zephorah @ zephorah @lemm.ee

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1 yr. ago

Another reason President Musk wanted to play with deregulation. Free reign, or rain, to chew through the ozone layer with his space garbage.

When people in our judicial system think money should NOT be paid to workers for work completed that doesn’t bode well for working class, going forward.

It’s really disheartening. I can reduce my footprint to almost zero on my land but the overall impact, beyond a feel good moment for myself, is negligible until corporate plays the game in earnest.

Here’s hoping we get the timeline right on that when (not if at this point) it happens.

Absolutely. No question there. You assume a moral compass like your own though.

What was that detective series? 3 pines? Alfred Molina. Lead detective makes the point of saying everyone, and he meant everyone, is capable of murder, it’s simply a question of finding the right motive, for them. I do believe that’s middle of the bell curve stuff in that bit of writing.

The issue is people typically move like water, path of least resistance. Yes, there are exceptions, I’m taking about the fat part of the bell curve here, not the tails. And that means punching sideways to get what they need.

We need people like you. I appreciate your belief in the moral high ground.

Right? Makes you feel old, doesn’t it?

Elon can’t handle it so he ducked out. In addition, Tesla probably texted him and said don’t.

Musk probably watched Stewart’s conservative show interview appearances over on YouTube, dating back to his first stint on the daily show. They couldn’t trip Stewart. He rolled over all of them. The interviews stopped, again, surprising no one.

How will nursing homes even run? They’re built on Medicare and Medicaid. They take that check in exchange for care. They are notoriously understaffed because there’s a Medicare/Medicaid cap on how much money each patient can bring in.

If that goes away, then what? Where do the elderly go? Nursing homes have also been taking in a slice of homeless with physical situations that don’t allow for being discharged back to street. Usually paralyzed or partially paralyzed individuals. Where would they be placed?

A single mom working 2 jobs probably can’t take in a 24hr care, physically dependent, cognitively lost beyond their own first name, urine/poop leaking out as it happens, and/or physically violent Alzheimer’s parent.

Vice-dachshund Vance hinted at this on the campaign trail, once, that families should simply be taking in their own.

When was the last time revolution happened here in the United States?

For starters most of our young, single men feeling angsty with the world and their existence are behind a screen right now, sans pants, eating/drinking. And that’s just one demographic.

No one. 1/3 of us voted against this, but that wasn’t good enough.

Well, yeah, that’s born Trump and Elon.

Not dumb for him. Tariffs will line his pockets. This is why economists call it a tax on the American people. Very McKinley era, the time that created the iconic visual of street urchins, and the Baron class.

Trump profits, Elon laughs and jumps around, and we work even harder (producing money for them) to survive with a roof over our heads.

We The People get pounded while MAGA and their billionaires get paid even more.

Don’t apologize. The vice-dachshund is a knob.

New Republic just feeds the echo chamber. They’re interpreting mood and motive based on pausing, for starters.

Remember, this rag feeds echo chambers their headlines.

How? MAGA has been leading up to this since last year.

Aren’t some of your healthcare staff on public assistance as well due to low pay? Money and capacity required. You can’t have capacity without personnel. You can’t have personnel if they’re not paid well so you also need money.

Over here, some of our mental health systems (corporate level) are robust because they make sure they have money making clientele alongside the money sink clientele, all under one roof. These systems generally pay well and stay in business. Other places try do one thing and specialize in that one thing, only to fail due to lack of money and personnel. There will be passionate players who want nothing more than to make it work, but at the end of the day staff need to pay rent, buy their kids shoes, and have money to spend on personal decompression. So you see these one trick institutions die off every year.

As much as we want health to run on altruism and good intentions, health personnel anywhere need to be paid an incentive level pay, and have enough left over to engage a work life balance to recharge their own mental health, or it will all crash and burn eventually.

This play, yelling a Zelensky, with the Vice-Dachshund yapping alongside him is all a perception management game to garner base support for a thing they intended to do anyway.

It’s working too. Republicans do this loyalty thing where they all stand in a straight line and repeat the mantras Shapiro and company tell them to while DEMs don’t even like one another and constantly argue and gate keep in house as to what liberal means while rolling over and doing nothing effective. Though not in unity, never that.

Memes are even rounding now labeling Zelensky a dangerous dictator. The narrative is: Z attacked innocent Russians living in Ukraine thus inciting the Russian attack, to defend them, thus bringing the Russian invasion in on himself. Pure bullshit, but it’s being repeated, and it’s sticking, in party.

Again, perception management that doubles in laying groundwork for the second item. Trump WANTS to play with the biggest war chest on the planet, like he played in the cab of the construction vehicle on live television. Last go he was surrounded by people who said no or nodded yes while doing nothing. This go, we are all in serious trouble. War makes money, especially for President Elon Musk, so I will be surprised if it’s not already being planned.

