Anyone else remember, in the lead up to the ObamaCare vote, when the GOP used the idea of government officials (death panels) deciding who should get treatment and who should die as a fear mongering tactic?
My my my how the turns have tabled.
It’s ok when multi billion dollar insurance companies do it when they decide which med they’re going to pay for.
I had to go to the ER recently because my insurance decided to stop paying for the higher quality iron infusion formulation and switched to only being willing to pay for the cheapest options. Turns out the cheap, less popular options are more likely to have bad reactions.
Wish I could sue them, or at least have whoever made that decision suffer the pain that I did.
I can at least be somewhat comforted by the fact that that emergency visit cost them a lot more than the usual formulation would have. Try to save money on my health care? Fuck you, too.
Yeah, just as long as the government keeps its damned hands off my medicare!
My insurance company is my friend! They make the pills that make the sad go away cost less.
Insurance actually generally increases prices. Then they “negotiate it down” to regular prices.
They are not your friend. They are the reason your pill costs so much. Pharmacist can actually charge less for them if you say you want to pay in cash - you often pay MORE to use insurance on a lot of prescribed medication. They legally can not tell you that.
Read up, it doesn’t hurt to talk to pharmacist https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/why-a-patient-paid-a-285-copay-for-a-40-drug
I’m always curious when this type of story comes up. Is it locale based? Certain states doing funny things? Certain chain pharmacy practices? From my almost 10 years experience as a pharmacy technician in Oregon and Washington, I still have yet to see the actual cash price (not wholesale price) be cheaper than insurance.
They legally can not tell you that
Got a source for that? Absolutely not true.
If you go to Walgreens, your prescription leaflet specifically tells you how much you “saved” over the cash price. That cash price is the most expensive price you could pay for the medication. Cash price of your drug is $297? If insurance pays nothing, you’ll pay $297. Ask to pay cash and you’ll pay $297.
Now there are some chains that do have a list of medications that they do have cheaper (Example is Walmart’s $4 Drug List, or Walgreens’ paid discount program), but that’s chain specific and the lists are pretty narrow in what’s covered. They’re loss leaders since they want to fill all your other drugs that aren’t on those lists.
The other alternative is Discount Cards. Can definitely save money over insurance prices, but it’s hard to know what those companies are doing with your data. You’re giving a random 3rd party access to your health information. They’ll give you a discount then turn around and sell your information to the highest bidder. Unfortunately sometimes a pharmacy will run your claims through one without telling you when you ask to pay cash (Some give kickbacks to the tech/pharmacist).
None of this is to say that I like the prices of drugs. Drug makers and insurance companies artificially raise prices and tell you you’re getting a good deal on your “million dollar” medication.
They are called “gag clauses”.
Tables didn’t turn.
That back then, as everything they say now, is pure projection of things they did or plan to do.
And then again I seriously have to ask why nobody is looking into New York Trump properties that have a pizza place or other food joint in it, because there’s children being sextrafficed in its basement.
Doesn’t Guilliani own a few pizza joints?
There have ALWAYS been death panels. There are death panels RIGHT NOW.
They’re occupied by insurance corporations balancing the profit from your premiums and the cost of your treatment. Is it cheaper to let someone die? Can we save the life so they will continue to pay premiums? Can we deny treatment without a media circus that makes us look bad? If there IS a media circus, will they die soon enough that everybody forgets?
I would rather take corporate profit out of the equation.
Every accusation is a confession. Every single one.
Anytime someone says death panels I have a compulsive need to post this:
Frame Canada: Wendell Potter spent decades scaring Americans. About Canada. He worked for the health insurance industry, and he knew that if Americans understood Canadian-style health care, they might… like it. So he helped deploy an industry playbook for protecting the health insurance agency. https://www.npr.org/2020/10/19/925354134/frame-canada
This explains so freaking much about how everyone is always terrified of Canadian health care when it works decently well. (Perfect? No!) But so many of their problems in accessing specialists are identical to ours. (Most common argument I hear.)
