US Politics

Rado_N said:


Healthcare in the US being a disgrace is not news but holy shit that price difference :eek:
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I know of a case of a couple in newark that sent their kid to live with an aunt in portugal because here insulin is free for everyone under 18. They couldn't afford it. This stuff is tragic.
 
Rado_N said:


Healthcare in the US being a disgrace is not news but holy shit that price difference :eek:
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How many units of insulin do diabetics typically need? I can't find the prices for Norway, though it would go under the "free card" (frikort) system, where the state pays for everything past $300 total for the year for prescription drugs (and doctor visits, hospital visits, travel to treatment, etc).

Being a diabetic can't be easy in any country, but I can't even imagine how much it must suck in the US, particularly if you're not well-off. Surely a fair amount of people actually needlessly die from it?
 
nimic said:
How many units of insulin do diabetics typically need? I can't find the prices for Norway, though it would go under the "free card" (frikort) system, where the state pays for everything past $300 total for the year for prescription drugs (and doctor visits, hospital visits, travel to treatment, etc).

Being a diabetic can't be easy in any country, but I can't even imagine how much it must suck in the US, particularly if you're not well-off. Surely a fair amount of people actually needlessly die from it?
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Depends on what type of diabetes you have. Apparently, those with type 1 need insulin every day, sometimes multiple doses per day.
 
nimic said:
How is that even survivable in the US? I would expect insurance companies would do everything they could to get out of paying for it.
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Percentage wise not many people get type 1 diabetes. Most people have type 2 and use diet, lifestye and pills to manage it, only requiring insulin later.
 
I had a student with type 1 diabetes, and I think I may have been more stressed about it than she was. She'd had years to deal with it, of course, and was very matter-of-fact and professional about it. Meanwhile I was trying to remember which syringe I had been told to give her if she had acutely low blood sugar, and which to give her if she had acutely high blood sugar. It didn't help that the "training" we got was laughably brief, and giving her the wrong one would kill her.

Luckily it never actually mattered, since she was so professional about it, and she had plenty of tools to help her manage it on her own.
 
If you were a guy & had the name ‘Coty Wamp,’ you’d get the shit consistently kicked out of you growing up.
 
Just saw a new commercial, paid for by the Pharma industry, on CNN encouraging people to tell their reps to stop Medicare negotiating drug prices. Their message? If we don’t price gouge the US government we can’t pay for R&D. Utter and total bullshit and I can’t believe they are actually saying “the quiet part” out loud.
 
WI_Red said:
Just saw a new commercial, paid for by the Pharma industry, on CNN encouraging people to tell their reps to stop Medicare negotiating drug prices. Their message? If we don’t price gouge the US government we can’t pay for R&D. Utter and total bullshit and I can’t believe they are actually saying “the quiet part” out loud.
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That's been explicitly argued by people here on the Caf as well, I'm pretty sure. Low European drug prices have come up, and someone's said that the US is basically subsidizing European drug prices, yada yada yada.
 
WI_Red said:
Just saw a new commercial, paid for by the Pharma industry, on CNN encouraging people to tell their reps to stop Medicare negotiating drug prices. Their message? If we don’t price gouge the US government we can’t pay for R&D. Utter and total bullshit and I can’t believe they are actually saying “the quiet part” out loud.
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Been seeing / hearing this for weeks. R they even got the elderly voiceover to try to play to our heartstrings. Shameful.
 
nimic said:
That's been explicitly argued by people here on the Caf as well, I'm pretty sure. Low European drug prices have come up, and someone's said that the US is basically subsidizing European drug prices, yada yada yada.
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It’s a completely bullshit idea. Drug companies are massively profitable and sink a small percentage of profits back into R&D. Here’s an obligatory Katie Porter roasting a CEO video.
 
Just heard that Ron fecking Johnson has publicly stated he would vote in the affirmative for federally codifying same see marriage in the US.

Mind blown.
 
calodo2003 said:
Just heard that Ron fecking Johnson has publicly stated he would vote in the affirmative for federally codifying same see marriage in the US.

Mind blown.
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It’s an election year and his fellow WI Senator (Tammy Baldwin) is lesbian, so he may be doing calculations.
 
In California, a booming rooftop solar industry is on the brink of being gutted by a package of legislation that includes fossil fuel- and nuclear-sponsored taxes and regulations. Supported by “progressive” Gov. Gavin Newsom, the anti-solar package would undercut a statewide industry that now employs some 70,000 people — more workers in just California than now dig coal in the whole U.S.

Ironically, Florida’s extreme right-wing Gov. Ron DeSantis recently vetoed a similar package, a decision clearly motivated by fierce opposition from more than 80 percent of the state’s citizenry.

The U.S.’s fossil fuel and nuclear industries are terrified by the accelerating spread of renewables, especially as they are deployed on individual homes. With solar panels on rooftops feeding neighborhood microgrids, an empowered citizenry would no longer need to buy its energy from centralized utilities. A massive green shift would spell the end of the traditional investor-owned utility and mark the dawn of an era in which independent communities can generate and manage their own power supplies.

