My wife went to a town hall last night that that our local House rep held, a seat she's held since 2012. Wife said people were PISSED and she gave off a "well, we just have to wait until things get worse, we can't really do much" and that didn't satisfy much of the audience. At least a couple of people spoke up and talked about simply challenging anyone denying them entry to these agencies that they're allowed to enter in order try and push back even a little bit on Elon's cronies fucking with everything. Her response to that was pretty tepid, they don't have the spine to really put themselves on the line and that's about the only thing they can do to try and stop this.
This same thing has played out across the country over the last few weeks. It is apparent that with extremely rare exception, the only game this party sees is attempting to peel off a few Republican lawmakers, and flipping the numbers in their favor. That is *it*.
This happens often. My son needed tubes in his ears and after the insurance gave them a lot of money and I paid like $1500 out of pocket, I saw on their website they had a program that was "self pay" without insurance and it was less than what I paid out of pocket. Very cool and stupid system we have here.
You're a citizen of the Bahamas right, or somewhere non-US and don't have US citizenship I think? If that's the case, just ignore it. There's nothing than can really do than send it to collections where you possibly could receive a few mean phone calls. If you don't have a US credit score there's nothing that can really happen, they don't arrest people over this (for now) since it would very quickly become a third of the population in debtors prison.
generally emergency visits/procedures are covered abroad. my wife broke her leg in Switzerland and our health insurance reimbursed for it. just has to be something that you can’t travel with or whatever. not sure on Bahamas but imagine there’s a clause to get coverage
One of my kids had a helmet when he was a baby, and I can't quite remember the details, but if we paid cash for it, we got a discount on it. If we went through insurance, we didn't get a discount, but just had to pay a copay type thing. What a coincidence that the discounted cash payment and our copay with insurance were the exact same amount.
Yeah, citizen of and live in the Bahamas. Main thing I was wondering about is whether an outstanding medical debt would have any effect when I need to renew my US Visa
Doing a “these blacks are just violent and need to be removed from The general population” argument, and that being seen as anything but hyper racist in 2025 us absolutely fucking insane
It's pretty fucking depressing that the mother fucker just says something and no one asks to see the receipts before blindly believing him. He's literally shown zero objective findings yet entire programs are imploded, thousands of jobs lost.
lol hes just going to "order the military" to help out and theyll just mill around and "shoot looters" if a disaster hits anywhere
Cops are far more likely to "shoot looters" than our military and that showed when htey unleashed the military on citizens protesting and all they did was hang out and talk to the protestors. There's a reason they want to get rid of all the officers and lifetime military guys, so they can turn the military into an attack dog against US citizens.
it’s a little belated (first edition 2007 I believe) but it does explain a lot of what’s happened to the US this century
same happened to me in Miami, on vacation. I could not believe the amount for 2 hours at a walk-in clinic. Out of pocket after all insurance and everything came to over $3k. Not the end of the world, but absolutely absurd in the context. I had more or less self diagnosed it, but didn’t know how to make it better, so I went in.
My wife broke her foot in an scooter accident and was required to get a boot. I can't remember exactly, but insurance paid like 500 then we had to pay another $300 or something out of pocket. You know how much that exact fucking boot was selling for on Amazon? $79. Prime shipping too
honestly, it's probably pretty dated at this point (plus, I mean, Trump / Elon are off into territory well beyond simple Milton Friedman / Chicago School economics), but the premise behind it is generally solid. Edit: Iron Mickey basically covers this above
I don’t know about that. We’re doing a shock doctrine thing right now. Overwhelming media blitz and dismantling of the public sphere. Privatization and financialization are the goal. It’s what we did to half the planet. Now the frontier is home.
With me, I had never had a kidney stone before and I really thought my appendix was bursting or something else pretty serious was going on internally. I was in intense, agonizing abdominal pain so I really had no choice to but get someone to carry me somewhere in case I was dying. Turns out it was an 8mm stone, but I had no way to know that before racking up 5 figures of medical expense. At least I'll probably get covered or at least can just ignore it. But imagine how many Americans with no insurance or shitty insurance get wrapped up in that shit daily. $26k. Wild stuff.
Reminds me of the first time I had to buy epinephrine shots and the pharmacy was like, eh not covered by insurance so two is going to cost $800. I was like what? is there a generic or something. Then she was like, check the mfg website sometimes they have coupons! And then on the epi pen website there was a coupon for like 50% off. So much stupidity 1.) Insurance not covering an epi pen when it is LITERALLY how you insure you don't die during an allergic reaction 2.) The price of an old medicine that has been available for decades being so high when it is literally the way to save someone going into anaphylaxis 3.) No generics of epipen (this actually changed a few years ago) 4.) Randomly gatekeeping the coupon for a cheaper (still over priced) epi pen by making people visit a website.
Well, right. That's true. Basically once the ultra wealthy finished capturing the majority of the global resources and labor, they were always going to turn to American citizens, and that's where we're at right now. It's our turn to be looted and fully exploited.
The health supplement claims marketed by influencers are about to get even more INSANE GUARANTEED TO GROW YOUR DICK AND YOUR BRAIN WHILE SETTING BENCH PRs EVERY DAY AND MAKE YOU IRRESISTIBLE TO TRAD WIVES WITH "PROMETHEUS BURN XXL EXTREME"
I have a lot work to do on this front, for certain, but if you're looking for something to shoot for / hope for, it's this: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/18/shoppers-political-boycotts-spending-patterns-poll Going to protests, being vocal about your opinions, etc. --- that's all important, but it's pretty meaningless if you're still giving these trash corporations all your money.
Patiently waiting for Grams Nancy to say something and indicate a plan and then this thread to applaud her as the greatest political mastermind since FDR and then absolutely nothing will happen but hey at least the thread got excited for a second.
"No ethical capitalism" and whatever but I'm definitely done letting pennies enrich Bezos on any front (see ya prime) and we are also amongst those many who've ditched target. (Just now hitting me that I need to audit any index fund investing too.) Now is an excellent time to invest in small and local also.
No ethical capitalism, but def some better than others, and def don't spend money (particularly on credit) for shit you don't need. That said, I bought a guitar amp last week that I def didn't need. Sounds pretty good tho
There’s never EVER a follow up. On he’s hurting white people is what you’re saying, right? It’s literally Lawrence O’Donnell and no one else in the world not blowing this administration daily, and I’m including networks that put on bad faith Republicans to seem balanced
If you see something, say something. Maybe even if you don't https://bsky.app/profile/jaywillis.net/post/3lihxakm6y22f