And it was just so much easier getting on antidepressants and switching up my birth control methods while I was in Canada than if I had tried the same in the US.
What do you think health insurers are? Their business plan is literally “well, maybe you’ll die before we agree to pay for the treatment. We can always change the agreement tomorrow anyway.”
The truly hilarious thing is that in several states abortion bans were put on hold precisely because of medical freedom laws passed after Obamacare, which, of course, never had to be used against the fictitious government death panels.
I don’t remember (but should), can you give me some more info to have because this is too good of an example to not use.
Thank you. That is incredibly messed up.
Fucking insanity. Nobody but this woman and her fucking doctor should even know about this shit. Unbelievable.
That was what Roe was actually about, the right to medical privacy and patient doctor sovereignty
Yup, nobody in the office except the doctor, the patient, whomever the patient trusts enough to authorize their presence, and about 20 people working at an insurance company whom the patient has never met.
I said it in another post but these are the actual Death Panels Sarah Palin ‘fabricated’ (since hers was a huge lie). The government is actually standing between a person who needs care and their doctor.
For every murder the republican politicians are committing…eh…I’ll leave it at that. I can’t talk about the club.
I agree, but please add the father in there. Not trying to derail the conversation, but he is losing his child too and the woman he loves’s life is on the line. We do need to start remembering to respect partners during these types of events.
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Because it’s about controlling women. If a women has a miscarriage or the baby is nonviable in any way the woman must have done something to cause it. So she must be punished, if not legally, than medically. Just look at what’s happening to women that have miscarriages in Ohio. (a state that just enshrined the right to an abortion by popular vote but it’s still controlled by the GOP.) If you live in a read state and are pregnant, leave the state asap. Your life and your babies life is in danger even if you have a pregnancy with no complications.
I asked my doctor, you know, best case, how much time she thinks we would have with her. And she said, ‘Could be an hour. Could be a week,’ but that we needed to prepare ourselves to be placing this baby onto hospice. There’s no treatment. So that was very, very hard," Cox said.
Why bring a life into the world just to suffer and die?
These laws are beyond cruel. And the authorities are actively fighting to deny justice.
“its gods will”…
Is God in the room with us right now?
How is it not god’s will that the fetus is aborted? I thought eVErYThiNG HApPeNS fOR a rEAsOn & gOd HAs a PLaN
It’s pretty goddamn arrogant to assume ~that this is what god wants, especially one who is ostensibly a loving god~ you know god’s will when god is something beyond our realm of comprehension*
*assuming god even exists**
**you may now shove me in a locker for my prattling on
The Christian god was never loving. He has always been an egomaniacal sociopath with an inferiority complex and some mood disorder. Maybe borderline personality disorder. He seems paranoid, controlling, and prone to manipulation and explosive rage when he feels line he has been slighted.
I may be misremembering the DSM negative characteristic map for BPD though. To anyone with BPD out there reading this, I apologize for making a joke at your expense. I know it is a very difficult mental illness to live with, at least when you recognize what is going on. I have known a few people who did not and it wasn’t pretty for those in their life.
I often use pets as an example. We have no problem ending the life of an animal to prevent suffering. But we are unwilling to do the same with fellow humans.
GAW-Duh.
Because it’s about controlling women. If a women has a miscarriage or the baby is nonviable in any way the woman must have done something to cause it. So she must be punished, if not legally, than medically. Just look at what’s happening to women that have miscarriages in Ohio. (a state that just enshrined the right to an abortion by popular vote but it’s still controlled by the GOP.) If you live in a read state and are pregnant, leave the state asap. Your life and your babies life is in danger even if you have a pregnancy with no complications.
“I’m a Texan. I love Texas. I’m raising my children here. I was raised here. I’ve built my academic career, my professional career here. You know, I plan to stay. And so I want to be able to get access to the medical care that I need, and my daughter to have it as well,” Cox said.
Yeah I don’t think you are learning anything out of this. Stay in a state that does not care about you. Like a physical abusive relationship.
