I want to be clear for the trolls, I am not condoning murder. Having said that, I do not recall anything that has so clearly cut through partisan lines among the general public more than the indifference to the assassination of this healthcare CEO. It’s not surprising, but the response is scary.
As a side note, the fact that Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield made this announcement 24 hours after the assassination is unintentionally hilarious:
After receiving intense backlash, a health insurance provider has rolled back its plan to implement a new policy that would have limited its coverage for anesthesia used during procedures.
Elevance Health, which recently rebranded from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, first shared information about the proposed change for Connecticut, New York and Missouri via news releases posted Nov. 1, though the news only just started gaining traction this week. In some instances, provider notices were sent to specific states as recently as Dec. 1, which may have contributed to the delayed reaction.
Delayed or not, the public backlash has been fierce and swift. According to a description of the policy on Anthem’s website, billing guidelines would change in some states beginning in February 2025 to cap the amount of anesthesia care the company would cover based on time limits pre-set by the insurer.
The problem with this, of course, is that it will solve nothing because this was really a fight between insurers and the most overpaid physicians out there, and either way you and I are going to get fucked with the costs in the end.
Speaking of healthcare, Vivek and Elon, the dumb and dumber doge duo, have decided one way to cut costs of government is to axe the VA. And they intend to throw millions of people off Medicaid (or is it Medicare, or both). Shit is going to get interesting, regardless.
In other news, it is apparently self-defense and legal to choke out a homeless person and keep that chokehold for five minutes after they stopped breathing:
A judge granted a motion from Manhattan prosecutors to dismiss the more serious charge of second-degree manslaughter against Daniel Penny on Friday in his trial over the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway last year.
The ruling clears the way for the jury to consider a remaining lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide. It came after a Manhattan jury said they were deadlocked twice on the manslaughter charge and Penny’s defense attorneys renewed their motion for a mistrial.
Over defense objections, Judge Maxwell Wiley agreed with prosecutors, who argued that dismissing the first count of second-degree manslaughter eliminates the defense’s concern about a compromise verdict.
If you find this surprising, I would love to know where you have been living your whole life.
Finally, let’s all say thanks to a real one:
Paul Krugman, columnist for The New York Times for nearly 25 years, is retiring at the end of this year.
“Time and again, he took on the big fights, grappled with policy deeply and seriously, held the powerful to account and spoke hard truths — sometimes as a lonely voice arguing unfashionable positions,” Kathleen Kingsbury, opinion editor, wrote in a memo this morning.
Krugman plans to write a final column.
On the social media platform Blue Sky, Krugman wrote that he “decided to leave in search of more freedom in terms of both style and content. And that’s all I am going to say for now.” He wrote that he would be announcing future plans.
K-Thug is 71 and I hope he has a long and happy retirement.
Last Call to Check the Pet Calendar Before the Links to Order Go Up
Elizabelle
I don’t think K-Thug is retiring. I would bet he will be writing a lot, freed from the shackles of Putz Sulzberger’s Fascism Lite daily newspaper.
VFX Lurker
I shun the New York Times, but I respect Paul Krugman and his work. Wishing him success in whatever he chooses to do next.
pat
Ah, the last reason to go to FTFNYT.
eemom
Good evening Cole. FWIW I mentioned earlier that you need to lay down the law around here about relitigating July. Apparently all the pie is sending some folks into sugar shock.
BeautifulPlumage
Rotating tag? “.. Vivek and Elon, the dumb and dumber doge duo,”
frosty
@BeautifulPlumage: That’s a good one. “Dumb and dumber doge duo” is up to Betty Cracker’s standards!
SpaceUnit
What a doge looks like
Raoul Paste
I never tire of the image of Krugman walking away from the flaming car
Eric S.
Somewhere today (here? LGM?) I read a take stating it is incorrect to refer to a health insurance company as in the healthcare industry. They are a finance and investment company that works against healthcare. This is not to refute anything JC said on the topic but I thought it an observation worth sharing.
Melancholy Jaques
From what I’ve seen online, it goes well beyond indifference to scorn mixed with derisive laughter.
Steven Holmes
Based on his statement Krugman hasn’t stopped commenting. Just not doing the regular for the NYT. Hopefully his new digs will allow him to do things more like his old Slate columns which were less inhibited
TS
@Elizabelle:
He was the only writer worth reading on the NYT. His economic theories were valid, he attacked trickle down at every opportunity & believed in much of Keynesian economics which is 100% valid today & why Democratic economics works & the GOP theories do not. A worthy Nobel winner unlike many of those given the prize for Economics.
Long may he continue to show them how it should be done.
