MetaFilter

MeFi post: The US military industry _is_ 'complex'

But free college is too expense.

And medical care is too expensive.

And infrastructure is too expensive.

And if you add up all that "missing" money, you could cut a check to every American citizen for around $20,000 each.
posted to MetaFilter by deadaluspark at 10:01 AM on August 22, 2016

But free college is too expense.

And medical care is too expensive.

And infrastructure is too expensive.
posted to MetaFilter by T.D. Strange at 9:43 AM on August 22, 2016

MeFi post: The Homeless in America's National Forests

Mr Snagsby descends, and finds the two ’prentices intently contemplating a police constable, who holds a ragged boy by the arm.

“Why, bless my heart,” says Mr Snagsby, “what’s the matter!”

“This boy,” says the constable, “although he’s repeatedly told to, won’t move on—”

“I’m always a-moving on, sir,” cries the boy, wiping away his grimy tears with his arm. “I’ve always been a moving and a moving on, ever since I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 10:59 AM on August 22, 2016

This is what you get when your only goal is tax reduction.
posted to MetaFilter by blue_beetle at 10:56 AM on August 22, 2016

I have little sympathy for those that want to complain about the homeless utilizing public property to try to survive in a society where, for the most part, the wealthy care little and do less to help them turn their lives around.
posted to MetaFilter by HuronBob at 10:44 AM on August 22, 2016

If only the "millions of adventurers and campers" who could afford to spend their vacations adventuring and camping could imagine and support some other way to address the needs of the poor and desperate.
posted to MetaFilter by mhoye at 10:37 AM on August 22, 2016

Ask MeFi post: Landlord needs advice on rent increase

The managing agent have a vested interest in increasing the rent since they, I assume, get a % of the rent? So of course they will exaggerate how much you could get and want you to put the price up. In my experience letting agents are money grabbing scum. Don't forget if you put it on the market they will be gouging you and the new tenants for credit check costs, inventory costs, cleaning costs, and all that bollocks. So of course they want you to put it on the market.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by moiraine at 3:34 AM on August 19, 2016

I am not a landlord, I have been a tenant.
- It's fair to put the rent up a little after 3 years.
- The managing agent have a vested interest in increasing the rent since they, I assume, get a % of the rent? So of course they will exaggerate how much you could get and want you to put the price up. In my experience letting agents are money grabbing scum. Don't forget if you put it on the market they will be gouging you and the new tenants for credit check costs, inventory... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by EndsOfInvention at 2:41 AM on August 19, 2016

MeFi post: Women and hunger

This was like a mirror flashed into my blind spot. I am terrified of men who adore me, particularly men who adore me when they know nothing about me. I find myself with men who I adore, who I make room for, whose needs I anticipate, cater to, try to fulfill ... and I always am blind until the end to obvious fact that my efforts aren't noticed or appreciated or reciprocated.
posted to MetaFilter by bunderful at 11:22 AM on August 19, 2016

MeFi post: Gawker.com, 2003-2016

What’s crazy to me is that the $140M judgment, from what I’ve read, is acknowledged by all sides to be the product of a runaway jury, and is all but certain to be reduced or reversed on appeal. Yet the damage is already done. What’s the logic in forcing a company out of business based on a verdict that nobody expects to stand?
posted to MetaFilter by lurkfirst at 3:05 PM on August 18, 2016

@theshrillest has been posting links to some of their best stories.
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 3:03 PM on August 18, 2016

MeFi post: Go Big or Go Home

I mean honestly, seeing the statue face down in the truck bed, seeing how vulnerable it looked - it made me feel a weird burst of sympathy for the poor naked thing, and then I thought, for just a moment, "poor Trump, having to live in a body that everyone feels free to mock." This is not a feeling I want to have about Trump, who is a monster.
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 4:13 PM on August 18, 2016

Frankly, I think I've seen too much from the left, or at least from leftists and liberals, about how Trump's body is everything that Real Men Are Not Supposed To Be. His hair, his hands, his penis. Oh, but he's so awful we'll make an exception just this once, and then we'll resume our usual consciousness about how this sort of thing affects people. Yes, of course body shaming is bad, but his personality just so repulsive and obnoxious - I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by teponaztli at 3:55 PM on August 18, 2016