I don’t really agree with the abusive relationship analogy. Things only change if there are people there who want it to change. While I understand and sympathise with the desire to leave, I have the utmost respect for those who choose to stay and try to make/ be the change needed.
A lot of people have stayed in abusive relationships for that reason: “They can change! I can change them.” Meanwhile the state is rapidly moving backwards. This is like being dragged behind the abuser’s truck and not wanting to cut the rope.
A lot of people stay in abusive relationships because they don’t have a realistic opportunity to leave. A lot of people in abusive states like Texas stay because they don’t have a realistic opportunity to leave.
And both parties suffer the consequences accordingly.
Yes, that would be the part that doesn’t work. Ideologies do not remained contained, they spread. And countries and states regularly change, all the time.
You are totally right.
These people would have shit on Rosa Parks, too.
The only solution in an abusive relationship is to leave.
Which is why I don’t agree with the analogy. Because that is not the solution when it comes to political ideologies.
History is full of terrible ideologies. Things like women’s right to vote, and segregation. If people who disagreed and who had the means to leave all did, these likely would still be laws in the US.
If Ohio voters left Ohio when it went red, they wouldn’t have abortion access or weed right now.
Ohio isn’t texas, though.
Texas is beyond help and texans need to realize that.
What makes you say that? Texas is narrowly red, and the rural vote is aging out, while the urban vote is growing. This has been pulling to the left and relatively quickly. If everyone they oppress packs up and leaves then the right wins.
Not really. You can also have the abuser locked up and stay in your home.
But enough taxpayers leaving can have a real effect. Enough people leave, the government notices and has to ask ‘why?’
Enough people leave an the rest will strengthen their majority. No politician is going to care unless it costs them power.
This was my initial reaction as well, but now I’m not so sure. Somebody has to be the public example, and fight this broken system. This has gotten a large amount of national media exposure, and that is ultimately what mobilizes voters. She also seems willing to suffer for her convictions, which is more than most people can say.
I saw someone mention Rosa Parks, and it’s the perfect example. Injustice must be fought where it is by individuals who are brave enough to put themselves in harm’s way for it. I have no disdain for people who put themselves and their families ahead of a cause. I’m the same way. But the very least we can do is offer our unconditional support to these heroes.
Meh, I don’t think any of this matters. The right in US is winning BIGLY and none of those examples, media exposure or voter mobilization really matters. The right in 4 years of Trump managed to ban abortion and take control of the supreme court for the next, what?, 20 years? 30? Meanwhile, Biden and Democrats just sit there doing nothing. US need urgent reforms of education, healthcare, policing, gun laws, judiciary, political parties financing and many more a none of this will happen. The only things that’s actually changing is that the government gets weaker and corporations get stronger. The only thing this type of activism can achieve is taking half step back while each Republican term the entire country takes 10 big steps forward in the direction of dictatorship. Looking from outside I’m amazed at how bad thing are in US and how little people realize this.
Maybe the fact that you’re looking in “from the outside” explains why you’re operating under the misconception that Democrats ever had unchecked power to do any of those things.
Like during Obama’s two first years? Forgot about that? Yes, it was some time ago but all the problems were already there and Democrats chose to pussy foot around looking for weak, bi-partisan deals instead of addressing them. That they did very little even when they had full control was exactly why people didn’t go out to vote for Hilary. It’s not that Democrats can’t do anything because they don’t have full control. They don’t have full control exactly because they don’t do anything.
When they had a filibuster-proof majority for…checks notes…4 months. And they spent those 4 months…checks notes…trying to completely overhaul the entire US healthcare system. That is, instead of doing the half-dozen things you mentioned which would have taken literal years of work to push through.
Fuck off with that revisionist, fantasy-land bullshit. You want Democrats to be full-on fucking dictators who can do whatever they “choose” to do, whenever they “choose” to do it, and they’re not, so when they don’t “choose” to do the shit you personally want, your lizard brain has convinced you they didn’t do it because they “chose” not to. No amount of infantile teeth gnashing changes the way the actual world works, where checks and balances exist. That is, despite whatever the fuck is happening in your imagination.