Another Scott
AFAIK, but I haven’t checked, Krugman is still with CUNY (where he went after he left Princeton).
I haven’t read him much in the last few years – he dropped off my list when FTFNYT put him behind a paywall. He’s an important voice for explaining economics and I hope he continues that work (and has more freedom to speak his mind).
Best wishes,
Scott.
TS
As for the Health Insurance guy – the Washington Post has turned him into the corn farmer from Iowa who found the American dream. The worship of the almighty $$$ is the news for the next 4 years.
Starfish (she/her)
@eemom: Are they still at it?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, I’ve been noticing that the Media has been going nuts trying to shame everyone on this and it’s not working.
Steve LaBonne
@Elizabelle: A Substack with an option to receive emails, à la Heather Cox Richardson, would certainly work for me.
Lacuna Synecdoche
John Cole @ Top:
It doesn’t sound like Krugman intends to be very retiring in his retirement.
“… decided to leave in search of more freedom in terms of both style and content. And that’s all I am going to say for now” sounds like he has a beef with NYT and is moving to a new home outlet for his political punditry.
Martin
@Eric S.: On that note, McDonalds CFO back in the 60s said this:
Your happy meal is expensive because the franchisee has a real nutbuster of a landlord, that they also license the menu from and source ingredients from.
Steve LaBonne
“In this country, it is good to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.” – Voltaire, Candide
Steve LaBonne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Same thing with the Hunter Biden pardon and ditto. They have really forgotten who their audience is.
Lacuna Synecdoche
@TS:
To be fair, that’s been much of US news for the last 150 years too.
Gretchen
I disagree about physicians being overpaid. I know one anaesthesiologist, still in training, who did 4 years of college, 4 of medical school, 4 years residency, and a 2 year fellowship. 14 years of training before being trusted to put you out and be sure you come back up. That’s unless you do another specialty fellowship – she plans on pediatric anaesthesiology. The average anaesthesiologist makes $340K and pays $10-25K in malpractice insurance every year.
Another doc I know has a quarter-million dollars in student loans. She didn’t finish her OB/GYN residency because she got burned out and spoke sharply to the wrong person. She can’t practice because she didn’t finish a residency. No other OB/GYN residency will take her, despite training surgeons saying it was as if she was born with a scalpel in her hand. Her quarter-million is not dischargeable in bankruptcy. She’s doing a master’s in public health and found a public health residency that would take her. She’ll be close to 40 before she can start practicing.
That CEO did 4 years of college, 2 years of business school and was making $10 million a year plus bonuses and insider trading profits. Who’s providing necessary services? The $340K doctor or the $10 million CEO?
cmorenc
Regarding the Anthem BCBS’s now-reversed attempt to limit payments to anesthesiologists if the length of a surgical procedure goes over a set limit – SURGEONS are by far the main drivers of how long a given surgery takes, not the anesthesiologist. My daughter is an MD anesthesiologist whose work is entirely in the OR.
Melancholy Jaques
@Steve LaBonne:
But they know who they serve.
Eric S.
@Steve LaBonne: Unfortunately, their audience is their ownership group.
Steve LaBonne
@Eric S.: Yeah, when you put it that way…
Steve LaBonne
@Gretchen: For obvious reasons the CEOs and the billionaires want us to focus our ire on the professional upper middle class rather than on them. A very old trick but sadly it still works on too many people.
Gretchen
@eemom: Agreed. WaterGirl had one post this afternoon asking could we please, please not fight? And the very first post was from someone with oppositional defiant disorder. I pied two people just from that one post.
Miki
Viet Nam Era Vet here and have been ginormously grateful for the care I get from the VA in Minnesota. Dumping vets isn’t gonna work, on any level. We will fight back.
Starfish (she/her)
@Gretchen: Oh, that post was not good, and the first comment was also not good.
The way you get over your old boyfriend who was no good for you is that you stop calling him. The post was calling him, and the first post was relitigating everything that ever went wrong with the relationship.
I didn’t read beyond that.
New Deal democrat
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
Agree 100%. To which I’ll add, there was a post on Bluesky from a Wall Streeter I know with ties to Krugman two days ago teasing “important news.” Clearly Krugthulu intends to keep writing, freed from the NYT.
Origuy
In an earlier thread, Martin said, “No matter how hard you work to show some asshole as a terrible person, part of the audience will identify with the power of the asshole and admire and want to emulate it.” Exempli gratia, these guys:
They are calling their company Sauron. The product may be a good idea, but the name is questionable.
Jackie
@Martin: I wonder how soon TCFG will assign the CEOs of Mickey D and KFC to the FDA in QC.