It’s all a game. Drama. Zelensky didn’t need to cross the globe for a conversation, only to be there on the stage as planned for the drama. Don’t believe him. DONT believe him when he says Zelenskys behavior at the meeting lost him his funding. Ukraine was already dropped, this was just a dramatization for effect.

And the wobbly creation of a potential patsy when Trump starts WW3.

The fact of the matter is it’s still far, far easier to punch sideways than up.

If your child is screaming in hunger, do you plan a trip to Washington? On what time and money? Or do you grab your gun and visit the neighbor’s house to get him some food?

What’s that middle aged lady in the parking lot of the grocery store going to do if you just push her down and grab her groceries from her cart? Or even approaching grandma and gently taking the grocery bag from her hand and hopping into a vehicle before she even knows what happened.

You think your house window is a barrier? Psychological, yes, it is. Actual? Not at all.

This is where things get violent but not for the rich men in Washington because they’re not accessible.

Frankly, as someone who has studied people for 35yrs, I am bordering on an intense fear that could be likened to terror. People go for what’s easiest, in general. You all are thinking of Luigi, but he’s the exception not the rule. Most people grab what’s easiest and closest and pull from their guts, not careful planning.

I feel the current state of healthcare is like one of those ocean side houses built on bad foundational ground. Great veneer, gorgeous floor plan and views, and you’re getting a good nights sleep in it, for now, but the cliff is a bit too sandy and there’s a bottom side erosion taking place that is tipping that house. One day it’s just going to collapse into a mean slide while people are still inside.

Some key points to add to on scarcity.

EMTALA rules emergency rooms. It’s a law that requires all ERs to see everyone, with or without insurance, and determine they are medically stable or make them so. But what does that look like on practical terms.

1. People are impatient. They don’t want to wait 3, 6, or even 1 month to see a regular doctor or a specialist. So they try the ER (or urgent care) instead. While the latter can work great for an antibiotic, some stitches, or a quick breathing treatment post asthmatic attack, it will almost never fix any long term issues. Chronic back pain? Never. Diabetic maintenance? No. Chronic mental health? Psych med refill on am established prescription that’s on record with the pharmacy, sure, but no therapy. No plan. Both immediate care services will refer back to the waiting line of PCP or specialist for that “I’ve had this thing for 6 mos and I’d like it fixed…” issue.
2. People familiar with ER wait times will sit on serious issues like strokes and heart attacks, hoping it’s nothing. It’s really sad and frustrating to see someone hobble in with a flaccid right arm after the treatment window for busting up the clot that caused the stroke has passed. Potentially reversible (partially or otherwise) arm and facial droop damage or however it presents is now permanent because a section of brain has gone too long without oxygen and can no longer potentially be saved. All due to wait times (a stroke typically isn’t going to wait) discouraging people from coming in.
3. People who can’t afford to pay for the ER don’t. I’m not saying they get help from some magnanimous something or other, I’m saying they ignore the bills and don’t pay. ER has to see everyone long enough to determine medical stability or to make it so and then admit or transfer. (Though the law also forbids “patient dumping” so the transfer has to be the patients choice, no matter how overcrowded that particular hospital is). The visit is billed out, but not necessarily paid. Each doctor is billed out separately. Each doctor, nurse, tech, respiratory therapist, psychiatrist, laboratory tech, transport personnel, imaging tech, supply runner, housekeeper, security guard, pharmacist, pharmacy tech, and registration person is still getting paid by the institution regardless. And that’s just the 24hr 7days a week people side of everyone potentially orbiting a single patient in a single ER visit. There’s still equipment, medication, management, bankers hours institutional jobs, C-suite, and high tech items getting paid for, and paid, regardless. Those costs will get collected from someone, ALWAYS.
4. People with ambulance coverage try to use it as a taxi service and to bypass ER wait times. The latter doesn’t work. ER nurses will trot out to the ambulance bay and triage those the same as everyone else and then escort them to the waiting room to wait with everyone else, often presenting one reason ERs have so many security personnel on payroll as it happens. This behavior set wastes the time of paramedics and EMTs. This piece actually is a point of waste for Medicaid. As such, this tiny area might show a savings, but overall it’s highly unlikely to even remotely justify these cuts. (This phenomenon is simply the “asshole factor” in systems involving people, wherein there’s always an asshole looking for an angle to play. But they are typically the exception, the outlier, not the rule, not the average.)
5. People will get sicker, mentally and physically, just as we saw with COVID. This backlash of heavier, sicker, more mentally unhinged patients post COVID has not eased off btw. Engage conversation with and nurses or techs/CNAs you know who work hospitals. It’s pretty grim stuff. So, anticipate Medicaid cuts making the system worse, by both taxing the resources and creating higher costs. This may push even more nurses, and to some extent doctors, into moving on, thus discouraging young people from pursuing healthcare as a career, which isn’t good for the long game. All of this potentially stretches and snaps mental health, for both patients and the entire spectrum of caregivers (they’re people too, with limits).

Just an add on thought. At what point will health insurances start considering people “totaled” in the same way vehicle insurances consider vehicles totaled?