Alkydere posted:

Basically the prices were always really expensive, but they were hidden behind insurance for the most part. Pharmaceuticals price-gouged because they could, hospitals and doctors price-gouged to get the insurance companies to pay up. Which meant that insurance companies price-gouged and offered incredibly lovely coverage to a certain section of customers to pay for the gouging while also doing their level best to outright deny service to anyone who looked like they'd be too expensive to cover.

Obamacare tried to fix this by making it illegal for insurance companies to deny customers, and in return people are legally required to have insurance or pay a fine to better subsidize and spread out the costs to the insurers. Well that kinda worked for a while until the insurance companies realized they were merely making a lot of money ($$) instead of a fuckton of money ($$$$) and they started to bitch, whine and pull back where they gave coverage, especially when the government wouldn't bend over backwards to give them blowjobs. And besides, even if the insurance companies weren't being little shits, that would only fix one third of the equation because you still have expensive drugs and expensive service. These things were known but not so blatant before the shakeup because the insurance companies did their best to hide the costs, at least hide them to the rich, white people that mattered. Now with so much chaos in the system the prices are peeking through and even white people are being slapped with the nasty prices.

In short, while the real problem is and has always been that the American healthcare system is a pile of blood-sucking leaches you can totally blame Obamacare if you're an amoral shithead. In trying to fix the problem they created instability that made it impossible for the real problems to be hidden anymore. The prices were always expensive, and Obama tried to fix it. In doing so he knocked over the facade and now the price-gouging machine is visible to all and shrieking loudly enough no one without wads of lobbyist cash stuffed in their ears can ignore it.

BI NOW GAY LATER posted:

I like to point this out but when people talk about a unitary healthcare system, they're missing the forest for the trees. You really have three primary components each trying to squeeze the most amount of money out of the other and in turn out of consumers.

Radish posted:

I'd like to think the media is really damaging their credibility with all this. Republicans already believe that the media is leftwing and untrustworthy; I can't think that this blatant double standard that some journalists are showing where Trump is being treated like a child and gets a gold star for eating his food without choking is helping them with democrats that are in serious Clinton "scandal" fatigue.

mdemone posted:

It's pretty clearly going to be Cruz, and I am going to love it.

OtherworldlyInvader posted:

I'll read through that, thanks.




emails emails emails Emails Emails Emails EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS

BetterToRuleInHell posted:

Who is whining about emails? I was asking about the specific email

emdash posted:

https://twitter.com/HMittelmark/status/771073655434534912

welcome to this world, Harambe II

Kro-Bar posted:

More Hilldawg shenanigans!

Did Hillary engineer Weiner's downfall?

awesmoe posted:

Yes, today is the day the foxnews opinion pages started going after Hillary Clinton

Epic High Five posted:

Secret Service: "I'm sorry, but we've found someone more qualified to take your place at this press conference. The President says you need to leave."

Replace: "But...but, is that a chimp smoking a cigar in my usual seat?"

Secret Service: "I think we're done here"

hexenmexen posted:

This is how Hillary is campaigning as well, and not only does she take money from wealthy donors but she takes money from regimes with values opposite of the average American.

OddObserver posted:

Speaking of foreign donations: apparenty Manafort and his top aide (Gates) have not received paychecks fom Trump. So either he is stuffing them (not unlikely given Trump), or thy were on someone elses payroll at the same time. Likely someone foreign...
(Probably Rinat Akhmetov...)

OddObserver posted:

This is the guy who got like $12 million (likely much more) for his company in one of the two poorest countries in Europe.... Granted, GOP was his home before the disgraced dictators world tour stage of his career....

Oracle posted:

Oh my God you just described Tim Kaine's dream debate.

ComradeCosmobot posted:

So it turns out that if you've ever clicked through that "Non Disclosure Agreement" so you can volunteer for Trump, you've agreed to never say a bad word about Trump, any member of his family, his businesses or his family's businesses for the rest of your life.

quote:

On Twitter, Sklar noted that the forms also bar volunteers from criticizing Trump’s brands, disclosing anything personal about Trump (including his taxes), or from even employing people who work for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. (That last one’s illegal, Sklar says.)

professor_curly posted:

Courts cost money. Donald Trump (allegedly) has more money than You. A rich person can look you in appeals and retrials and legalese bullshit to drive you into bankruptcy if they so choose, and The Donald likes to do that with blatantly illegal things to force people to settle out of court.