Steve LaBonne
@Origuy:
In a bitter sort of way, I can’t help admiring a quality piece of trolling.
Ruckus
Speaking of healthcare, Vivek and Elon, the dumb and dumber doge duo, have decided one way to cut costs of government is to axe the VA. And they intend to throw millions of people off Medicaid (or is it Medicare, or both). Shit is going to get interesting, regardless.
There will be a tremendous amount of screaming if they axe the VA. From me and likely every other veteran still alive. This is my healthcare, I earned it by enlisting and serving in the armed forces during a war at a rather small pay scale, a lot less than what I earned working 40+ hrs a week at the time. I am writing to my congress people in the next couple of days that I’m sure I and a hell of a lot of other veterans will be absolutely pissed off. And I’d bet that the number of people pissed off if they end Medicaid/Medicare will be even more staggering. We paid into this, we earned this, FUCK THESE SHITHEADS WITH THEIR millions and billions of dollars that someone who served in the military or paid into Medicare/Medicaid for decades gets screwed into the ground – or buried in it just because these rich fucking assholes are rich fucking assholes.
prostratedragon
“Elevance?” These people are insufferable. And why does it sound so much like “elephants?”
Ruckus
@Martin:
In my estimation those burgers really, really, REALLY are not worth purchasing at any amount. Even if the amount is zero.
BQuimby
WELCOME TO YOUR BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD GoFundMe PPO
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/welcome-to-your-blue-cross-blue-shield-gofundme-ppo
Baud
Kamala should have shot an insurance company CEO dead. #HotTake
Omnes Omnibus
I am just hanging out and listening to Willie DeVille. It is a good thing to do.
prostratedragon
As for Krugman, I had been wondering. He was one of the first people with a large audience to sound the alarm on the authoritarian trend we’re on, back when he started; and has been viewing the developments in Hungary with Orban as a form of creeping takeover that might be used here from the begnning of Orbanism.
Martin
@Gretchen: Well, we don’t need to validate physician salaries against CEOs. They can both be too high.
I’ve been working on something that touches on that pay, and how it is part of a cycle that is very difficult to get in front of from a cost perspective. The obvious first steps to address the problem is to retire the med school debt and ameliorate the malpractice in some way and take those costs off of physicians.
Anesthesiologists are a particularly unique case in that they can bill multiple patients simultaneously and it’s not uncommon for them to be billing 3-4 patients at once. There’s a matter of whether that arrangement causes them to abuse this relationship. Additionally, a patient can be billed for multiple anesthesiologists for their full time and this too can be abused.
It’s harder for other specialities to abuse this because they aren’t permitted to bill multiple patients simultaneously.
But you look at a salary survey and you’ll see a lot of $600k/8wks vacation from anywhere in the US and then Europe chimes in – $70K, etc. Same job. One difference is that the risk isn’t all being borne by the physician in Europe and in the US it usually is – the hospital always has clean hands. That can change and it would probably bring costs down quite a lot and make things a lot more manageable. Boosting the number of physicians being trained would help as well.
Also notable, Europe admits students directly out of high school so they save 4 years of school (and costs). I designed premed programs and did some work with med school admissions and US med schools don’t require a BS, just about 2 years of STEM coursework (much of which most other countries cover in HS). That could certainly be reformed.
New Deal democrat
@Ruckus: I got a chuckle out of the family on Turkey Day saying that if Trump tried to cut SS or Medicare, I would be right there for the Million Walker March. I’m sure the same is true about vets and the VA insurance.
Of course, Trump isn’t President yet, and won’t pursue anything in the face of severe blowback. All he cares about is his ego and grifting.
Ohio Mom
@Origuy: Sounds pretty much what most dogs would do for you, plus you can give them a better name than Sauron.
Martin
@Jackie: Head up the US school lunch program.
MagdaInBlack
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh man. You are the only other person I have run into who likes (loves?) Willie DeVille. Or even knows who he was
Eta: now I’m down the YouTube rabbit hole.
Ohio Mom
I keep getting stuck on this from the NYT’s Kathleen Kingsbury on Krugman:
“Time and again, he took on the big fights, grappled with policy deeply and seriously, held the powerful to account and spoke hard truths — sometimes as a lonely voice arguing unfashionable positions.”
Krugman was by his lonesome because the rest of the NYT was too dumb and beholden to the 1% to join him. It’s not like they weren’t acutely aware of what he was writing.
sab
@eemom: Yes please. I get enough relitigating July in meatspace in my own house.
Omnes Omnibus
@MagdaInBlack: I saw Mink DeVille on SNL in 1981 performing Maybe Tomorrow and Love and Emotion from Coup de Grace. I bought the album the following Monday. If I could sing like Willy….