Wherever the hell you come from, stay the fuck in your lane.
You sound angry. Why are you angry? Drink less coffee or something.
Willful ignorance tends to have that effect on the people around you.
Read more books or something.
While I get the sentiment, remember this is part of Republican’s grand plan. If they can make things so bad that liberals largely all concentrate in the likes of CA, NY, MA, IL, OR, WA, CT, RI, and VT, they can guarantee themselves permanent control of the Senate and a massive leg up on the presidency. They get to effectively gerrymander America.
They have already done this in the likes of Ohio and Florida. These former swing states are now solidly Red.
Republicans are worried about Texas, though. Republicans cannot take the White House without Texas. But an influx of people and changing demographics are pushing Texas toward purple territory. So they are doing everything to make the state hostile to liberals.
She is also trying to rally Texans to her side, and if she started saying “this state sucks” she would win less sympathy.
Most of the people who are being harmed cannot leave. They are too poor to do so.
But many are not. Many live in this shit-stain of a state and instead of voting with their feet, stay and complain.
You are just blaming poor people for being poor. That’s who doesn’t vote. Until people have their material needs meet you can fuck right off with your blame bullshit.
It wasn’t too long ago that Texas actually had a Democrat governor, and California a Republican governor.
Wasn’t Arnold Republican? IIRC he did a pretty reasonable job.
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This reminds me of the argument that US police shoot and kill more innocent unarmed white people than they do black people. A. Shut the fuck up, you have no concept of how to normalize statistics so they are meaningfully comparable. B. Why do you seem to be ok, at all, that police officers shoot and kill enough unarmed innocent people every year to even make this point something that is worth discussing?
This was such a gimme for the “pro life” side. Even the moron that is the Ohio AG admitted that a 10 year old rape victim should be able to get an abortion (he just pretended she didn’t exist and refused to admit the vague language of the law wasn’t clear on that.) All he would have had to do is say “of course someone with an unviable pregnancy that carrying to term would jeopardize the mother’s health can get an abortion, we’re not monsters!” That would do more to stem the backlash from Dobbs than anything.
But, no. Paxton instead makes the case for us. All but the most extreme anti-abortion can see this is cruel. What a raging asshole.
Really just gives the game to the side that’s for abortion with no restrictions, now they can just point to this and rub it in that any restrictions are inevitably going to be used as grounds for total restriction.
BOYCOTT ALL THINGS TEXAS
Here’s a start
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Texas_companies#Notable_firms
Brought to you by “we don’t care if power goes out in the winter as long as we can blame the libs”
Darn. I have to boycott Gamestop? Just in time for the holidays.
I have not looked at the list, but you might want to do some additional research into the leadership of each company anyway as there is a lot of blue in the urban areas of Texas. Hence why the state senate felt the need to strip much of the authority of governance away from urban municipalities.
I just started watching the Handmaid’s Take for the first time tonight. JFC, it’s supposed to be fiction, not a blueprint.
More of a warning, but few people were paying attention.
The author wrote it based on actual things that have really happened (and, clearly, are continuing to happen)
Some call it inspiration
I had to stop watching that show because it was too fucking real.
Yeah, I used to be obsessed with it. Had my husband watch it with me because I thought it was so crazy good.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch Season 3 because it started to be too real world. It just makes me so fucking angry now.
You misspelled Kennedy’s name.
GOP won’t stop until every woman you know is dead.
Now, now, let’s be reasonable. They want to get the ones you don’t know, too.
The GOP wants the world to be a sausage party.
I sometimes wish they were correct about their God’s existence so that I knew there was a hell they’d burn in.
“Temporarily”. Because their discussions are more important than any human being’s immediate health emergency.
