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Unfortunately, insurance is the reason we have this health care issue in the US. There is no one to fight these special interest lobbys in the health care world

by yalogin 10y ago

Unfortunately, insurance is the reason we have this health care issue in the US. There is no one to fight these special interest lobbys in the health care world. The hospitals don't care and a good number of patients don't care because of insurance. From what I see , people without insurance are treated as losers and their voice is not heard. Without insurance hospitals and doctors would fight the drug manufacturers on the patients' behalf.

developer2 10y ago
Insurance is the tip of the iceberg compared to the very existence of lobbying. You could completely remove the concept of insurance, and lobbying as it exists today in the US would still find a way to reign as the controlling interest. I recommend to all to watch the 2016 film "Miss Sloane". It does a fairly reasonable job of trying to showcase how corrupt lobbying is, though it's still a pathetically naive view of the situation actually in play. The film is far too gentle and not nearly vicious enough in portraying just how corrupt the system really is. At the end of the day, if everyone truly understood exactly how lobbying works, most citizens would send every single lobbyist, senator, and politician directly to jail for life without parole (I'd say death penalty, but I don't believe in that). The very concept of supposed "democracy" in the US would fail and require replacing it with something else. Every single political actor is in it for their own career, pure and simple. There is no such thing as a "politician for the people". It just doesn't exist. Stop trying to contradict me as you read this; Democrats, Republicans, and all third parties do not have your interests at heart. Corruption isn't just rampant, it is the very definition of the political institution that reigns today. Every single election I almost want to commit suicide, when I see the majority of your citizens having an apparent IQ of 10, fighting amongst themselves as if their choice of vote makes a single goddamn difference. The US is going to be the sole reason World War 3 happens in the next 50 years, and it will happen regardless of whether the Republicans or Democrats are in power. The party currently in control has absolutely no effect on how policies are put into action. They may publicly declare different views, but they all continue to perpetuate the exact same system of power. We are doomed to destroy ourselves, and it doesn't matter who you vote into power - we will get there regardless of any "democratic choice" the public tries to elect. Aside: Trump is a fucking joke and should have never had a chance of ever being elected. The same would have been true of Clinton. What the fuck is wrong with you people, that they were the two you wound up pitting against each other? Trump and Clinton were both pathetic choices, with neither of them having a single positive attribute. The country should have gone into civil war during the last election based on those candidates. Fuck the US and their politics. You are dooming the entire planet into becoming a pile of ashes. tldr; Fuck all Americans. You collectively make excuses to perpetuate your politicians' careers, pretending you don't have the power to change the way your country operates. Your country is the single reason our species is going to exterminate itself, and all you can offer is bullshit reasons to exclude yourselves from personally taking on any responsibility. Seriously, fuck Americans for resulting in 4+ billion deaths by the year 3000. Please incite a civil war in an election before 2028 so our species as a whole has a chance to survive.
- sctb 10y ago
  If you have a point to make on Hacker News, the guidelines ask that you make it civilly. We ban accounts that continue to violate the guidelines like this.
- MaulingMonkey 10y ago
  > Please incite a civil war in an election before 2028 This is supposed to avoid WW3? Hmm. Err... and have better results than our elections?
  - developer2 10y ago
    Do you not understand where the world is headed in the mid 21st century (years 2040-2070), solely because of the US? We are going to experience World War 3, wholly and entirely because of the politics of the US. Oh sure, it will be "because of external forces" (55% Middle East, 15% North Korea, 15% Russia, 10% China, 5% India"). But the US is going to be why 30-60% of the planet's population is exterminated in a matter of 5-10 years' time in WW3. Perhaps you have no idea just how influential the US is in the world's potential for war, even though the US does not account for the majority of the world's population. The US wants to own the entire nuclear arsenal, while decreeing that any other nation who does the same is a "dangerous enemy". The US has no right to be the "majority shareholder of nuclear arms". The US is not "the center of the universe". Over and over again in the media, American publications are brainwashing their citizens into believing they are the central power of the planet. Fuck that. Other nations are going to fight back. And it's going to result in a loss for all of us. And it will start with the US instigating the conflict. tldr; The US believes they are in control. The rest of the world is going to tell you to fuck off, and it will result in a war with billions of deaths... all because Americans feel like their lives are innately worth more than those from any other nation. You're wrong. RIP Planet Earth, all because one nation believes themselves to be the centre of everything.
    - MaulingMonkey 10y ago
      What I do not understand is what you're suggesting to actually improve things, and end up losing myself in apparent contradictions - assuming you're doing more than just venting. You're worried about WW3 - in no small part due to the American nuclear arsenal I'm sure, yet downplay American fears of other nuclear arsenals. In one breath you suggest the average American citizen so powerless in the grips of their political system as to be a rounding error, and in the next you suggest they perhaps take up that most powerful and deadly of exercises in political power: the ability to wage war, civil war, as a supposed means of stopping war, world war. If Americans are driven to such madness as to turn on their countrymen, what possesses you to think they'll stop there? We can't even elect a president without deciding they're a Muslim or a Russian (if only at heart), but a civil war will stay nice and contained? That we won't bomb the other side's (supposed) allies? Or actual allies? Perhaps with nukes? Do you think world war 1 or 2 could've been avoided if only there'd been a little more internal strife over on that side of the pond? Did any of the other wars to end all wars ever work? We do face a number of existential threats. Perhaps global warming will kill us. Perhaps a big space rock. Perhaps another supervolcano. Perhaps world war 3. Perhaps even started by the U.S., yes. If we are ended by war, I imagine like all wars before it, it will be fueled by some very angry, afraid people, fed up with their circumstances, looking to demonize their enemies, those they've been sent to kill - people who have lost all faith in political systems or negotiation (regardless of whether it manipulates them or not.) I worry that I may have just described you - do you understand, then, why I'm drawn to dicker? Most of these are not new problems, and it's not all bad. Mankind's first prophesy was, perhaps, our eventual doomsday - and yet we're still here for now. Technology brings people from across the planet together, spreading knowledge and awareness, bringing new light to old abuses and power structures, not to mention empowering the common citizen. We're closer than ever to ending the specters of famine and plagues. Globalization binds us together in mutual interdependence, with war being both more ludicrously expensive and more absolutely terrible for business than ever before. We are at perhaps a new renaissance of space exploration, and may yet spot the next rock before it hits, and redirect it, and leave our nest. Doomsday or not, we are mortal. Let us do what we can with our remaining time to improve the world and live well, not pour fuel on the flames and live in fear. Let us fight the good fight, if that's what's needed, rather than engage in self fulfilling prophecies. Let us work to delay the inevitable, if it truly is inevitable. But I'll ask you to ponder: is calling for civil war fighting the good fight? Even in hyperbole? Thanks for reading.

