robc04
3376
Sure! Did you have a beard in your old one?
PS - Psst, you don’t really need to accommodate me in your avatar choice :-)
I had my old dog in my old one. I guess as an icon it probably looks like a beard.
hey dude ur beard has a tongue did u no that
The best part of that pic is he was doing the French Bulldog snort the entire time. Like, “dude, I love you but not hugs, no homo.”
Not sure this is the most appropriate thread, but a Krugman op-ed.
Emphasis mine.
Nobody in these debates wants government ownership of the means of production, which is what socialism used to mean. Most of the candidates are, instead, what Europeans would call “social democrats”: advocates of a private-sector-driven economy, but with a stronger social safety net, enhanced bargaining power for workers and tighter regulation of corporate malfeasance. They want America to be more like Denmark, not more like Venezuela.
Leading Republicans, however, routinely describe Democrats, even those on the right of their party, as socialists. Indeed, all indications are that denunciations of Democrats’ “socialist” agenda will be front and center in the general election campaign. And everyone in the news media accepts this as the normal state of affairs.
Which goes to show the extent to which Republican extremism has been accepted simply as a fact of life, barely worth mentioning.
He links to another Times article that places American political parties on a spectrum with other Western political parties.
The media seem hopelessly trapped in their both-sides world view, where they believe that — in the interest of fairness — they have to pretend that both sides are serious, both sides have sensible views, and both sides are also guilty of extremism. If they were to give that up and actually present the truth about both sides, they think they would be perceived as ‘unfairly’ putting their thumbs on the scale. And the whole delusion is self-reinforcing: Because they pretended yesterday that the crazy Republican Party was normal, they will have to pretend tomorrow that the even-more-crazy GOP is still normal. The alternative is to admit that they’ve been wrong — lying! — all along, and they aren’t going to do that.
I just switched Dental insurance to the one my company offered, and I just found out that only covers one offices in the area, and it’s the worst rated dental office in town. So, I’m all for a government mandated health insurance plan now, because fuck this noise.
If you really want to hate the system, try being in an executive team at the end of the year when they’re trying to choose next year’s health care plan options. The discussion is about:
- These plans have gotten really expensive, can’t we find a cheaper / crappier plan to offer our employees?
- Oh, the crappy ones are still more expensive, so we’ll have to shift all the additional cost to our employees, because we can’t let it hit the bottom line.
- What about us? We don’t want that crappy plan, what can we do to make our own plans better? Oh, a special allowance for health care spending for Vice Presidents and above? Excellent!
MikeJ
3384
So dental isn’t covered by the government plan in Canada (unless it’s a serious threat to your health or something afaik), so I do have private insurance for dental and basic vision. However, I’ve never heard of a plan only covering some dentists. Sometimes they will only pay up to the going rate for a procedure, or not the fancy version.
Pretty much every dental plan in the US is basically a collection of a subset of the dental service providers in the area. The number of eligible service providers goes down as the premium does, and most plans have very low annual limits on how much they will pay in any event.
I’ve been waiting for a candidate - any candidate - to push back against it. Still waiting.
I’ve probably written about this before, but it still steams my boat so wth:
I asked my PCP for oxygen (effective as an abortive for many people suffering from cluster headaches.)
Nope, he says, insurance won’t approve it. How about some oxy instead?
Best healthcare in the world.
/s
Banzai
3387
He can write for it regardless, and then you can argue with your insurance company about who pays for it. Maybe consider a different PCP if they are not willing to do so.
There are 7 dental services that I can use within a 1 hour drive! Using Yelp (not exactly the best indicator, but a start) only 1 doesn’t have a 1 star rating (that one actually has a 4.5 star rating) but it’s an hour away.
So, now I am talking to my wife about whether we can drop my company dental care, and just find a private insurance policy, like my wife did last year. My eldest daughter has some really bad teeth decay last year (which we sorted) so we are really don’t want to take any chances with dental care this time around.
Timex
3389
They both start with Oxy, same difference.
Seriously though, even with a government run system, you’re gonna run into exactly the same kinds of restrictions. Some bureaucrat somewhere is going to be making rules about what types of treatment are paid for by the system.
I’m guessing, though, that maximizing profit won’t be the usual reason for such rules; and that as a result, they won’t be nearly so cruel.
Jesus, I know more about that list of assholes than I do about the democratic field.
Tim_N
3393
This stuff grinds my gears because you hear it often and it’s blatantly false.
If anyone wants to look at real data here it is :
Tl;dr: trump announced June 16, all polls taken after that had him close to Jeb, and by mid July he was leading all of them.
Reading Yelp reviews of dentists is pretty harrowing. Even the high rated ones have their horror stories, of course. A common gripe is how hard a given dentist tries to upsell you on random non-essential shit.
Yep. This morning (heard second hand) Joe Scarborough offered this sage advice to the Democratic candidates:
“Don’t try to appeal to your bases worst instincts.”
Where, presumably, worst instincts = M4A.
If only these Democrats would act more like Republicans they’d have a better chance of winning.
