This is the most galling part of the argument. Republicans insist that everyone is employable and therefore should be “ready to work” if they’re going to qualify for things like food stamps or other so-called “entitlements” but then they blame people for having the one thing that someone would actually need to be able to work, namely a phone that will access job listings, and let them get calls to arrange interviews and work schedules. They blame them for giving phones to their kids when that’s one of the only ways that many can even access the internet to be able to do their homework.
It’s like that time that George Bush went to the supermarket and saw a laser bar-code reader for the first time - it just showed how out of touch he was with the lives of ordinary Americans. Chaffetz might as well have said “let them eat cake.”*
*in before the pedant who corrects me that Marie Antoinette didn’t actually say this, or that it doesn’t really mean what it’s cited as meaning.
With the ‘zOMG poors with cellphones!!!’ thing; I can never quite decide if it’s just one more manifestation of the fact that hating the poor for anything they do is an article of faith; or whether it’s partially a symptom of speakers and/or audiences who are still dealing with intuitions picked up back when landlines were actually the comparatively cheap option; internet access was for geeks and/or an optional toy; and cellphones were a bit of a status symbol for suits considered important enough to be kept connected to the office even at high cost.
There was a time when a cellphone was pretty ostentatious; but at this point the cost of entry is lower than landline service(even if you have a stable residence and a credit history that makes you a desired customer for a landline telco, a VOIP line is cheaper; but only if you have a decent internet connection already); the convenience is greater, you prepaid offerings allow you to budget much more flexibly; and at least some internet access isn’t really a a luxury.
If you still have a landline, and psychologically still live in a world where Gordon Gekko is the standard cellphone user; the idea that cellphones are a symbol of luxury has more emotional resonance.
Yeah, Poe’s law appears to have replaced Moore’s law as the exemplar of rapidly developing trends with snappy names.
I like to think that, at least among people with enough prior experience to have developed an opinion of me, I don’t strike anyone as being enough of an abhuman shitsack to be serious; but I can’t argue with the fact that, in absence of prior knowledge of my positions, reality appears to have caught up to satire some time ago.
Is it remotely possible that people (have to) game the system because IT’S A SHITTY SYSTEM (in fact not a system at all, if the objective is healthcare rather than profit)?
I am not arguing with you, I agree. Just gonna add a little color.
Hypertension, under control, finally.
Gout, well, I am thankful I can walk. Hereditary.
GI issues, there is surgery available, but it has a higher mortality rate than just (bah-dum!) belly aching about it.
-7.5 in one eye, -6.5 in the other. Oh, and a deformed optic nerve.
Two molars got crushed by out dated dentistry.
How in the carping hell could those be because I was irresponsible? I acknowledge that I am a handsome, winsome fella, so I came out ahead in that area. But some of these arguments really get under my skin.
Again, we are in alignment. This is just (needless?) commentary.
Yeah, you might want to do that yourself. Actually check with a government source, not a right wing media shill. You’ll discover that you’ve been lied to.
Research has tied gum disease to heart disease. So taking care of your teeth on a regular basis can actually save the much more expensive costs of taking care of heart issues.
The ACA didn’t raise my premiums from last year, Blue Cross did that.
Under the republican plan, according to the estimates based on the bill, I will receive about $2000 less in subsidies per year. Someone making twice what I make, who is the same age, in the same geographic region, will receive about $2000 more in subsidies per year. I’m not saying someone making twice what I do doesn’t struggle financially, but jeez.
As another Canadian, it was interesting to see the health-care debate south of the border during the Obama years. One thing that became abundantly clear was that the majority of middle-class Americans would never stand for the sort of compromises that a humane health-care system imposes on its users in order to keep costs low enough to cover everyone.
Basically, we have a giant, un-appealable HMO which rations health-care. If the governments decided your cure is too expensive, you aren’t even told the option to save you or perhaps your child existed.
And as a Canadian who believes in universal health-care, that’s exactly how I think it needs to be. Most of those options are rejected because they increase spending a lot without saving enough lives (which is tough when it’s you or your child’s life). But those are the difficult decisions that allow Canadians to have universal coverage.
But when you hear the American outcry against the evil rationing of HMOs, you understand that the middle-class is (for the most part) not ready to make those trade-offs.
Even harder, Americans are generally not thrilled about tax increases. Not too many people making say, $80K are in a hurry to have a 10% tax increase, and then be forced into an HMO, all so that they can have the privilege of paying for their fellow indigent American to get the same health-care they do.
Culturally, I just don’t think enough Americans are quite ready for it yet. It’ll happen eventually, but I think even the progressive-ish middle-class is still stuck in the “every one should get what I have and have the super-wealthy pay for it”.
Have you watched that John Green video I posted? I learned a lot from it! Not least of which is that Americans already pay more than us in taxes for health care that they don’t get. We pay like 7% or less of our GDP for health care we all can access. They pay more than 11% for health care very few can access. Its nuts!!
Our system aint perfect by any means and we can do a lot to improve it. I look to the Scandinavians for a model of how health care work.
But I literally won’t go to the US without travel health insurance.
Same. I’ve lived my whole life never worrying if I can afford treatment. I’m not going to let an accident on a business or pleasure trip ruin my financials for life. No thank you, and I have great, great sympathy for the Americans for whom cost is even in the orbit of their thought processes when someone is ill.
Yes - I was very excited by all of the discount on-line glasses emporia… but once I punched in my actual prescription their algorithms collectively shook their heads and said “nuh-uh”. The frames are cheap, but the lenses… not so much.