At this point, it is perfectly reasonable to view conservatives as subhuman. They are incapable of displaying even a tiny hint of humanity. Until there is evidence that they see others as humans, they should be offered no such respect in turn. They are simply a plague of oppression and death.
Dehumanization is how Hitler justified and sold his actions. I would recommend against that. The other side is human just the same as you, no matter how monstrous they act.
They’ve broken the social contract. They deserve no protection under such.
I totally agree.
Seeing people like @Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world make me glad to be independent. Tribalism is unhealthy and dangerous.
Oh please, like you’re above the fray. Even the way you just worded that comment is tribalistic in nature.
2023 centrists out here acting like “leftists wanting access to healthcare and fair wages, and righties working to kill people are equally bad” isn’t it’s own special kind of stupid tribe 😂
You can’t read, and that’s okay.
“Anyone who disagrees with me is stupid and that disqualifies me from having to defend my position”
Yep, 2023 centrism.
Classic reddit-brain.
Out here proving my point for me, my guy. 🤷
The whole ingroup vs outgroup aspect has become way too dominant in what used to be politics.
If you think this is anything new, you should really look into fascism in the early 20th century.
I’m not being flippant, you should really research it. You may be surprised to find striking similarities.
Vote Blue 2024
Fuck Texas 2024
I agree but the dems had the numbers to pass abortion into law half a dozen times since the roe v wade decision but have never done it.
What are the odds they will do it this time?
Are they even campaigning that they will?
The odds are pretty high, actually.
Back then, most people didn’t consider it an urgent issue because most people considered it settled law and didn’t really believe it would be overturned. Most people didn’t really consider that the Supreme Court would be compromised to the degree it has.
That perception has changed dramatically, and it’s proven to be a winning issue for Dems. As the next voting cycle ramps up, it will likely be a big campaign point. In order to have any chance at all, though, Dems must gain a solid majority in Congress.
The odds are pretty high, actually.
Are they even campaigning that they will?
What are the odds and what bet are you willing to accept?
That Dems will make abortion a focus for the 2024 cycle? At least 90% imo. I’m too poor to bet, but you can publicly shame me if I’m wrong.
Unless something like WW3 eclipses it between now and then, it would be ludicrous to leave abortion on the table, especially after recent performance with respect to that issue in various states.
When exactly was there a pro-choice majority in Congress? It wasn’t all that long ago that abortion wasn’t as polarizing in its partisanship, and so there were quite a lot of anti-abortion Democrats from the south, just as there were a handful of pro-choice Republicans.
If you’re referring to the time when Obamacare was passed, several of those Democrat Senators were anti-abortion.
When exactly was there a pro-choice majority in Congress?
Are the dems not pro-choice? They have had the majority in both houses in these congresses since roe v wade.
The 95, 96, 100, 101 ,102,103, 111
No matter who
Who the fuck supports the Republican approach to this case? Really what. The. Fuck.
Texas?
A victory for Christianity. Every time a woman loses control over her own body or dies from an ectopic pregnancy the Christian blood god is appeased.
Her husband could say she cheated and point directly to the place in the bible where it says abortion is allowed.
Hahaha! Such a dumb dog shit people. They would probably wet themselves and ramble on about Jesus blood if he did that. When is the last time anyone heard a talk about Christian morality that wasn’t something a 4 year old could have worked out or a word salad?
husband could say she cheated
But… don’t people stone her then?
Ooooo… I like this one! I’m going to start referring to the women who die to this bullshit as blood sacrifices whenever I am talking to the right wing nutjobs in my life.
Can I just buy this woman a plane ticket to Ohio already?
Illinois instead. We actually have programs here to support people from out of state like this woman. In Ohio the legislature is trying to undo the will of the people.
That’s over the weed legislation we passed.
Abortion is protected as a constitutional amendment, and while they threatened some nonsense, it was a completely empty threat and they knew it.
Don’t do that. She’ll be arrested for child endangerment and probably some trumped-up charge like mistreatment of a corpse, both for boarding the flight. We aren’t safe here yet.