Ruckus
@New Deal democrat:
All he cares about is his enormous ego, because he’s got nothing else. How a majority of people think he’s worth 1 second of their time or a vote is beyond me. He has, his entire life only ever thought about 1 person and that is shitforbrains. Oh wait, HE’S SHITFORBRAINS!! Does that actually explain it? I mean he’s now worse than shitforbrains. Damn it what can I call him?
sab
@Gretchen: Agree with you on the doctors pay. Their tuition is astronomical, as is their malpractice insurance. They dont’t make major money until they’re in their thirties, and they are pretty much burned out by their sixties. I know accountants cheerfully at work into their late eighties. Not so doctors.
prostratedragon
@Ruckus:
Gin & Tonic
I think Cole should offer Krugman a spot here. He can write whatever he wants, whenever he wants.
sab
@sab: I woke up during my cardiac ablation. It was interesting although uncomfortable. I kept quiet…didn’t want to upset the crew or cardiologist. Fortunately he noticed and said something, so out I went again.
Jay
@Ohio Mom:
And they will do it for treats, skritches, belly rubs and the eternal question, “Who’s a good dog?”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: Jackals would run him off. Too Bernie bro and not Bernie bro enough at the same time.
Melancholy Jaques
@MagdaInBlack:
Guess the subject never came up. I’m a Willie DeWille stan. Saw Mink DeVille five times back in the day. You know how some insufferable music snobs insist on playing their favorite obscure artist when their friends come over? That was me playing Willie DeVille. To this day, I force my students to listen to him.
Omnes Omnibus
Trick question.
Omnes Omnibus
@Melancholy Jaques: Oh god, I’ve unearthed a secret fraternity.
Tony G
I’m confident that the New York Times will replace Paul Krugman with someone who is equally intelligent, insightful and progressive. I’m also confident that the Easter Bunny is real.
The Audacity of Krope
All of them, Katie.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: He did “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans” in Treme.
MagdaInBlack
@sab: After my hysterectomy, in recovery, the anesthesia wore off a bit too soon. I have vague memories of real pain and then out again. They told my friend who was there “she was a wee bit combative.” He said ” Oh, I have no doubt she was.”
Omnes Omnibus
@The Audacity of Krope: See, this is where that answer is useful. One of the reasons I like the We Rate Dogs Twitter/BlueSky account is that I have never seen them rate a dog at less than 12 out of 10.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: He lived in NOLA for a while.
MagdaInBlack
@raven: I think ’96 or ’97 is about when I discovered him.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: indeed
prostratedragon
@sab: Oh that must have been strange. I woke up during an upper endoscopy. It was not pleasant, but fortunately was brief.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Pretty sure that Krugman learned a long time ago to selectively read the comments at the FTFNYT on his columns and not respond to the aholes in the comments and the rest of the FTNYT Editorialists, or MGMT.
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: ♥️💙💚💛💜
Gretchen
@Martin: The University of Missouri Kansas City had a 6 year college/medical school program for awhile. I don’t know if they still do.
Sure, we need reforms with the cost of medical school, student loans, malpractice insurance. I think now is absolutely not the time to start cracking down on doctors. They’re burned out from covid, they’re suffering moral injury not able to do standard of care in OB, they’re retiring in droves, leaving abortion ban states, not applying to residencies in abortion ban states. Telling the people who risked their lives to save ungrateful patients in 2020 and 2021, and now getting yelled at by people who’ve been told that they’re YouTube channel knows more that their doctor, that they’re the problem and should make less money, well, no. That’s not the solution.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: We’d find a way.
Kristine
@Melancholy Jaques: “Cadillac Walk” is the only Mink de Ville song I’m familiar with.
Gretchen
@Martin: The University of Missouri Kansas City had a 6 year college/medical school program for awhile. I don’t know if they still do.
Sure, we need reforms with the cost of medical school, student loans, malpractice insurance. I think now is absolutely not the time to start cracking down on doctors. They’re burned out from covid, they’re suffering moral injury not able to do standard of care in OB, they’re retiring in droves, leaving abortion ban states, not applying to residencies in abortion ban states. Telling the people who risked their lives to save ungrateful patients in 2020 and 2021, and now getting yelled at by people who’ve been told that their YouTube channel knows more that their doctor, that they’re the problem and should make less money, well, no. That’s not the solution. All medical people are dealing with angry, uncooperative patients that the antivaxxers and Trumpists have given permission to let loose their worst selves, and they’re sick of it.
sab
@prostratedragon: It was strange. I was not expecting the loud music and dancing techs but as cold as it was (medical equipment needed chilling) I can understand.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kristine: It’s a nice introduction, but there is so much more. Let Dream If I Want To. So In Love Are We. And lots in between.
Ruckus
@Miki:
Just a few minutes in and there are at least 2 of us. I imagine that number will rise.
My next appointment is coming up soon. I imagine that the discussion in the waiting room will be slightly salty. To say the least. I have 2 appointments in a week and a half, I imagine that the waiting room discussion will be a tad lively.
TS
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
Sure but the difference between them and us has grown exponentially under every right wing administration. They want it all, not just 95%
Another Scott
ICYMI, Doktor Zoom has an excellent takedown of Rmoney on the occasion of his final big speech in the Senate. In addition to being a lying, two-faced, plutocrat monster, the opening gif reminds us of what a deeply weird person he is.
Well worth a click.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ruckus
@New Deal democrat:
I wouldn’t count him out as being a complete and utter asshole because he hasn’t had any shrines built for him…..
He thinks he is the best human since that guy with the sheep a few hundred years ago. And he might think he’s actually better. He didn’t get a 757 for any reason other than his ego couldn’t fit in a Lear jet sized plane. Take away his ego and he’s a frog sitting by a pond begging for a mate.
Ohio Mom
Gretchen: Your comment appeared twice, which is appropriate because it’s all very true. I’d add that doctors are also worn out by the hours they must put in to get insurance companies to pay for their patients’ necessary care.
Filling out paperwork, phone calls, requesting reviews, it’s all demeaning and frustrating as well as using time that could better be spent seeing patients.
TS
There is no doubt that CEOs salaries are too HIGH. 100% no doubt. They play with other people’s money. They are not entrepreneurs, they have nothing at risk. So they get fired, they have massive payout already signed up, so they just go somewhere else and add to their bounty.
My first job, I worked the computer systems. The CEO earned about 10 times my salary (as a new graduate fresh from IT training). It was the largest private organisation in my country. Now he would be earning 100 or more times my salary. He (always was a he) does no more now, than he did then.
Doctors – of all stripes, have studied for 10-20 years before earning a decent wage. Surgeons and anaesthetists usually are the highest paid – your life is literally in their hands.
MagdaInBlack
@Melancholy Jaques: I am happy to learn there are more of us than I knew.
Omnes Omnibus
@Melancholy Jaques: @MagdaInBlack: Try this.
Victor Matheson
@TS: to be very clear, Krugman did not win the Nobel for his commentary. He actually won for a model of international trade between relatively similar countries based on economies of scale.
He’s just one of the few Nobel winners with the writing skills to parlay his Nobel into a prominent position as a public voice.
MagdaInBlack
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh this is fun! Thank you! I was shutting down for the night, but now I’ll be up a bit longer.
Omnes Omnibus
@MagdaInBlack: SorryNotSorry.
MagdaInBlack
Wow. I should not have idly checked that one previous post that got somewhat “contentious.” Yikes
(back to music)
Omnes Omnibus
Today in the grocery store, a woman said to me, “It’s okay to smile.” Is this the kind of shit that woman deal with all the time?
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: Interesting that a dude had such a quick response to my comment.
Quinerly
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes. Every damn day…..or, it’s “why are you smiling so much? Are you smiling at me?”
Omnes Omnibus
@Quinerly: Uncomfortable AF. Just like when I got catcalled by a group of woman way back when I was in the army. I specifically remember the line, “Oh, baby, what I could do to you….” Probably educational though. Maybe every guy should go through a bit of it.
MagdaInBlack
@Quinerly: “Smile, it can’t be that bad.” (eta: I have replied “yes, It can.)
” You should smile more.”
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
When I worked in the planning department at a tech company, I was the only guy in a 6 person department. They weren’t just my coworkers, they were my friends.
I learned a lot of stuff that GF’s, my Sister and Cousin’s never told me.
SFBayAreaGal
@Omnes Omnibus: Yup
Ramalama
@Jay: not in Quebec, thank tabernak
Kristine
@Omnes Omnibus: I hear hints Lou Reed, especially in “Dream.”
Maybe it’s just me.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I always pictured you smiling.
Kristine
@MagdaInBlack:
I got that once. I just looked at the guy and he said “Maybe it can.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: This comment makes me feel very uncomfortable for myriad reasons.
Martin
Yeah, but that can’t be the only standard. Your life is in the hands of firefighters, bus drivers, all kinds of people. Less training, sure, but lots of professions are important.
