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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 11th, 2023

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  • Back in 2019 when universal healthcare was being discussed during the Democratic primary, the Pod Save America guys addressed the question of “Who will pay for it??!” with…

    America only ever has one total medical bill, for all the medical expenses and associated costs that we all use, every year. And even if someone doesn’t go to the doctor, then that still eventually adds up to a cost that we all pay, because someday they’ll miss work, or die, or they’ll get really sick and wind up having to declare bankruptcy, and that’s a cost that affects us all, too. There’s no way to subtract from that total cost; either people get the treatment that they need, or the cost gets distributed around anyway, sooner or later. So really, the only variable over which we have meaningful control is how much inefficiency is built into that system, and private insurance is an absolutely massive source of inefficiency.

    Also, I can’t fucking believe that we haven’t had a major campaign on the premise of “Never have to think about your insurance EVER AGAIN!” because every goddamn time I have to think about my insurance, whether I’ve got it, whether it covers what I’m thinking of, whether I’m at the right doctor or not, I feel bile rising in the back of my throat. Having to think about insurance should probably poll at around the same level of rectal polyps, and yet we all have to think about it at some point or other, and it’s fucking bullshit.







  • Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.

    “Are you feeling all right?” I asked her.

    “I feel all sleepy,” she said.

    In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.

    Roald Dahl, pleading with people to vaccinate their children against measles.


  • “[The Jew] is and remains the eternal parasite, a parasite that spreads more and more like a harmful bacillus, as well as inviting only a favourable culture medium. The effect of its existence, however, is similar to that of parasites: where it occurs, the host people die after a shorter or longer time.”

    — Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

    The use of the word “parasite” is not a coincidence.