I mean this has nothing to do with a bill that's not even passed yet, but now every organization has a ready made excuse to shutter any rural health center.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 10:05 AM
===
Yeah man that sucks. https://t.co/UqPMQ99urB pic.twitter.com/8UxCFPqod8
— NickFrank40 (@NickyFrank30) July 3, 2025
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The reason why I don't quite get what the GOP is doing is that people receiving Medicaid are a very slightly GOP leaning (R +2 or so) group.
If one assumes lower participation amongst medicaid users, you're still probably looking at 5-7m of your own voters you're fucking.— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 3:04 PM
===
I keep getting some combination of this post despite multiple explanations about it. So again:
Hospitals operationalize Medicaid finances far into the future. Budget cuts, layoffs, project cancellations, closures, etc. will begin -immediately.-— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 3:29 PM
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It takes around 2 years to secure requisite permits, etc. to build new facilities. Depending on the expected cut of the expected budget that came from Medicaid, these new facilities will likely just cancel, regardless of where they are in the process.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 3:31 PM
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The other thing is basically every industry group has indicated that this is going to put on the edge hospitals over the edge, and now they have a ready made excuse to shutter facilities.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 3:32 PM
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I'm pretty sure that the GOP is just smoking Malthus and has decided that the way to solve the deficit is grinding the poors into food cubes.
Also, no more rural areas.— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 3:41 PM
Baud
God bless and keep the 58 decent folk in Frontier County.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The Rs screwed their own voters with Medicaid cuts. But then, they screwed them with covid policy too, and those who survived came back and voted R again.
schrodingers_cat
The Republican voters don’t hold Republicans accountable for what they do. Unless Republicans pay a price for these laws they are not going to change.
FreeThinkingRedneck
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
trollhattan
Regrettable family car trips have had me in western Nebraska. If you wish to achieve nothingness I can’t think of a more apt venue.
trollhattan
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It’s just like putting on an old familiar pair of shoes. They’re made of cardboard and contain scorpions, but so darn comfy.
SpaceUnit
Too bad, hillbilly moochers. Billionaires needed a tax cut.
sab
The GOP ( or its voters and its politicians, if not its funders) operates on opinions not facts, and “everyone knows” that the bulk of medicaid recipients are minority drug users, not old people in nursing homes.
Probably just as well these places close, because without immigrants they won’t be able to staff them any way.
(//).
Barbara
Most people posting about this (not here, but in the linked posts) seem to have no clue about just how hard it is to keep rural facilities staffed. I can’t blame systems that just give up after putting disproportionate effort into maintaining those clinics and seeing a little bit of light with Medicaid expansion and ACA coverage — There might have even been some advantage in getting referrals to larger urban hospitals but that’s totally gone if people are losing Medicaid and ACA coverage. Hospitals cannot be expected to shoulder the burden of noncoverage on their own.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
As a godless, secular humanist, I don’t do “thoughts and prayers” but you know who needs good vibes (and better electoral outcomes) right now and in the coming years: those 58 people (and probably dependents) in
CurtisBumfuck NE who voted for Harris.And the equivalent of ’58 people’ in all the other Podunk Junctions in Flyover Country. I’ve been thru tons of ‘Curtis Nebraskas’ over the years.
Snarki, child of Loki
@trollhattan: “If you wish to achieve nothingness I can’t think of a more apt venue.”
It’s not in the *middle* of nowhere, but you can see it from there.
Belafon
@SpaceUnit: There was no reason to make these cuts if all Republicans were going to do was add trillions to the debt. They could have just passed that. These cuts were rich people looking down on the rest of us.
CaseyL
It’s eugenics as a national health policy. The GOP is just as happy to get rid of poor sick white people as it is to get rid of poor sick non-white people.
And, considering what we know about how disease/epidemics work, everyone not pulling down 6-figure salaries has a chance to become poor and sick in the US!
TXG1112
Ironically, if the GOP destroys rural areas and drives everyone that lives there to areas with more density, they will be actively shrinking their base and make supporting society more efficient. Rural areas are expensive per person. Not a tradeoff I’d necessarily make, but it will definitely be more effective than asking them nicely.