PhazonLink posted:

Can someone give a primer on the debate mods? I don't really get the "excitement" over them or if I should be arzying or anti;-arzying .

zoux posted:

https://twitter.com/DRUDGE/status/771711509466456064

theflyingorc posted:

Meanwhile, Trump still deliberately lied about why he can't release his tax returns.

But it's Crooked Hillary who is lying, everyone

PhazonLink posted:

This contract makes it sound like all volunteers get a printout of his taxes but they're all soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo loyal.

Cythereal posted:

Also for those raising concerns over Hillary's age, Trump is older than she is.

Rhesus Pieces posted:

They're not concerned about her dying in office. It's all a part of the belief that she's constantly lying about everything and hiding the Truth from the public.

Eifert Posting posted:

The thing this election cycle has been really driving home to me is that Republican talking points sound lazy and dumb because they can't say what they want, not because they are lazy and dumb.

Instant Sunrise posted:

Kro-Bar posted:

Large earthquake (5.6) hits Oklahoma. But what fracking?!

On Terra Firma posted:

The thing that drives me up a wall with the whole "Clinton is a LIAR" thing is that you can go through any fact checking website and see Trump lies through his teeth left and right. Comparing their statements and seeing how true most of them are isn't even close. When I bring that up they say the sites have a liberal bias. When I ask them to point out where the bias is they can't show anything. These people are not even worth arguing against. They say they hate liars but they back Trump. That tells me all I need to know so I ignore them. You can't even have an argument with them about policy like you could in the past.

Tell me you want to carpet bomb every Muslim country on earth. I get it. Tell me you want to go back to the gold standard. You're dumb but I get that. Tell me you want to dismantle every EPA protection. Ok sure. Tell me you hate Clinton because she lies but love Trump because he's honest...What?

FactsAreUseless posted:

http://www.clickhole.com/article/political-crisis-antonin-scalias-vacant-supreme-co-4774

Night10194 posted:

My fear is that Trump's current team knows no-one is really paying attention to his rallies and so if they can keep these stunts in the media, he can still give his insane Nuremberg speeches and rallies as a nice treat so that he won't go off message during the 'outreach' events.

readingatwork posted:

So all this talk of the Clinton administration made me remember this amazing interview with Sir James Goldsmith on the topic of Globalization from back in 94:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI

It's spooky how right he is about a lot of stuff. Particularly interesting is the Clinton administration official they get on later in the show. If you want to understand why older lefties kind of hate the Clintons this will do a good job of explaining it.

readingatwork posted:

Admitting you were wrong and changing your opinion isn't the same thing as never believing in anything to begin with.

Ice Phisherman posted:

Sometimes I feel like when Trump or the republicans aren't making GBS threads on the floor and rolling in it the left eats itself alive over trivialities at worst and trips over its own dick and best.

readingatwork posted:

Please explain why I'm a crazy hippie asking for ponies and rainbows just for wanting a political system that doesn't rely on a vast amounts of legalized bribery to get people in power.

readingatwork posted:

Actually I'll be voting for Hillary in November. I'm just really, really unhappy about the next 4-8 years of constant triangulation to the right.

Feldegast42 posted:

You know people keep going on about this magical oppo file that will nuke Trump off the map but how true is that?

Kilroy posted:

It's all they've used so far, and he is steadily chipping away at her lead.

Dexo posted:

If they don't keep the senate, hell even if they do it would be hard as poo poo to justify holding on to a justice for 2 years.

Tatum Girlparts posted:

is there anything more boring than the pearl clutching 'so THIS is what a presidential election is?!' that comes from the most dull and useless people every time someone sells a t-shirt with a politician's face on a pig's rear end or something?

ImpAtom posted: