.
Amphetamines are especially profitable. You see the doc once a month to get your script. You're in and out in 15 minutes. The profit margins on the drugs themselves are insane.
I don't really care for Adderall, and I have mixed feelings about prescribing it to kids. But I think if I were on it from a young age I'd have had an easier time sitting still in school. Looking back, what I got instead of amphetamines was worse for me than the amphetamines would have been.
The real problem with prescribing it to kids is it's an easy out for everybody around them, just like the other drugs they put kids on. Almost everybody always wants the easy answer. The school district is often the worst offender in this regard.
I'm gonna talk to a lawyer about it pretty soon, because this is bullshit. The insurance adjuster is one of the most retarded people I've ever dealt with, too.Fucking insane. Again though (broken record, I know) this is a loophole problem that could be corrected by these people forced to be held accountable, not taxing everyone into oblivion for the shittiest insurance ever.
Bernie and AOC are the only ones I see pushing this. Where are the other Dems on this issue? Consumed by corporate interests, of course. And I'm not saying these two have perfectly clean hands either.I can get behind that 100%. Socialized medicine wouldn't even bother me so much if I didn't have to worry about my choices being taken away. I like and want to keep my private insurance because it's badass and it covers everything.
You're paying a premium for the priviledge of having an insurance company pay out when you want/need medical services. It's either a well-hidden cost (nothing out of your paycheck, but you're getting paid less because of it), an obvious cost (a payroll deduction you justify because of what you're getting), or in the case of trade unions and the USPS, they take a per hour amount off the top (example, $50 per hour wage + $30 per hour healthcare contribution). You're paying for it no matter what.
Construction is a bit of an anomoly though. There's a ton of money flowing through contractors and a lot of interests keeping the status quo. A lot of "good jobs" in other industries have shit benefits because corporations want to keep costs down to keep profits up. For those jobs, either the cost of employment has to go up or the wage/salary has to go down. Where things are at now just happens to be what corporations think the sweet spot is.
If you could cut out the entirety of the general health insurance industry, a lot of money could be saved. And I mean that with a capital T. People can pay in according to how much money they make, without caps, through their taxes and the only ones profiting from this would be the medical providers. Big pharma could still make a ton of money, just not as much as they do now. The government, in it's role as insurer, can operate at cost. No more profiteering insurance companies soaking up all the value.
A typical scam is a lot more reasonable than that. Usually the claimed benefits sound above average but still reasonable to keep you from thinking too hard, and the risk is well hidden. As well, the guy running it is usually held in high regards by the target audience. See Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, or Donald Trump's multiple crypto scams.Maybe they should be. I don't pretend to know how stonks and investments work, I just know that if a guy is telling me if I give him 10 million dollars he will turn it into 50 million in 2 weeks, I'm either being scammed or I'm getting into the drug business.
The reason we have laws to protect the public from this is because it's bad for all of us when a large portion of our population falls for scams and loses a lot of money.
There is still room for smaller scale scams though. Like oh so many crowdfunding campaigns, Josh's griftraiser where he absolutely did not sue LFJ into the ground like he said he would, or even that "smokin' deal" rustbucket car on Marketplace with the hack-n-pack rocker panels and the hidden rod knock you won't know about until you change the oil. People who fall for that need to look a little closer into what they're buying when they get into shit like that.
Practically every person in his cabinet is a fucking moron with mental problems, chosen primarily on their ability to suck orange dick. Signalgate is much, much worse than Hillary's illegal use of a personal email server, or Hillary's illegal use of a personal Blackberry device. RFK, a guy who can barely even speak, is hellbent on sending us back to the stone age, and the entire Republican Party wants our kids to be as uneducated and indoctrinated as possible, so there will be much less resistence to right-wing bullshit in 20 or 30 years from now.Lesser of two evilsbesides he brought a lot of good stuff into the White House by proxy, I love the fact that RFK Jr is part of the administration. Operation mockingbird incessantly whines about the couple of out-of-pocket things he said in his lifetime, but the dude is legit when it comes to most of his views on health.
Elon Musk, a ketamine-addicted, narcissistic, unelected immigrint loser with significant monetary interests, should be nowhere near the government, and yet he's there dicking around firing nonpartisan government employees to cripple the government, but under the guise of eliminating "waste, fraud, and abuse". It's no surprise he's done a lot to benefit his own companies in his short time as Special Agent Kaffir Dumbfuck. And why cripple the goverment? Well, aside from the obvious direct benefits to Tesla and SpaceX, it lays the groundwork for Trump and the Republican Party to privatize even more of the government so they can make money off of it. That's extra money you and me will have to pay, mind you, since the government doesn't turn a profit by design. Those dollars have to come from somewhere. On top of increased costs, it will also bring shittier quality of service and it will incentivize predatory behavior on the part of the profiteers as well as the parts of the government they have influence over. For example, private prisons and judicial kickbacks. To date, DOGE (a meme, yes it's a fucking meme) has found zero fraud, waste, or abuse, while wasting tons of taxpayer money in the process and effectively usurping Congressional consent.