SpaceUnit
@Belafon:
Performative cruelty.
sab
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I agree.
I am a Democrat in a red state and I am getting weary of other Democrats trying to cut me loose. More Republicans voted for Trump in California than anywhere else in the country.
Jeffro
I was glad to see Abigail Spanberger’s campaign out there today naming names and calling out the five GOP reps whose own districts stand to lose a) 322k folks’ health coverage and b) 6 rural hospital closures
vote red, git dead
WTFGhost
No one bit last open thread, so I’ll repost here
The Ballad of Don Shitzinpantz:
Music is (roughly) Bad Bad Leroy Brown, by Jim Croce.
My inability to duplicate his rhymes and rhythms within each other is all my own :-)
Freely distributable, and I encourage you to do so, if you think it’s funny, but I’d ask that you simply assign copyright to WTFGhost, any capitalization scheme you want, any punctuation or spacing changes you want.
It was a big, bad, fugly bill
baddest thing from the Capitol Hill
Badder than a disco dance
And mean as Don Shitzinpantz!
On the south side of the Capitol, it’s the fugly part of the Hill,
and if you go down there, you better just beware of the big bad fugly bill.
Shitizpants was a liar, see he said he stood six three, oh, cool
Those capitol girls call him shorty toadstool, but the men just call him a fool.
It was a big, bad, fugly bill
baddest thing from the Capitol Hill
Badder than a disco dance
And mean as Don Shitzinpantz!
Now Donnie he a baldie has big combover, crass
And he hates to stand out in the rain, where his skull shows like his ass!
He got some bad boy Secret Service
He got the federal cops, by chance
He needs those boys, as distractory toys, whenever he shits his pants!
It was a big, bad, fugly bill
baddest thing from the Capitol Hill
Badder than a disco dance
And mean as Don Shitzinpantz!
Donnie passed a turd one day, and he sent it on to the Hill
And at the bar was a Johnson and a Thune-y guy and they squished it to a “beautiful bill”
It was dirty and it smelled so bad, it even made you puke up lye
It was cruel and mean and the best you could seen was, we all is gonna die.
It was a big, bad, fugly bill
baddest thing from the Capitol Hill
Badder than a disco dance
And mean as Don Shitzinpantz!
Now bad boys often take a fall, as Jim Croce tells us true
And we all can hope that justice comes for ol’ Donnie and his crew!
it hurts to think donnie and his buds will go scot free
‘specially when they say all that all good Dems should be hang-ed from a tree!
It was a big, bad, fugly bill
baddest thing from the Capitol Hill
Badder than a disco dance
And mean as Don Shitzinpantz!
It was a big, bad, fugly bill
baddest thing from the Capitol Hill
Badder than a disco dance
And mean as Don Shitzinpantz!
Final note: if someone is killed, by hanging, they are “hanged,” not “hung”. So hit that second syllable proudly.
catclub
@Belafon: I think most of the GOP holdouts actually wanted more cuts and more tax cuts for Elon Musk.
The (possibly more moderate) repub reps in swing districts just quietly went along.
bbleh
The reason why I don’t quite get what the GOP is doing is that people receiving Medicaid are a very slightly GOP leaning (R +2 or so) group. If one assumes lower participation amongst medicaid users, you’re still probably looking at 5-7m of your own voters you’re fucking.
They’re perfectly fine doing that, because (1) they don’t give a fk about the quality of those people’s lives and (2) they know very well — having operationalized it for decades — that they can trot out the usual mishmash of racism-infused moralism, “welfare” this and “inner-city” that (and now of course “immigrants”), and those very voters, having had their lives materially worsened by those very politicians, will line up to vote righteously for them again.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Snarki, child of Loki:
There are a shitload of ‘middle of nowheres’ in Flyover Country. I’m sure there’s some quantum theory to explain the phenomenon.
Archon
I know this goes against a lot of lefties political sensibilities but the Democratic Party has to internalize this motto moving forward.
WE CANNOT HELP EVERYONE.
