Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?

POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 16:05
VIEWED: 185382
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SIGNYM

Monday, April 14, 2025 3:23 AM

He was stupid for joining Kaiser (the medical care model promoted by Bill and Hillary.)

They,and Medicare Advantage, practice what they call "capitation". That is, they only get so much $$ per patient. In Kaiser's case, whatever is left over is split among doctors, technically making it a non- profit but also encouraging doctors to cheap out on their patients. I know four people PERSONALLY whose cancer was diagnosed after a year or more delay, bc Kaiser gave them the 85% solution: take ibuprofen (spinal chord cancer, spinal chord cancer, prostate cancer), and "you're just depressed" (brain tumor).

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, April 14, 2025 3:55 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
He was stupid for joining Kaiser (the medical care model promoted by Bill and Hillary.)

They,and Medicare Advantage, practice what they call "capitation". That is, they only get so much $$ per patient. In Kaiser's case, whatever is left over is split among doctors, technically making it a non- profit but also encouraging doctors to cheap out on their patients. I know four people PERSONALLY whose cancer was diagnosed after a year or more delay, bc Kaiser gave them the 85% solution: take ibuprofen (spinal chord cancer, spinal chord cancer, prostate cancer), and "you're just depressed" (brain tumor).

See. It's stuff like this that I wish I could better explain to people. Everything I've heard online, most of it forgotten at this point, would lead me to believe that you're really screwing yourself over if you opt into an Advantage plan.

But my old man has it along with his VA benefits and my aunt fully intends to do it because that's what my grandma had. In the end, I can't argue the fact that they did pay for everything except for two ambulance bills. Not only with her end of life stuff, but I know she had hip surgery/therapy bills all paid for and she had cataract surgery at some point as well. All paid for.

She was not a complainer about anything though, and probably could have gone to the doctor much more than she did, which was basically never unless there was a problem. Worked for her for 90 years. But she never took regular medication her entire life and had no chronic illness (that we knew of) and the end was very swift. It should also be noted that she had very little income and easily qualified for the senior freeze on property taxes. The difference between choosing for or against an Advantage Plan may have a lot to do with what kind of retirement you've got going. Are you going on a yacht trip every year and still buying a new car every 2-5 years in retirement, or are you living on all the stuff you paid for and social security and a survivor's pension?

So I can't really compare her one example to how it would pan out for other people. It appears an Advantage plan was a great fit in her situation, but I'm worried my old man already made a mistake and my aunt is going to make one in the next few years.

As for Kevin Drum, that wasn't close to the point I was making. His 66 years of life were what led him to that ultimate end. Was it just really shitty luck? Could be. Bad things happen to people out of the blue all the time. But I don't see any reason not to assume that he wasn't chock full of vices like most of us are, or at that he didn't have him in his youth when most of us do.

Second would crawl through broken glass to prove that Trump is a bad guy.

But somebody whose opinion he agrees with automatically gets a pass from any irresponsible actions they had in the previous 66 years and the only reason that they died was because of incompetent and/or lazy doctors in the 11th hour.

There was nothing that Kevin Drum ever did that lead to his own death. Second knows this for a fact because Kevin Drum was a lifelong, loyal, straight-ticket Democratic Party voter.

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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

SIGNYM

Monday, April 14, 2025 4:18 AM

HMOs and Advantage plans work great if you've got what 85% of people get, but they are very slow to test for and diagnose bc that would mean expen$ive treatment. I've seen that over and over again in capitated plans (pancreatic cancer treated as acid stomach, nonfatal heart attack treated as muscle strain, infections overlooked. I bring up cancer bc they're the most consequential.)

Kaiser SF was caught limiting organ donors to within their own patient population bc otherwise they'd have to pay for donated organs, and quite a few of their patients died waiting for donated organs.

Also, I fully believe that if Kaiser had been more willing to do an emergency Caesarean dear daughter would never had had a catastrophic brain bleed at birth.

So Advantage works great 85% of the time, but if you're in the 15% and you can't aggressively and knowledgeably advocate for yourself in a capitated plan, you may not get effective healthcare.

