Bay 12 Games Forum

I make jokes about Americans conflating even slightly left-wing economics with socialism/communism and not knowing the difference between them, but I swear it's not even an exaggeration any more.

It hasn't been an exaggeration since "Red Scare" became a thing.

... also, to the stuff that was talked about later, seriously, the ACA wasn't shit. Admittedly it kinda' screwed up on the single payer front, but a lot of the other stuff it shoved through was fucking golden, and it's done a massive amount since it was implemented and grew its teeth in. There's definitely still room to improve (which is indicative of how far in the proverbial hole we were and still are, more than anything), but the ACA managed a hell of a lot more than just being better than nothing.

And no, the ACA wasn't just a fucking welfare plan for insurance companies. It shoved a goddamn shitton through about stuff like pricing and whatnot, too. People seem to constantly forgot that the ACA wasn't even remotely single facet, the bloody thing hurled a truckton of crap at the wall to see what would stick, and there's plenty of it that did stick.

... though yeah, amusingly enough tying back into the start of the post, people dislike single payer primarily because they consider it socialist, so far as I'm aware, more than just about anything about it. Lingering dirty commie syndrome, shooting us in the foot yet again *shrugs*

Quote from: Frumple on May 06, 2016, 05:05:02 pm

readings of 600+

Fucking hell. I hope they make it out okay.

Hospital managed to get it back down to something relatively sane (i.e. it was still over 200, but considering...) and they ended up coming home the same day (if fairly late at night), so I guess it's sorta' okay. Now just comes the part where everyone tries (for about the seven hundredth time) to get the stubborn bugger to actually take care of themselves

Mm... yeah, mostly. Natural monopoly stuff only really applies to... infrastructure, basically, so far as my half-remembered recollection can recall. Water, electricity, roads (though those are usually state controlled, more or less), etc., etc. Stuff where competition would cause (significantly) more problems than its lack, and where the thing the monopoly is controlling is pretty vital. And where the nature of the service means there kinda' has to be one provider for it to really give maximal benefit to the consumer, I guess.

Not really sure what the state of things are regarding stuff that's mostly software/online, though. Pretty sure they busted MS a ways back mostly because the stuff was also bundled with the hardware.

Also not really sure how you'd go about breaking up google or facebook. It's not like they don't have a fairly substantial amount of regularly appearing (and generally disappearing :V) competition, it's just that, well. No one really uses them. Especially with the latter, there's no real point to them if basically everyone isn't using them...

Maybe Carson is angling for surgeon general or something, which is mostly a figurehead post these days.

But only mostly, which would make that scenario another reason to not vote trump. Carson is/was a damn good neurological surgeon. That doesn't mean we want him anywhere near any other facet of medicine.

As for Medicare and Social Security, it seems that he wants to do the same thing- block-grant the funds to the states after cutting out most of the federal management of the programs and leaving it to the states. If that's a good thing, I am not sure; this isn't something that I particularly looked in to.

It's quite possibly the most fucking terrifying thing I've heard in years regarding the management of the programs noted. You want to know how to turn the medicare and social security systems into a swiss cheese hellscape of mismanagement? Remove all or near all federal oversight. Same for education, really. The rough rule of things in most areas of the US is that just about the only thing less competent and more corrupt than federal management is state management, and inflicting that on everyone instead of just the states stupid enough to vote for it is just... something that can't be adequately described without violating the forum ToS.

Plus removing most or all of any unifying elements between the states (which is exactly what that would require) means that the standards of the systems in question become a complete and total crap shoot, and any to all coordination/communication between them becomes an utter goddamn nightmare. What you're describe is indeed a mandate to completely destroy what it's applied to.

Actually, it's also something that is quite frankly concentrated hate towards the younger, more mobile generations. You think the paperwork problems involved with moving is bad now, shit like that would treble or better it, and gods don't even want to consider what it would do to the costs involved.