If that means a lot of Democrats in these red state communities where 70-80 percent gleefully vote Republican for cultural reasons get left out, it sucks and I wish there was a better way but thats our only path moving forward.
Lobo
This bill will need to force a whole new paradigm shift in Democratic thinking and strategy. In what way, I don’t know. But business as usual will not work. This is bad. @Archon’s comment above mine reflects that.
JoyceH
These cuts are going to hurt a lot of people who don’t realize it yet. If the Medicaid cuts wind up closing rural hospitals so that the closest hospital is now an extra hour’s drive away, you could be the richest person in the county with the best insurance ever, but that’s not going to bring a hospital closer to your important self in a medical emergency.
satby
Well, Schnorkles O’Bork is always an interesting read, but respect for throwing a reference to Malthusian theory in there.
Barbara
@sab: Believe me, no one wants to see people in WV or KY or NE suffer, but we in blue states are also going to be hurt and we are tired of fighting the sense of invulnerability that so many red state voters have; that somehow blue state reps will pull a rabbit out of a hat and protect their interests while they choose culture war tropes over sensible policy as a voting position. I can’t feel sorry for adults like this anymore.
japa21
@schrodingers_cat:
But as we have seen right here, there are plenty of Democrats holding Democrats responsible for not doing the impossible task of stopping the Republicans.
Lobo
@Barbara: Supreme Court decisions, especially, the one on national injunctions and this bill will start America operating more like a confederacy. Regardless of officially splitting into two nations, we are moving that way with all the associated externalities. I could see more migration between states now.
satby
@Lobo: again, the paradigm shift has to be in voters. They voted for a Republican trifecta in spite of all the warnings that they would do exactly what they doing. Republicans and the people who voted for them, along with the people who decided (edit) not to vote for whatever bullshit principled reasons they claimed to have are responsible.
NaijaGal
@JoyceH:
Good thing the GOP came out against empathy a while ago. Now every non-wealthy Republican can experience first hand and finally understand the many problems with the way US health care works. Maybe they’ll ask their rep or senator for a fix just for them and their family. No one else.
Jackie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think I read/heard the Medicaid cuts won’t come into effect until ‘27? I might have misinterpreted that, BUT were Republicans thinking this wouldn’t jeopardize their ‘28 reelection chances? FFOTUS won’t care, as he’s done, but am I missing something here?
satby
@japa21: yep.
satby
@Jackie: some start Dec of 26, after the elections.
hrprogressive
Not sure why anyone finds this surprising.
The Fascist Republican Party expects to just hold power forever.
They don’t need voters or elections.
If they kill off their own voters, who cares? They will rule “voting Democrat” as a mental illness, and deport you.
This country is on its way out.
Princess
@Baud: Wouldn’t shock me if that 58 included many of those who worked at that medical centre, what with the whole believing in science and medicine thing.
NaijaGal
@Jackie:
Smaller hospitals and clinics can’t wait until ’27 or ’28 to start winding down operations when they know the funds won’t be there. They need in some cases a 2-year lead time to wind down operations. The closures in rural areas and in some urban ones will begin long before 2027.
The Thin Black Duke
Species that don’t adapt accordingly to what’s going on around them go extinct. Maybe some Red State voters are going to find out that voting for Republicans is hazardous to their health.
Sister Golden Bear
@sab:
I’m a Democrat in a blue state state and I’m also weary of other Democrats cut red states loose.
That said, this line also a gets a bit tired. The only reason it’s true is because California is such a huge state. But Republicans haven’t held a state-wide official, nor control over any part of the Legislature, nor judiciary, in years, if not decades. While they do some damage at local levels, they’re effectively a rump party out in the wilderness.
Jeffro
at the risk of preaching to the choir here…
the MAGA GOP has now followed trumpov almost all the way down the spiral. He got them to vote for something so obviously horrendous that all but the most red-district Reps must know they’re endangered next November.
rather than just get voted out…rather than let the Dems take power in one or both houses of Congress…rather than see their orange idol impeached over and over again…what will they embrace next?
trumpov has them by the collective balls
they’ve tethered themselves to him and the bill is coming due
will they pay it? I am skeptical
It seems more likely that they’ll just continue their ostrich act as he further degrades everything this country used to stand for
gene108
I remember when the TEA Party wave was elected in 2010, and felt all their regressive policies would bite them in the ass in four years.