Trump started a trade war with our two closest allies as well as China, crashed the stock market on purpose so he and his buddies could make a cool three billion (coming out of YOUR 401k, buddy), and continues to LIE about his insane tarriffs, the most damaging aspects of which we have yet to see. The US is highly dependent on China for their cheap exports, their lithium-chemistry batteries, and their apetite for US Treasury bonds, whereas China doesn't really need us in order to get by. They have the entire rest of the Western world to sell to, and since they're an authoritarian dictatorship with a thin veil of communism, they can afford to eat shit for a lot longer than we can, meaning they can beat idiot Trump at his own game, plus the next President and the one after that as well. The China trade war will be as everlasting as the worthless War on Terror and it will cost us dearly. Things seem normal now, because at the moment we have stocks of almost everything we import from China and many importers are trying to stuff the ports with as much product as possible before the tarriffs go into effect. Once that stock runs out, and the tarriffs jack up the price of Chinese imports, you'll see that reflected in the prices of a majority of things you see on store shelves. Not everything, mind you, because some products are made in other countries, like Vietnamese apple juice and solar panels, Mexican flat screen TVs, Korean washing machines, etc. But the impact will hit you like a brick wall when it does finally get here. Not to mention the rest of the world boycotting our exports in large numbers.
Trump and his cabinet, narcissistic morons they are, are especially suspectible to Russian propaganda. The absolute best thing Trump or any President could have done is to put down Russia once and for all. We should have done this in 1945, fresh off the defeat of Japan, but we did not. Russia is at an all time low since the fall of the Soviet Union, and getting rid of them as a threat would be great for the rest of the world, and of course, profits. But Agent Orange is so stupid, and so hellbent on being the world's
Trump thinks it's okay to ship people, indluding US citizens, off to a terrorist prison in the Central American shithole El Salvador. Your tax dollars are paying for the detention of illegal aliens who are supposedly gang members (no proof) in this foreign prison. Not to mention, the people running this operation are so fucking stupid, they've "accidentally" (read: we want to find out if we can get away with this) sent a US citizen that they claim they can't repatriate "because he's in a foreign country we have no jurisdiction over" even though we're PAYING El Salvador for his ILLEGAL detention. The US Supreme Court is playing dumb ("they have to file Habius in the jurisdiction of the prison") because they know if they rule against Trump he'll disregard and carry on anyway, and they're in fear of losing their power, which effectively means they've already lost it anyway.
Throughout all of this, Rebulican Congressniggers are variously cheering him on, vying to ascend to the throne of the Kingdom of the USA, quietly getting rich while they wait for the Trump administration to end or for Trump himself to keel over, pissing on the Constitution, cowering in fear of their own voter base, and needlessly antagonising Democrats instead of uniting against the true threat. Meanwhile, Democrat Congressniggers are helpless as ever with their thumbs up their asses knowing full well that the midterms and 2028 will likely be in their favor as the proletariat become increasingly desperate for change. Some Democrats are taking the oppertunity to boost their chances of being the DNC nomination, like the aforementioned Cory Booker, while others are quietly making money while they quietly wait. Some are capituating to Trump's demands, like prominent Zionist Chuck Schumer.
How is this the lesser of two evils? I don't like Scamala Harris, in fact I think she should be in jail, but is she really capable of such sweeping and long lasting damage as Trump has demonstrated in less than three months? I'd rather have "woke DEI twans rights" bullshit that can be easily undone later than have to pay $1500 for a $300 Nintendo Switch 2, or equally batshit crazy tarriff-induced price hikes on things I actually need. I don't want to live in a country where I could be forcibly fucked off to some prison in a spic shithole only to have the government go "oh, my blacks" and pretend they can't do anything to get me back. I don't want to hold half of my fellow citizens in contemt for voting for what was an OBVIOUS scam. I don't want to deal with the long term effects of growing old while being surrounded by an even worse generation than the zoomers. I'd deal with whatever potential bullshit Scamala would have brought, especially having experienced four years of Trump's idiocy already.
I am extremely greatful, not for my US citizenship (natural born citizen to natual born citizens, who were themselves born to natural born citizens) but rather I'm greatful for my EU citizenship (blood rights), because it means I have an out (at great personal sacrifice) in case the US can't get it's shit together.
PS: Don't worry, I won't talk this much on the podcast. I promise.