BTW, all of my cancer treatment- chemo, monoclonal antibodies, surgery, and radiation - plus my treatment so far for GPA- multiple sinus surgeries and debridement plus oral immune suppressants (and possibly infusions) have been, or will be, covered almost 100%. The bills have been trivial. Where the savings come in is the insurance premiums, since you don't need Medicare A (hospital) and B (doctors), Medicare D (drugs), medigap (what is not covered by A,B, and D), dental, and vision. It adds up.
What surprises ppl is that you actually have to pay Medicare a premium for coverage. At our income level, the premium is significant.

One of these days I'll look to see if my doctors and hospitals accept Advantage.

But this is way off topic. Back to our regularly scheduled program.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

6IXSTRINGJACK

Monday, April 14, 2025 7:16 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
HMOs and Advantage plans work great if you've got what 85% of people get, but they are very slow to test for and diagnose bc that would mean expen$ive treatment. I've seen that over and over again in capitated plans (pancreatic cancer treated as acid stomach, nonfatal heart attack treated as muscle strain, infections overlooked. I bring up cancer bc they're the most consequential.)

Kaiser SF was caught limiting organ donors to within their own patient population bc otherwise they'd have to pay for donated organs, and quite a few of their patients died waiting for donated organs.

Also, I fully believe that if Kaiser had been more willing to do an emergency Caesarean dear daughter would never had had a catastrophic brain bleed at birth.

So Advantage works great 85% of the time, but if you're in the 15% and you can't aggressively and knowledgeably advocate for yourself in a capitated plan, you may not get effective healthcare.

BTW, all of my cancer treatment- chemo, monoclonal antibodies, surgery, and radiation - plus my treatment so far for GPA- multiple sinus surgeries and debridement plus oral immune suppressants (and possibly infusions) have been, or will be, covered almost 100%. The bills have been trivial. Where the savings come in is the insurance premiums, since you don't need Medicare A (hospital) and B (doctors), Medicare D (drugs), medigap (what is not covered by A,B, and D), dental, and vision. It adds up.
What surprises ppl is that you actually have to pay Medicare a premium for coverage. At our income level, the premium is significant.

One of these days I'll look to see if my doctors and hospitals accept Advantage.

But this is way off topic. Back to our regularly scheduled program.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

Great info. Thanks. And you jogged a memory there for me. My dad mentioned the premiums he's not paying, and I would imagine where he's sitting they wouldn't exactly be pretty either. I think he figures with the VA which he likes, he can get along fine on an Advantage plan. Hopefully he remains one of the 85%.

My aunt wouldn't be able to afford anything significant though. Even if I explained everything to her as you just did to me above, she'd still go with the Advantage plan. Not gonna lie, but I would be too, unless that gets way, way cheaper for those living on almost nothing. This explains why it was never a problem with my Grandma. I mean, I would strongly argue that they could have done more at the end and that the opioids they got my family to administer is what actually killed her in only 3 days, but up until that point they did everything she needed them to without any bills or monthly premiums.

I'm sorry about your daughter and the fact you've had to live with the feeling like things could have been different for so long. You can never know that for sure. I hope that you haven't been too hard on yourself about it.

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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

SECOND

Monday, April 14, 2025 5:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Oh. I see. Kevin Drum's death wasn't his fault. How could it be? He voted Democrat his entire life.

Shut the fuck up.

Have you ever wondered why Trumptards resent their betters (i.e. Kevin Drum)? Wondered why Trumptards celebrate their betters' death? University professors in the UK have an explanation based on "human nature":

Rightwing populists will keep winning until we grasp this truth about human nature

Economic inequality breeds resentment and a desire to get even. That’s what fuels support for even incompetent regimes

By George Monbiot | Sun 13 Apr 2025 07.20 EDT

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/13/trump-populists-
human-nature-economic-growth

“He’s really gone and done it this time. Now everyone can see what a disaster he is.” How many times have we heard this about Donald Trump? And how many times has it been proved wrong? Well, maybe this time he really has overstepped. After all, his clowning around with tariffs, sparking trade wars, then suddenly reversing his position, could provoke a global recession, perhaps even a depression. Surely his supporters will disown him? But I’m not banking on it, and this is why.