I dunno, I think it's actually kind of...misogynist? Queerphobic? Transphobic? I mean, it relies on the idea that soft, irregular bodies are gross, that dicks need to be big, that it's shameful to be naked, that men's bodies can't be loved or erotic and that revealing them makes them less powerful, and that balls make the man..I happen to care very much for someone who is kind of a big fat person and this body reminds me of that body, so perversely it humanizes Trump for me. I don't think... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 3:43 PM on August 18, 2016

MeFi post: NSA malware released by "The Shadow Brokers"

The Snowden commentary Termite linked upthread has the best take:

"Why did they do it? No one knows, but I suspect this is more diplomacy than intelligence, related to the escalation around the DNC hack. [...] This leak is likely a warning that someone can prove US responsibility for any attacks that originated from this malware server. [...] Accordingly, this may be an effort to influence the calculus of decision-makers wondering how sharply to respond to the DNC... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by stinkfoot at 8:18 AM on August 18, 2016

MeFi post: Nice exchanges there, be a pity if anything happened

I am very dissatisfied with the ACA as it currently stands.

That is not the same thing as saying I want to throw it away before we have something better, and I'm pretty tired of people pretending that's what I'm saying.
posted to MetaFilter by Foosnark at 5:53 AM on August 18, 2016

I completely understand why the right wing is against this program. What I don't understand is why the alleged progressive left would rather pout about how they didn't get their single payer pony vs. working to improve a program that even in it's current imperfect form probably represents the single biggest improvement to health care access we'll see in our lifetimes. Beyond pouting coming from being way down on the total number of people helped scorecard, I mean.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:02 PM on August 17, 2016

You know what? Y'all are right. Fuck those 20 million people. Let's start over.

Well, the ACA has cut the number of uninsured Americans in half, so fuck those OTHER 20 million people; we've done enough.
posted to MetaFilter by oneswellfoop at 8:06 PM on August 17, 2016

You know what? Y'all are right. Fuck those 20 million people. Let's start over.

Yes, fuck all 20 million of those people in need, this is definitely a good-faith representation of the desires of the ACA's left-wing critics.
posted to MetaFilter by Rustic Etruscan at 8:00 PM on August 17, 2016

Please show me where I'm saying they shouldn't be heard.

___

Take that dislike to the polls and vote for people who will get into office and make it better instead of bitching about it on the internet.

make it better instead of bitching about it on the internet

instead of bitching about it

instead of
posted to MetaFilter by Rustic Etruscan at 4:09 PM on August 17, 2016

> Answer: because she wants to build political coalitions with people who are completely opposed to single-payer ie. the AMA and/or Republicans. Same way the public-option was still-born by the Obama's desire to make a political coalition with health insurance companies... and you can see exactly how that worked out.

> the ACA left a lot of hard decisions to panels of "experts" after the bill was passed who no doubt responded to their respective... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kliuless at 3:34 PM on August 17, 2016

Don't like Obamacare in its current form? Good - me neither. Take that dislike to the polls and vote for people who will get into office and make it better instead of bitching about it on the internet.

Why do people have to choose? Maybe they're working to get progressives elected but also want to voice their criticism of the ACA. You have no right to tell them their arguments can't be heard here.

I'm a very strong... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by tonycpsu at 2:28 PM on August 17, 2016

I thought the idea was always that folding more & more people into the health insurance collective would help subsidize those with pre-existing conditions, etc. Of course a strict pool of only the poor, aged, & sick isn't profitable.

Reminds me a lot of the sub-prime mortgages bindings/credit-default swaps that brought down the economy 8 years ago. Reminds me of the ride Enron took Cali electricity consumers on.

There... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Twang at 2:20 PM on August 17, 2016

I guess the one thing that gives me hope about some modicum of health insurance reform eventually coming to America, (slash, the one thing that makes me think that we'll do our best to keep insurance companies from sabotaging the ACA) is that the pain is inflicted so broadly and so indiscriminately that respectable people fear that they themselves may become victims. In other contexts — for example, the prison system — the torment is targeted such that respectable people don't think... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:10 PM on August 17, 2016

I find all this so depressing. I'm in Texas, and have been on ACA plans for a couple years. While I'm deeply grateful for the ACA for keeping me and my husband alive during a period of employment instability, the chaos of the plans is insane.