I’m not advocating they not be paid well, but healthcare is the most super-inflationary segment of the economy. If we wanted to do single payer, that requires a comparable super-inflationary tax revenue structure, and that’s tricky. That’s why European doctors don’t get paid so well – it’s how they try and square the problem. That’s how a social contract needs to work. It’s a chicken-egg problem. If you can’t identify how to make single payer affordable, you can’t get it done, and that requires these kinds of exercises. How you transition the system is also tricky, to say the least.
ArchTeryx
@Ruckus: They never stop trying to kill me and everyone like me. That’s been true since the 70s. They can call what I am any name they like – on the spectrum, neurodivergent, autistic, Aspie, retard (yes, school administrators used that term talking to my mother), and on and on. They’ve never stopped trying to kill me just because they didn’t think they should suffer a disabled person to live. And they ain’t quitting now.
That before I even get to my Crohn’s Disease.
eemom
@Martin:
Damn, is there any topic you’re not an expert on?
Ramalama
What if Paul Krugman goes to that new Mehdi Hassan joint, zeteo?
Ohio Mom
@Omnes Omnibus: Until we women get old, then we are invisible. Which has its pluses and minuses.
SomeRandomGuy
“Republicans want to destroy the affordable care act, at the beck and call of these sleaze balls” with a “TBD” for the unfortunately deceased until a permanent replacement is found, and pictures of the others.
Thoughts?
Nancy
@Ruckus:
They have no empathy and no interest in self-improvement. They seem to think rich equals being intelligent and that rich/smart is better than being moral.
sab
@Ohio Mom: Mostly pluses.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
It helps when you want to infiltrate the law firm that covered up evidence about the opioids that killed your daughter.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Dude has a wife.
sab
@Baud: How is that series going (no spoilers please?) Kathy Bates is amazing.
ETA I went to bed early, now I am up, and it is only 11 pm when I was expecting 3 am.
I cannot wait for this week to end.
Baud
@sab:
It’s entertaining enough. The main story arc can’t have much of a shelf life. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when they move on from it.
SomeRandomGuy
@Martin: Dead thread? Well – doctors are the ultimate rent seekers in medicine. *All* the money is supposed to end up in their pockets, eventually.
And it makes things awkward. People might take out student loans for hundreds of thousands, so you can’t just drop a specialty’s pay *tomorrow*. You want to “bend the cost curve.” People taking out massive loans now know the cash cow may get slaughtered to feed nursing and other patient care, and people will not take out such huge loans over time and… BWHA HA HA HA HA, they’ll just raise the rates. “Single payer my (unpublishable)!”
Glory b
@Omnes Omnibus: No one asks black women that.
tam1MI
@Baud:It’s entertaining enough. The main story arc can’t have much of a shelf life. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when they move on from it.
I predict it will turn out that there is More To The Story than what Maddie thinks.
sab
@Baud: I never worked in a big law firm. Is any of it even plausible?
I did work in a major accounting firm and a similar story would have been plausible there.
Pulic accounting worked really hard to restrict membership (i.e. hard to become one) and now surprise surprise they are havimg trouble recruiting new baby lambs to the slaughter.
eemom
@Ohio Mom:
Oh, I think it’s total pluses. After all those decades of plus/minus based on what I looked like, I’m ecstatic to never give a fuck again.
sab
@eemom: Whenever we go out for a fancy dinner I put on eye makeup, and my husband looks at me like “what’s wrong with you? You look weird.”
BellyCat
K-Thug is dead. Long live K -Thug!!!
eemom
@sab:
The pandemic ALMOST cured me of makeup forever. Now I only use it on those rare occasions when I might encounter small children afraid of witches.
Quinerly
Been on the road most of the day. Interesting and desolate drive from El Paso on NM CR 9 (The Borderlands) that tracks right next to the NM/Mexico Border. Saw a couple of those Border Patrol blimps/dirigibles that I thought had been discontinued. Miles and miles with no vehicles and no cell coverage…..a border wall off to my left. Cloudy, dreary day. Took a break and walked JoJo las Orejas at Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus, NM….it’s a small SP right on the border. I get a kick out of living in a state that named a park after Pancho Villa. Had been thru there a couple of times but never actually stopped at the park to walk around and tour the little museum. Nice late lunch in Bisbee, AZ. A Hamm’s beer and a little Happy Hr music at a dive bar I discovered in February. JoJo and I are tucked away in a cool AirBnB in Hereford, AZ for the next week. Hiking, exploring, talking to strangers, and wine country.
Anyway, here’s my link contribution to this thread. May have been posted earlier. I made the mistake of only really looking at one thread tonight and instantly regretted looking at it. All that aside, RFK Jr gets weirder and weirder if that’s possible. TNR piece on his employee screening: https://ssnews.page.link/tWspyfKEkmJd2xru5
frosty
@sab: This is why I don’t go to bed early. At 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 hours of sleep a night, I need to hit the sack after midnight. Scratch that, after 1:00.