by yalogin 10y ago

developer2 10y ago

Insurance is the tip of the iceberg compared to the very existence of lobbying. You could completely remove the concept of insurance, and lobbying as it exists today in the US would still find a way to reign as the controlling interest. I recommend to all to watch the 2016 film "Miss Sloane". It does a fairly reasonable job of trying to showcase how corrupt lobbying is, though it's still a pathetically naive view of the situation actually in play. The film is far too gentle and not nearly vicious enough in portraying just how corrupt the system really is. At the end of the day, if everyone truly understood exactly how lobbying works, most citizens would send every single lobbyist, senator, and politician directly to jail for life without parole (I'd say death penalty, but I don't believe in that). The very concept of supposed "democracy" in the US would fail and require replacing it with something else. Every single political actor is in it for their own career, pure and simple. There is no such thing as a "politician for the people". It just doesn't exist. Stop trying to contradict me as you read this; Democrats, Republicans, and all third parties do not have your interests at heart. Corruption isn't just rampant, it is the very definition of the political institution that reigns today. Every single election I almost want to commit suicide, when I see the majority of your citizens having an apparent IQ of 10, fighting amongst themselves as if their choice of vote makes a single goddamn difference. The US is going to be the sole reason World War 3 happens in the next 50 years, and it will happen regardless of whether the Republicans or Democrats are in power. The party currently in control has absolutely no effect on how policies are put into action. They may publicly declare different views, but they all continue to perpetuate the exact same system of power. We are doomed to destroy ourselves, and it doesn't matter who you vote into power - we will get there regardless of any "democratic choice" the public tries to elect. Aside: Trump is a fucking joke and should have never had a chance of ever being elected. The same would have been true of Clinton. What the fuck is wrong with you people, that they were the two you wound up pitting against each other? Trump and Clinton were both pathetic choices, with neither of them having a single positive attribute. The country should have gone into civil war during the last election based on those candidates. Fuck the US and their politics. You are dooming the entire planet into becoming a pile of ashes. tldr; Fuck all Americans. You collectively make excuses to perpetuate your politicians' careers, pretending you don't have the power to change the way your country operates. Your country is the single reason our species is going to exterminate itself, and all you can offer is bullshit reasons to exclude yourselves from personally taking on any responsibility. Seriously, fuck Americans for resulting in 4+ billion deaths by the year 3000. Please incite a civil war in an election before 2028 so our species as a whole has a chance to survive.