Already, Trump has waged war on everything that builds prosperity and wellbeing: democracy, healthy ecosystems, education, healthcare, science, the arts. Yet, amid the wreckage, and despite some slippage, his approval ratings still hold between 43 and 48%: far higher than those of many other leaders. Why? I believe part of the answer lies in a fundamental aspect of our humanity: the urge to destroy that from which you feel excluded.

This urge, I think, is crucial to understanding politics. Yet hardly anyone seems to recognise it. Hardly anyone, that is, except the far right, who see it all too well.

If you feel an urge to tear it all down, to burn the whole stinking, hypocritical, exclusive system to the ground, Trump is your man. Or so he claims. In reality his entire performance is both a distraction from and an accelerant of spiralling inequality. He can hardly lose: the more he exacerbates inequality, the more he triggers an urge for revenge against his scapegoats: immigrants, trans people, scientists, teachers, China.

But such killer clowns can’t pull this off by themselves. Their most effective recruiters are centrist parties paralysed in the face of economic power. In hock to rich funders, terrified of the billionaire media, for decades they have been unable even to name the problem, let alone address it. Hence the spectacular uselessness of the Democrats’ response to Trump. As the US journalist Hamilton Nolan remarks: “One party is out to kill, and the other is waiting for its leaders to die.”

In the UK, Labour, like the Democrats, has long assured itself that it doesn’t matter how wide economic disparities are, as long as the poorest are raised up. Now it has abandoned even that caveat: we can cut benefits, so long as GDP grows. But it does matter. It matters very much. A vast array of evidence, brought together in 2009 in The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett and updated in 2024, shows that inequality exerts a massive influence on social, economic, environmental and political outcomes, regardless of people’s absolute positions.

If there is a such a thing as Starmerism, it collapses in the face of a paper published by the political scientists Leonardo Baccini and Thomas Sattler last year, which finds that austerity increases support for the radical right in economically vulnerable regions. Austerity, they found, is the key variable: without it, less-educated people are no more likely to vote for rightwing demagogues than highly educated people are. In other words, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are busily handing their core constituencies to Nigel Farage.

Of course, they deny they’re imposing austerity, using a technical definition that means nothing to those on the sharp end. Austerity is what the poor experience, while they

SECOND

Monday, April 14, 2025 5:23 PM

Good jobs don’t have to be in manufacturing, and manufacturing jobs aren’t always good

By Paul Krugman | Apr 14, 2025

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/democrats-shouldnt-support-tariffs

“McDonald’s workers in Denmark are paid more than Honda workers in Alabama.” That claim has been showing up in my inbox, so I checked it out. And it’s true. McDonald’s workers in Denmark are paid more than $20 an hour, in addition to receiving substantial benefits. Indeed.com says that “production associates” at Honda’s Alabama plants are paid an average of $14 an hour.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-hourly-pay-mcdonalds-140000799.h
tml
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Honda/salaries/Production-Associate/Alabama

What this comparison tells us is that institutions that empower workers are more important in determining workers’ pay than what sector they work in. Two-thirds of Danish workers are represented by unions, while auto workers in Alabama aren’t unionized. Empowering service sector workers can make their jobs good; disempowering manufacturing workers can make their jobs bad.

There’s a lot of romanticism about what manufacturing jobs in America used to be like. It’s true that some industrial workers were well paid. But that was mainly because they had strong unions. Nonunionized workers in, say, South Carolina’s textile industry had low pay and terrible working conditions. Many came down with brown lung disease caused by breathing in lint. Why should we want to bring those jobs back?