Just... holy shit. Whoever it was that suggested that as policy, as the cognitive disruption from the suggestion in question has already caused me to forget, should be legally barred from ever engaging in non-personal economic interactions, and possibly shot for the good of mankind should they ever manage to get into a position capable of influencing political policy. Sweet christ-humping dog on a quantum powered pogostick, it makes my brain hurt.

Well, the good news, at least, is that the EMT-trained family member managed to convince the grandparent to go to the hospital. Turns out they had been getting readings of 600+* from their blood sugar machine for the last two or three days, and had both not told anyone about that, had been lying about how often they were taking it and what returns they were getting, and was badly mistaken about what HI on that machine meant. Said other family member had an EMT-bag, whose machine read ~580 about a half hour after taking an insulin shot, which finally convinced grandparent that it's hospital time. So... yeah. At least they're going where they need to, at the moment. Now it's just waiting to see what the doctors say, which is definitely better than waiting to see if they actually wake up in the morning.

*For reference, the recommended levels for someone with diabetes, which they have, is ~180 at the highest. Still just a bit worried, as you might imagine.

Not directed at folks on this forum, exactly, but in regards to general US sentiment much of the reason is that she's been under a series of fairly dedicated media attacks for something like the last decade, basically unceasingly. She's had shit made up about her, she's had shit blown tremendously out of proportion, she's had almost everything constantly shown in the worst light possible, she's had almost everything decent she's done drowned out in shit-slinging, attempted to be reframed as a negative (see mentions of flipflopping, only caring about present political prudence, etc.), or just barely covered, just as a non-exhaustive list. It's a case where I literally can't recall any american politician get as much negative sentiment/media attention as hilary does, over a period as long as she has.

She also has legitimate criticisms to be made for some of her previous actions! They're just pretty much never treated the same way those kind of criticisms are for other politicians with similar (or greater*) fuckups. And she's certainly more centrist than bernie, of course, it's just that, y'know, so is pretty much the entire US political system. It's just somehow a cardinal sin for her, at least vis a vis the primary season. Probably mostly because there's only two dem candidates, but still.

*I had a lovely conversation recently where someone railed quite vigorously over the four military folks that died at benghazi, and then blew off the 2k+ US military dead (nevermind the civilian casualties, of course) from Bush's bullshit, just as an example.

Grandparent has had either stroke or mini-stroke, maybe an hour or two ago. Refuses to go to the doctor, won't let us call ambulance. Coherent enough now he could refuse the EMT if they showed up, and has stated intent to if they come. Not. Not particularly happy at the moment.

Said he might go to the doctor tomorrow, at least, which is something. If it doesn't kill him today. Gods know I'll be pressing for a ER visit, or at least GP or somethin'.

Starting to wonder harder about incompetency proceedings. Coherent and fairly on top of things most of the time, but there's also periods of fairly significant forgetfulness, shit like this, trouble controlling temper, etc., etc. Increasingly less capable of managing personal affairs, increasingly less willing to let people help. Not really sure what to do, largely not in a very good position to do much myself for various reasons, hard to get other relatives to fucking do anything, to a large extent either due to distance or just because the grandparent refuses to act. Things... could be better.

Been able to vote for a few good years now, heh. Registered dem because this is florida and party affiliation is the only way to have much influence over the primaries, but not terribly attached to it, in any ideological sense. I've still mostly voted straight ticket (with the rare indie) over my life because, again, this is florida, and the only thing more certain than the conservative politicians here being bugnuts and/or even more corrupt than the dem candidate is heatstroke. Also third parties don't exist, and independents only barely ping anyone's radar in the district I vote in.

Did put the vote in for the primary already, even. I won't lie, I almost felt left out eyeballing the republican ballots when I picked up my own. So much empty space on the dem papers... I can only imagine the price of all that wasted paper is faintly horrifying. Seriously, that thing was a full ~8x11 sized paper and it could have been the size of a name card, but they gave it to you full sized anyway.