The last time I enrolled (after losing access to yet another employer based plan) (I've honestly had like 6 different plans in the last two years), the only plan I could find that would cover us sufficiently and affordably was a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by threeturtles at 1:57 PM on August 17, 2016

And for the life of me, I can't see why she wouldn't want to stick her hand on the red-hot burner. Again

I mean, does anyone else here remember what happened the last time Hillary touched health care reform? The demonization of her that's lasted 20 yeasts?

This is why I'm disappointed by Clinton's candidacy. The political realities have changed, the electorate has changed, the economy has changed, the range of what is possible... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by enn at 1:28 PM on August 17, 2016

I find the back-and-forth about what Clinton really believes in her heart of hearts mystifying. I mean, as with the debate about whether Trump is "really" a racist, or just sees an advantage in appealing to racists—who gives a shit? We're discussing these people's merits as political leaders, not whether they are in a state of grace with the Lord. Let's judge them on their fucking words and actions. Clinton has made it very clear that she will not support any... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by enn at 1:24 PM on August 17, 2016

You Can't Tip a Buick, where is the evidence that, specifically in healthcare, Americans don't support a single payer option that provides healthcare for their fellow citizens?

Every recent poll I've seen indicates that Americans overwhelmingly support a universal option.
posted to MetaFilter by kyp at 11:25 AM on August 17, 2016

I mean I don't like it either.
posted to MetaFilter by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:14 AM on August 17, 2016

And for the life of me, I can't see why she wouldn't want to stick her hand on the red-hot burner. Again

Whoever is running things, whoever it is, has to deal with Big Societal Issues, like healthcare. Part of the job is dealing with the messy problems that come up, like confronting businesses that blackmail our legal system.
posted to MetaFilter by a lungful of dragon at 10:56 AM on August 17, 2016

> I think it's utterly implausible, however, that we will find ourselves in a situation where Hillary Clinton is trying to argue down a massive popular groundswell of support for nationalizing healthcare.

Absolutely. One other thing that people on the left in the United States often don't get is that the U.S. is on the whole not a particularly good country, and Americans on the whole genuinely don't want particularly good things for each other.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:55 AM on August 17, 2016

to removing out-of-pocket costs for health visits

But for many people it hasn't. Overall, for many people, it has made healthcare worse. I pay more money for less care — and so do most people I know. The insurance I am mandated by law to buy costs me ~$40k a year before they start paying anything. And that was the cheapest option! That is just a fact. If you can't address that, then just yelling at people because they object to a law that has made... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dame at 10:45 AM on August 17, 2016

I hereby grant anyone who wants to call it a Frankenstein monster the freedom to do so provided they are consistent in talking about the Defense appropriations bills and Farm bills that way also

Happily.
posted to MetaFilter by entropicamericana at 10:40 AM on August 17, 2016

Yeah Obama already ignored that and saved all his political capital to fight for the TPP instead.
posted to MetaFilter by dame at 10:36 AM on August 17, 2016

>And she's pretty much an incrementalist.

It's possible that she shares the values and goals of people who want accessible health care for all, but who believes that incrementalist methods are the only or best tool for realizing those values. Alternately, it's possible that she's a centrist who believes that some incremental fixes are necessary to the current system, but that fundamentally the current system is preferable to nationalized or... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:10 AM on August 17, 2016

First, most people are going to be ignorant of even the basics of these policies; for the most part these phrases stand in for general feelings about an issue. Second, supporting single-payer is not something anybody does in a vacuum. A wholesale revolution in the structure of US healthcare would be incredibly, messily destructive in the short term.

One of Sander's big accomplishments was getting $10 billion for community health centers, from a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ennui.bz at 9:38 AM on August 17, 2016

Hillary Clinton: "single payer will never ever happen."

Rhetorically, 'never, ever come to pass' is, pretty clearly, 'in the next four years': she was specifically responding to Sander's call for single payer during his presidency. 'Never, ever come to pass' during the next presidency is very different than literally never.

I find this sort of internal rationalization fascinating. In every day life "never... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ennui.bz at 9:28 AM on August 17, 2016

Wait didn't we all agree this was going to happen? Just we disagreed (along, it seems, incrementalist vs...uh, absolutist*, I guess? lines) about how in the end to get to single-payer?