When I retired* at 25, my normal sleep hours were 2:00 til 10:20. +/- 5 minutes on 10:20. So I’ve always been a Night Owl.
* Quit my engineering job, lived on my savings for 18 months, traveled, tried to write a novel (failed!)
frosty
@Quinerly: Look up Cactus Slim and the Goatheads. Saw them in mid-day in a cafe/bar in ABQ. Good band, worth checking out!
ETA Enjoy your stay in Arizona!
ETA2 Stone dead thread. Why do I bother?
Westyny
@MagdaInBlack: Willie DeVille is amazing.
Quinerly
@frosty:
I know them. I have their t shirt. Really cool shirt that bought in 2016. They play at one of my base bars….”The Mine Shaft” in Madrid, NM (the Turquoise Trail/highway 14.)
Great band.
frosty
@Quinerly: Glad you’ve seen them! I’ve been to the Mine Shaft — Madrid is a great place (just be sure to pronounce it right).
ETA I guess that’s why I bother LOL
Quinerly
@frosty:
Let’s get you to Santa Fe. I’ll treat us all at “The Mine Shaft” in Madrid, NM
Great food, cold PBR. Live music.
rikyrah
Bougie Black Girl (@BougieBlackGurl) posted at 1:25 PM on Fri, Dec 06, 2024:
Please stop infantizing Tr*mp voters. They absolutely voted for cuts to Medicare, Social Security, veteran’s benefits, education, the ACA, and other public services. They know who and what they voted for.
(https://x.com/BougieBlackGurl/status/1865115385562902727?t=pxnzq90bf7CUY5xEDIRUtg&s=03)
Quinerly
@frosty:
Before I moved to Santa Fe County in 2022, I stayed for the month of February in 2016 in one of those old miner cabins across from “The Mine Shaft.” Had a blast but cured me from wanting to buy and live in Madrid.
“Madrid has no town drunk. We all take turns.” True Story
Ruckus
@Kristine:
I answered once “Yes it can and it has been.”
Ruckus
@Nancy:
Fully agree. When money is your only measurement of anything – you have become a complete and utter asshole.
TS
@Victor Matheson:
I am obviously very aware of that – it does not negate anything I said about him
TS
@Martin:
Seems every last comment is there to be argued. I do believe every profession should be valued in our world, but I depend on doctors much more than bus drivers – especially as I haven’t used a bus in years but have had the need for doctors – seems to increase with age.
So I’ll go back to lurking or doing some other thing.
Kayla Rudbek
@Martin: yeah, law schools and MBA programs are guaranteed to make money for a university and medical schools are much more expensive to run, so we have an oversupply of lawyers and MBAs even before we get into the AMA restricting the number of medical schools
Kayla Rudbek
@MagdaInBlack: having genes for red hair = more difficult to put under anesthesia
Kayla Rudbek
@Miki:
@Ruckus:
the VA doctors have to deal with the risk of their patients shooting at them, and their patients have been taught how to shoot. My dad was a lawyer for the VA and most of his wacky stories were from incidents and issues at the hospital
Kayla Rudbek
@Martin: the thing is that the anesthesiologist is trained to bring you very near to death and is trained to bring you back from being very near to death, so you want someone extremely competent doing that job
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Raoul Paste: Krugman’s comment on that image: “I’ve never actually seen the resemblence.”
Martin
@Kayla Rudbek: It’s not just the medical school limit under the AMA, it’s also the funding for residencies by HHS. Spent some time in that bit of administrative purgatory.
And one of the problems is that if you want to expand hospital services in your region, you need more doctors, and you want to grow your program with that opportunity and you run into that wall. And that sucks for the people in that region. We could built out new specializations if we could grow.
Ruckus
@Kayla Rudbek:
I use a hospital rather than a clinic. It seems to keep out the riffraff. And at the hospital the people I deal with are all employees rather than part timers. And to be honest when I did use a clinic I never saw much in the way of riffraff, because there was always a price for causing trouble. And I imagine it was a hefty price.
Gloria DryGarden
@Omnes Omnibus: all. The . Fucking .time.
During the fertile years of young, nubile and pretty.
I remember a teacher telling me to smile, in junior high, that it made me much prettier. I thought, is that my job , then? Though I didn’t know it yet, I was already beautiful.
not so much anymore.
Gloria DryGarden
@Omnes Omnibus: Jay seems particularly aware, alert to womens issues. It seems to go with his care for his partner.
he’s really an honorary sister, or in the auxiliary club.