IIRC, Gov. Tom Corbett of PA was the only Republican TEA Party governor not re-elected in 2014.
I don’t know what to expect, but thinking Republican voters will stop supporting Republicans has been a losing bet, in my opinion, for quite some time.
satby
@NaijaGal: and a lot of them are struggling now with reimbursements and staffing. I expect several satellite health clinics to cut their losses over the next year. Including the one I go to, which only opened two years ago.
schrodingers_cat
@japa21: Well that is easier to do than stand up to their relatives and friends who vote Republican and go against the group dynamic. It is easier to rail against Schumer and Jefferies than to do any self reflection.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: Their hate trumps their instinct for self preservation.
catclub
@satby: The first year of open enrollment for Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace coverage was 2014.
delays in implementing policy changes is not new.
SpaceUnit
All you people cutting other Democrats loose on this blog need to stop it right now!
Jackie
@NaijaGal: So to appease an unappeasable president, republicans have effectively screwed themselves the next TWO election cycles? I’ve been avoiding most media this last week, so I might be missing something republicans are counting on for future elections to keep their majority…? But it sure seems they’ve shot their own feet.
gene108
@Belafon:
I think the OBBBA is, at its heart, an attempt to redefine government’s relationship with its people, and unmake the New Deal understanding the government will provide some minimum social safety net.
The rich won’t be taxed, the poorest will lose their safety net, and most discretionary spending will go to DHS to create a police to to exact vengeance against Republican enemies, like Democratic run states and cities.
catclub
On the other hand, all of Trump’s and DOGE’s cuts and recissions seemed to happen instantly.
satby
@catclub: never implied it was.
As to your second comment: the majority of those so far have lost in litigation or been reversed when the department realized they let essential staff go. Though a lot of fed workers eligible for retirement bugged out rather than try to survive the shit-show.
Jim Appleton
@Jeffro:
Hope they impeach, convict, and remove from office both iDJT and Vance, resulting in President Jeffries.
Steve Paradis
The GOP noise machine will blame it on George Soros.
And the dear hearts and gentle people will believe it.
They Call Me Noni
@Archon: Uh hell no. You don’t get to cut us. Here’s what you do. You fight like hell to get rid of the fucking Electoral College. That’s what the hell you do! Our lives do not matter any less than yours.
I’ve said it here before and I repeat it now:
With my last breath I will rail about the EC and when I am dead I want that on my tombstone.
schrodingers_cat
Republicans will not ditch Trump, he is a reflection of their core voter.
Elizabelle
Will be interesting to hear what Suzanne has to say about this, given her architecture firm designs and retrofits hospitals. Oh to be a fly on the wall at some of their prospective business meetings.
Elizabelle
@Jim Appleton: If we give Democrats a big enough edge in 2026, it could happen.
They Call Me Noni
@Lobo: WTF? I protest, I give to campaigns, I vote and I mean nothing? Because of where I live? I can’t afford to move to a blue state and I wouldn’t if I could. My three grandsons and g-granddaughter live here. My husband is not well and his doctors are all here. So now I’m an inconvenience to the democratic party?
They Call Me Noni
@Barbara: I give up.
Aziz, light!
My original nym here was Soylent Green. Shoulda held onto it for timeliness.
satby
@Steve Paradis: the bill is already deeply underwater in polling even with voters who ID as Republican.
Elizabelle
@They Call Me Noni: Hugs. Find like minded voters to chill out with, and enjoy that family.
And maybe your dog could soil some Trumpers’ yards and walkways.
Captain C
@Jeffro:
Nominated!
Wilson Heath
I’ve driven through and been disturbed by ghost towns in the western part of the U.S., once significant settlements that hollowed out, desiccated, and died when the institutions and economic activity that they had built around went away. Rural hospitals center communities that way. So do colleges, many of which in these same sorts of places have been dwindling and dying.