sctb 10y ago
If you have a point to make on Hacker News, the guidelines ask that you make it civilly. We ban accounts that continue to violate the guidelines like this.
MaulingMonkey 10y ago
> Please incite a civil war in an election before 2028 This is supposed to avoid WW3? Hmm. Err... and have better results than our elections?
- developer2 10y ago
  Do you not understand where the world is headed in the mid 21st century (years 2040-2070), solely because of the US? We are going to experience World War 3, wholly and entirely because of the politics of the US. Oh sure, it will be "because of external forces" (55% Middle East, 15% North Korea, 15% Russia, 10% China, 5% India"). But the US is going to be why 30-60% of the planet's population is exterminated in a matter of 5-10 years' time in WW3. Perhaps you have no idea just how influential the US is in the world's potential for war, even though the US does not account for the majority of the world's population. The US wants to own the entire nuclear arsenal, while decreeing that any other nation who does the same is a "dangerous enemy". The US has no right to be the "majority shareholder of nuclear arms". The US is not "the center of the universe". Over and over again in the media, American publications are brainwashing their citizens into believing they are the central power of the planet. Fuck that. Other nations are going to fight back. And it's going to result in a loss for all of us. And it will start with the US instigating the conflict. tldr; The US believes they are in control. The rest of the world is going to tell you to fuck off, and it will result in a war with billions of deaths... all because Americans feel like their lives are innately worth more than those from any other nation. You're wrong. RIP Planet Earth, all because one nation believes themselves to be the centre of everything.
  - MaulingMonkey 10y ago
    What I do not understand is what you're suggesting to actually improve things, and end up losing myself in apparent contradictions - assuming you're doing more than just venting. You're worried about WW3 - in no small part due to the American nuclear arsenal I'm sure, yet downplay American fears of other nuclear arsenals. In one breath you suggest the average American citizen so powerless in the grips of their political system as to be a rounding error, and in the next you suggest they perhaps take up that most powerful and deadly of exercises in political power: the ability to wage war, civil war, as a supposed means of stopping war, world war. If Americans are driven to such madness as to turn on their countrymen, what possesses you to think they'll stop there? We can't even elect a president without deciding they're a Muslim or a Russian (if only at heart), but a civil war will stay nice and contained? That we won't bomb the other side's (supposed) allies? Or actual allies? Perhaps with nukes? Do you think world war 1 or 2 could've been avoided if only there'd been a little more internal strife over on that side of the pond? Did any of the other wars to end all wars ever work? We do face a number of existential threats. Perhaps global warming will kill us. Perhaps a big space rock. Perhaps another supervolcano. Perhaps world war 3. Perhaps even started by the U.S., yes. If we are ended by war, I imagine like all wars before it, it will be fueled by some very angry, afraid people, fed up with their circumstances, looking to demonize their enemies, those they've been sent to kill - people who have lost all faith in political systems or negotiation (regardless of whether it manipulates them or not.) I worry that I may have just described you - do you understand, then, why I'm drawn to dicker? Most of these are not new problems, and it's not all bad. Mankind's first prophesy was, perhaps, our eventual doomsday - and yet we're still here for now. Technology brings people from across the planet together, spreading knowledge and awareness, bringing new light to old abuses and power structures, not to mention empowering the common citizen. We're closer than ever to ending the specters of famine and plagues. Globalization binds us together in mutual interdependence, with war being both more ludicrously expensive and more absolutely terrible for business than ever before. We are at perhaps a new renaissance of space exploration, and may yet spot the next rock before it hits, and redirect it, and leave our nest. Doomsday or not, we are mortal. Let us do what we can with our remaining time to improve the world and live well, not pour fuel on the flames and live in fear. Let us fight the good fight, if that's what's needed, rather than engage in self fulfilling prophecies. Let us work to delay the inevitable, if it truly is inevitable. But I'll ask you to ponder: is calling for civil war fighting the good fight? Even in hyperbole? Thanks for reading.