And even in America, where many service-sector jobs pay poorly, there are also many jobs outside manufacturing that offer good wages. Employment in health care now greatly exceeds employment in manufacturing; well, according to Pew, 55 percent of health care jobs provide middle-class incomes. And policies that increase workers’ bargaining power could greatly expand the number of good jobs outside manufacturing.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1I79b
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/11/jobs-with-the-largest-shares-of-middle
-class-earners.html

The point is that Democrats shouldn’t engage in Trumpian nostalgia for an industrial era that isn’t coming back. They should be pushing for policies that will make jobs better in the 21st century, not harken back to a rose-colored vision of America in 1955.

And they should never, ever say that Trump’s tariffs have a point. Because they don’t.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

SECOND

Monday, April 14, 2025 6:28 PM

Governed By Confused Intuition

By Andrew Tobias | April 13, 2025

https://andrewtobias.com/governed-by-confused-intuition/

Wall Street Journal editorial board member Holman W. Jenkins Jr. — who in the middle of Trump’s first term was paraphrased as saying “Trump can do anything and I’ll support it” — now writes: Trump Wants to Be Impeached Again.

It’s already in the cards thanks to his ill-founded trade war, no matter how that war plays out.

. . . A future Trump impeachment seemed all but guaranteed by last Wednesday morning. It seems only slightly less likely now. It may even be desirable to restore America’s standing with creditors and trade partners.

. . . Mr. Trump’s great achievement was his 2024 re-election, a rebuke to the injustices and insults meted out to him and his fans since 2016, some of which were even real. However, no consensus or even significant coalition exists for trying to force into existence a new American “golden age” with tariffs, which anyway is like asking a chicken to give birth to a lioness. He invented this mission out of his own confused intuition.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

SECOND

Monday, April 14, 2025 8:26 PM

Bond markets turmoil shows the world that ‘the U.S. government has no idea what it’s doing’

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/business/trump-risk-us-bonds.html

There are not many certainties in the world of money, but this traditionally has been one of them: When life turns scary, people take refuge in American government bonds.

Investors buy U.S. Treasuries on the assumption that, come what may — financial panic, war, natural disaster — the federal government will endure and stand by its debts, making its bonds the closest thing to a covenant with the heavens.

Yet turmoil in bond markets last week revealed the extent to which President Trump has shaken faith in that basic proposition, challenging the previously unimpeachable solidity of U.S. government debt. His trade war — now focused intently on China — has raised the prospect of a worldwide economic downturn while damaging American credibility as a responsible steward of peace and prosperity.

“The whole world has decided that the U.S. government has no idea what it’s doing,” said Mark Blyth, a political economist at Brown University and co-author of the forthcoming book “Inflation: A Guide for Users and Losers.”

An erosion of faith in the governance of the world’s largest economy appears at least in part responsible for the sharp sell-off in the bond market in recent days. When large numbers of investors sell bonds at once, that forces the government to offer higher interest rates to entice others to buy its debt. And that tends to push up interest rates throughout the economy, increasing payments for mortgages, car loans and credit card balances.

Last week, the yield on the closely watched 10-year Treasury bond soared to roughly 4.5 percent from just below 4 percent — the most pronounced spike in nearly a quarter century. At the same time, the value of the American dollar has been falling, even as tariffs would normally be expected to push it up.

Other elements also go into the explanation for the bond sell-off. Hedge funds and other financial players have sold holdings as they exit a complex trade that seeks to profit from the gap between existing prices for bonds and bets on their future values. Speculators have been unloading bonds in response to losses from plunging stock markets, seeking to amass cash to stave off insolvency.

Some fear that China’s central bank, which commands $3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, including $761 billion in U.S. Treasury debt, could be selling as a form of retaliation for American tariffs.

Given the many factors playing out at once, the sharp increase in yields for government bonds registers as something similar to when medical patients learn that their red blood cell count is down: There may be many reasons for the drop, but none of them are good.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

SECOND

Monday, April 14, 2025 8:27 PM

Trump Finally Met an Adversary Totally Immune to His Bullshit
And it’s not the Supreme Court.

The bond market is not like the Supreme Court, or Paul Weiss, or Columbia University, or any of the other institutions Trump has conquered, co-opted, or corrupted.

He cannot scare it into submission. He cannot bribe it.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two