Gloria DryGarden
@Kristine: great answer. Spectacular. We’re human beings not Barbie dolls in pretty little lives. For the most part, it’s real life; true grit.
Gloria DryGarden
@Omnes Omnibus: the catcalling, we call it the little rapes.
I started giving people a fake name,
because guys who saw me just walking down the alley to take out the trash, wanted my attention, wanted my name, moving right in to the get to know you space. Wasn’t going to give strangers my name. I’d answer with Mary, or Gloria. ( there you have it, the genesis of Gloria)
the only fun street flirtation I remember with warmth was a guy calling down to me from his third floor balcony as I walked by holding a flower,
” I wish that was me you were holding, and not a flower”
it amused me, it seemed sweetly sensual, but I was a young thing, 27 maybe, and I sure didn’t look up to encourage more flirting.
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
Back in the day, I worked “construction”, plaster and stucco, under “Archie” who had learned his trade restoring the Vatican.
I never “cat called” and would call out the rest of the crew if they did.
They “got it” when in August one year, we had to re-stucco 1500 sq ft of the Vancouver YWCA in a heat wave. Hauling stucco and stones 500 feet down the alley, into the lobby and up 18 floors in a elevator, in a building that the first 2 floors were facilities and admin, and the other 16 floors were short term residences for single women, many of who were just starting out in Vancouver, many were there on Social Housing.
Because of the heat wave, we wore shorts, workboots and every trip down for stucco or ornamental stone, we would hose ourselves off to cool off.
On the second day, Sunny, one of our lead hands, lost it.
Threw down tools and yelled that “he was not a piece of meat”.
I just pointed out, “now do you get it?”
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
Thank you.
Chris Johnson
@Elizabelle: Yeah, Krugman is absolutely not retiring. Much like Harry Litman bailing off the LA Times, Krugman’s cutting ties with a mortally poisoned entity before the stink sticks to him. I’ll be following what he does, more than ever, since he’s showed publically that he has some clue about what’s going on.
These folks who’re noping out of the fascism, either performatively or trying to be decorous about it, are the ones I want to hear more from. There had to be a reason Krugman couldn’t continue drawing that paycheck.
WaterGirl
@Gloria DryGarden:
I don’t know who the “we” is, but I have never heard that before and I hope to never hear it again. That’s really awful. Cat calls are annoying and disrespectful and sexist, but to compare them to rape ? That diminishes the horror of rape.
Ella in New Mexico
@Martin: Sorry, but the billions of dollars Americans pay for healthcare is NOT due to physician and medical providers salaries.
(Not to say those of us who do this hard work and expect to be able to afford a decent standard of living after decades of effort and sacrifice and accruing mountains of educational debt wouldn’t LOVE a system that helped us with that)
Its because every for profit entity exists SOLEY as a means to increase it’s profits to the shareholders. From insurance companies to pharma to supply entities, all want a way to squeeze as much profit as they can by acting as middleman pass throughs taking the cream off the top of the jug.
We don’t need insurance companies to provide good, cost effective health care in this county. We need them gone, and to force all medical and pharmaceutical entities to become non-profits, enact and enforce strict regulations on how they provide care or services to the people that it most beneficial for their health, not their shareholders profits.
What is really stupid about these chuckleheaded fucking biliionaires thinking that getting rid of the VA will save money is that the VA is becoming one of the most cost effective and successful healthcare entities in history, and has only been improving the quality of care for it’s patients. People are given services and benefis as their health and social needs dictate, not as the CEO and shareholders dictate. Its an organization that used to have to BEG people to work for it, but now healthcare people are banging on their doors to get medical jobs at their facilities–good work, good mission, decent salaries and working conditions all at a reasonable price to the US.
So, unless Mooskow Moosk has permanently installed Skylink satellites that block only Democrats names on electronic voting systems we can take this whole thing back in 2 years and focus on REAL healthcare reforms.
Riverboat Grambler
The Dems (and this blog) are firmly on the side of people like Brian Thompson. That’s why Dems have never proposed a plan to cover every American’s healthcare since the ACA, even a “hybrid system” like the one they claim as an alternative to M4A, because even that would cut into their wealthy donor’s profits in a way that’s simply unacceptable.
Everyone on this blog is well aware of how fundamentally murderous our healthcare system is and you all carry water for it to one degree or the other. Shameful.
Yes health care is back in the news, no thanks to the people around here. God bless that kid, I hope he gets away clean.
John Cole
@Riverboat Grambler: what the fuck are you even going on about at least one person on this blog, me, has said that we should have universal healthcare and anything else is just stupid.
Stuff your assumptions and purity bullshit up your ass.