Nowhere is this possibility more immediately manifest than in California, where rooftop solar arrays now number well over a million. Yet nowhere has industry resistance locked horns more bitterly with popular opposition to atomic energy.

Since their planning stages in the 1960s, the two reactors at Diablo Canyon, on the Pacific Ocean nine miles west of San Luis Obispo, have incited fierce opposition. As they opened in the mid-1980s, more protesters (including myself) were arrested there than at any other U.S. nuclear site.

After three decades of unsteady operation, a broad coalition signed a comprehensive landmark agreement to shut the two aging reactors by 2024 and 2025, when their Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licenses are set to expire. The plan was endorsed in 2018 by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in concert with the Public Utilities Commission, the legislature and local towns, unions and environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council.

The case for a shutdown is deeply rooted in economic, ecological and engineering realities. A 2008 NRC inspection showed Diablo Canyon Unit One to be seriously embrittled, a dangerous internal fault virtually guaranteeing a massive explosion in case of a meltdown. Michael Peck, an NRC site inspector, later warned that the reactors could not withstand a credible shock from the dozen seismic faults surrounding the plant — including the San Andreas, just 45 miles away. Ensuing catastrophe would send radioactive clouds into Los Angeles, the Central Valley or the Bay Area, wreaking irrevocable apocalyptic human, ecological and economic harm.
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https://truthout.org/articles/infla...s-may-prop-up-aging-nuclear-plants-for-years/

section of a larger article on climate change but newsom being a bit of a cnut here. i'd refrain from calling him progressive.
 
MarylandMUFan said:
Hope they fall apart. The Fox News nutters will never come over, those on the left will flee to MSNBC. Not sure what they are thinking.
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I think its good for CNN. There has been a bit of a factional mafia that has emerged at CNN in recent years, which needs to be broken up. Not necessarily by adding more Republicans, but by creating a bit more diversity among the shows. Zucker tried to turn it into an entertainment brand, which backfired spectacularly after Bourdain died, the likes of Reza Aslan were let go, followed by the calamatous CNN+ rollout and cancellation; and that's before we even get to the Cuomo sacking, the Lubin' Jeffrey Toobin scandal, Stelter being let go, and Zucker's own resignation because of something that emerged from the Cuomo investigation. The channel had been solid for decades, but has been in desperate need for new leadership and a strategy reboot.
 
nimic said:
It's good that they met with politicians from a specific party and asked how they could be "more accommodating" when reporting the news?
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It's only fair, after all Fox let noted Democrat Tulsi Gabbard host their flagship show.
 
Maagge said:
:lol: It's madness.
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It's got to be sabotage.....I mean the MAGAites are not coming to CNN, they barely tolerate Fox over Newsmax and OANN and the "moderate" middle has no interest in watching Gym Jordan and Co. shitting lies all over CNN. Combine this with CNN+ and you could convince me this is sabotage.
 
WI_Red said:
It's got to be sabotage.....I mean the MAGAites are not coming to CNN, they barely tolerate Fox over Newsmax and OANN and the "moderate" middle has no interest in watching Gym Jordan and Co. shitting lies all over CNN. Combine this with CNN+ and you could convince me this is sabotage.
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CNN have no interest in converting MAGA types. They are going after the Charlie Dents, Mia Loves, and Kinzingers of the world. (Don’t be surprised to see him get a CNN gig next year).
 
Raoul said:
CNN have no interest in converting MAGA types. They are going after the Charlie Dents, Mia Loves, and Kinzingers of the world. (Don’t be surprised to see him get a CNN gig next year).
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That is a tiny, tiny, audience to be nuking your current viewership for though. My dad would fall into that bucket and he has absolutely no interest in ever watching CNN. The perceived "liberal bias" is so engrained that I doubt there is any way you are going to get people to come over.
 
WI_Red said:
That is a tiny, tiny, audience to be nuking your current viewership for though. My dad would fall into that bucket and he has absolutely no interest in ever watching CNN. The perceived "liberal bias" is so engrained that I doubt there is any way you are going to get people to come over.
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I’m sure they’ve done their market research and know where the audience opportunities are. This is also historically part of their ethos since the early Turner days when Pat Buchanan and Tom Braden hosted Crossfire. They have always tried to play the middle by pushing the narratives of both sides through debate shows and how they approach the news. That obviously wouldn’t fly today in the MAGA climate, which is why I think they are attempting to balance their already lib editorial narratives with a few non MAGA, non libs. This is something that will appeal to independents interested in a bit of extra balance.
 
Raoul said:
I’m sure they’ve done their market research and know where the audience opportunities are. This is also historically part of their ethos since the early Turner days when Pat Buchanan and Tom Braden hosted Crossfire. They have always tried to play the middle by pushing the narratives of both sides through debate shows and how they approach the news. That obviously wouldn’t fly today in the MAGA climate, which is why I think they are attempting to balance their already lib editorial narratives with a few non MAGA, non libs. This is something that will appeal to independents interested in a bit of extra balance.
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I am not giving the same marketing department that green lit CNN+ The benefit of any doubt.
 
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