Hillary Clinton: "single payer will never ever happen.
posted to MetaFilter by ennui.bz at 9:00 AM on August 17, 2016

Here is a story about bitter irony.

I spent a year and a bit on Pennsylvania Medicaid while I went to school full time and had no income. As a reasonably healthy person, it was great! I was able to get all the medications I need with no problems, and my regular doctor's practice takes a lot of Medicaid patients and knows how to deal with any bureaucracy that came up. (I grant though, that I have the privilege of living in a major city with a variety of Medicaid providers.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ActionPopulated at 8:58 AM on August 17, 2016

January 20, 2017: Hillary turns from the chief justice, grabs the lecturn and says "Medicare for All. By March. Let's do this." ...and then I wake up, really irritated it was a dream.

Hillary Clinton has been very clear from the outset that she does not intend to rock the ACA boat. You must be thinking of Bernie ("Bro") Sanders.
posted to MetaFilter by splitpeasoup at 8:37 AM on August 17, 2016

not enough healthy people are buying insurance to offset the more costly sick people

Well d'uh. Healthy people are already covered because they have jobs that provide them with health coverage and so they can go to the doctor when they need to. That's why they're healthy.

I mean it's not as though the very foundation of the private insurance business isn't exhaustively detailed... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Naberius at 8:32 AM on August 17, 2016

With a D majority, it's possible to put pressure on insurance companies to keep them in line.

Downballot Democrats like Evan Bayh? He's one of the Blue Dog Democrats who worked so hard last time to water down the ACA.
posted to MetaFilter by indubitable at 8:15 AM on August 17, 2016

If not, how did no one see this coming from the word go?

You mean, aside from essentially everyone on the left who predicted this very outcome in the absence of a public option?
posted to MetaFilter by enn at 8:01 AM on August 17, 2016

The lesson is that the private insurance industry was never going to be a reliable partner in this endeavor. (Or, once you've paid the Danegeld, you'll never be rid of the Dane.)

This is why there should have been a public option from the get-go, and why it's increasingly looking like the only way to save the ACA.

Simplest way to achieve that, of course, would be to simply nationalize Aetna and Humana. I mean they can try to bully the federal... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Naberius at 7:58 AM on August 17, 2016

The chaos on the exchange markets must be stabilized. If only there was some sort of national coverage program with a large provider network that could be opened up to allow anyone willing to pay into it to enroll. If only.
posted to MetaFilter by ThePinkSuperhero at 7:50 AM on August 17, 2016

*cough*singlepayernow*cough*
posted to MetaFilter by entropicamericana at 7:49 AM on August 17, 2016

MeFi post: Burkinis interdits

Do you ban people from eating in public places during Ramadan (true in some Gulf states)?

No, this is like forcing women to eat in public during Ramadan, just in case they're hungry but the men won't let them eat.
posted to MetaFilter by that's how you get ants at 12:54 PM on August 17, 2016

White men sure seem obsessed with looking at Muslim womens' bodies don't they?

The sad thing is that, viewed from a certain angle, the 'burkini' is a rather liberating piece of clothing. I've spent lots of time in conservative Muslim countries over the years, and in general women (even those who don't cover their hair) face huge pressure to simply never go swim in public. In Egypt for example, all of the urban upper class 'clubs' have swimming pools, and women basically... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jackbrown at 11:53 AM on August 17, 2016

MeFi post: Let memesplain Harambe

lol, ok, what was Harambe about? (Past tense because if it wasn't already over, an FPP with Forbes explainers would surely do it) Odes and songs to Harambe long after the actual incident faded from public imagination were a barbed reminder of the predictable, disappointing, compressed, manipulative emotional cycle of news and twitter discourse in a year when everything is happening all at once as we flit from brief spurts of sadness and outrage and anger and whatever else from one moment to the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by naju at 3:18 PM on August 16, 2016

MeFi post: It's hot as hell in Philadelphia

I mean, I was literally there. There was quite a lot of feminist discourse in 1995; indeed, it was, like, right in the middle of the third wave. The idea that it was the gender dark ages and therefore no one understood that Bill Clinton took advantage of a young and vulnerable woman - least of all him - is pure retconning.
posted to MetaFilter by Frowner at 7:00 AM on July 27, 2016