Unpack that one for me, buddy.

Your pithy, dismissive responses about this makes it pretty clear you don’t actually understand the nuances of how medical/healthcare works, either in or out of the US.

At any rate: I’m not defending the US healthcare system. It’s an absolute shitshow. But if you think this particular development doesn’t matter much and things as of right now are already “as bad as they can get”… well, buckle up, buttercup. There are a lot of ways they can make our medical system meaningfully worse than it already is. This is just one mechanism to accomplish that.

Simply because we are talking about the orange regime here, there is a roughly 100% chance of at least one of the following:

• someone friendly with the regime is getting a big fucking kickback
• physicians/nurses/specialists/etc (actual care providers) will get screwed over in some fashion
• patients will get screwed over in some fashion

So, no, despite the wrapping paper, I do not believe this will actually end up being Uplifting News.

Normally there is a human in the loop. That is the specific difference, and it is a real and crucial difference.

I get that you’re being pithy and taking a cheap shot at the US healthcare system, and it deserves to have cheap shots taken at it, but this is a whole brave new frontier of “incredibly fucked”.

As someone who works in biotech, and who has more than a few friends who work in medicine and clinical settings: this is absolutely going to kill people.

Well… they all escaped to South Florida. Hence the political lean of South Florida.

But we are deep, deep into face-eating-leopard territory, vis a vis the Cuban-American population and their political alignments.

Yeah, I fully expect the next admin (if we actually get a “next”, that is, and this regime doesn’t just continue indefinitely) to softball any sort of accountability effort and punitive actions because “tHaT wOuLD Be diViSiVE” 😑

Edit: this isn’t a “both sides are just as bad” argument. The fascists are bad. The “opposition party” is manifestly incapable of appropriately dealing with the fascists, which, while not as bad as being outright fascists, effectively enables them and existentially undermines not just the opposition party itself, but (small-d) democratic process in general.

It’s ok - the body has ways of shutting that down if it’s a legitimate breach of confidentiality

That is an excellent shot though, honestly

Hey I’ll happily be a trophy househusband if I just get to work on fun projects and hobbies and read all day

Fuck’s sake, PA, are you trying to give Florida a run for the money or what?

Btw, Brigador is an absolute banger of a game, if you haven’t tried it out. Great soundtrack, too.

Damn dude you got antler snails? That’s crazy

I’m in this picture and I don’t like it

Get the fuck out of here with that idiocy, dude. What the fuck are you on about.

Would absolutely not be shocked if the affluenza defense is used here :|

It sounds like you have some absolutely delightful friends, and I’m happy for all of you 🥰

Reminder: if you anticipate being in contact with law enforcement and have any spare moments at all: restart your phone and do not unlock it. This “before first unlock” (BFU) state does not yet have auth keys loaded and secrets decrypted in active memory, and is thus rather more difficult to exploit and gain entry to.

This ignores the fact that the USSR was perfectly happy to divvy up Eastern Europe between themselves and the Third Reich, right up until Ze Germans backstabbed them.