I may need to reread and rewatch anything with Oakies for a reminder of another bit of fallout to come from the One Big National Suicide Pact.
Jay
@japa21:
Fixed it for the Bipartisan Centrist Caucus.
bluefoot
@sab: People seem to forget that we are all in this together. “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”
This definitely feels like a murder-suicide of the country. I don’t think I can be constructive about it today, except to thank my members of Congress for fighting.
Captain C
@Jackie: They apparently didn’t bother to check if hospitals and similar medical providers, ya know, plan ahead. Very on brand for the GQP.
japa21
@Jay:
Nope, the fix isn’t correct. That isn’t really what the complaints were about.
Baud
@bluefoot:
I’m already hung.
Deputinize America
Realities:
1. Blue cities are dense and interconnected, and thus better positioned to have residual stores of empathy and privately funded programs available to weather this Falangist Confederacy we now find ourselves living in. It’s still gonna suck, but it will suck a lot less for them, even those in red states (Louisville, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Nashville, Memphis and Cincinnati come to mind).
2. Exurban, small city, village and ruralities are genuinely gonna suck, and should wind up hollowing out in terms of talent and vitality. Moving hours away from momma ‘n ‘em becomes a fuckton more attractive when there’s no hospital or health clinic, nobody wants to move there to teach school, all the restaurants and stores have shuttered and your only shopping option is the dollar tree next to a shitty diner. In that town, the richest person is the county executive, supported by an ever compliant judge and sheriff.
Deputinize America
@Baud:
Liar.
Anonymous At Work
What Schnorkles O’Bork leaves out, probably intentionally, is the distribution of Republican Medicare recipients is not random, but concentrated in areas vulnerable to hospital closings, and where such closings will be disproportionately impactful. Edge hospitals in urban areas aren’t fun when you have to drive further but typically, you’re not adding 30+ minutes to the drive. Edge hospitals in rural areas? A lot of Midwestern and Southern areas will be lucky if the extra time is only 30 minutes to get from the scene of a car crash or heart attack to the nearest ER.
Captain C
@bluefoot:
As I said in a previous thread, like when an abuser kills their wife (and perhaps kids) and then kills themself rather than face prison.
Jay
@Jackie:
Hospitals plan 5 years ahead. It takes time to deal with staff, equipment and buildings. Hospitals that start to close now, won’t have to crash out in disorder in 2028.
glory b
@They Call Me Noni: Getting rid of the electoral college means a constitutional convention, at which the Republicans, holding the majority, would control.
A constitutional convention would put the entire constitution up for grabs, not just the electoral college.
The Republicans would like nothing better than to have a constitutional convention. lots of things, more than we can fathom, would go their way.
Captain C
@Baud:
Kind of like Sheriff Bart.
Jay
@japa21:
LMFAO.
Elizabelle
This will really, really help real estate prices in red states.
Because everyone wants to buy a house miles from hospitals, and with substandard schools and neighbors. Not to mention more precarious federal jobs. (Weren’t a bunch of park rangers affected by the DOGEathon?)
Have fun, red states!
snoey
@Snarki, child of Loki: Once saw a sign proclaiming that this hamlet was “The Heart of the Middle of Nowhere”.
Jay
@Deputinize America:
Once again,
https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/06/30/making-america-gross-again-big-fugly-bill-hits-the-senate-floor/
The Reds, insured or not), who survive long enough to make it to a Blue City Hospital will fill every bed in the ER’s and ICU’s, and the uninsured, will stay there, as they can’t be “cured”, nobody will pay for that, they can only be diagnosed and stabilized, and the Blue City people who are insured, will have to pay for that.
Remember the good old days before the ACA when the For Profit Hospitals turned away ambulances/ or paid the drivers off, to drop the uninsured off at a Community Hospital miles away or in the next county over? That times 40 when Extended Care, Hospice and Old Age Homes start closing, probably late this year, or early next year
Shalimar
As everyone notes, that is just the direct effects. Indirect effects from clinics and doctors abandoning rural areas is going to hurt more like R+40.
Elizabelle
And think about attracting talent, and university students. You gonna put your family at the mercy of a red state? (Of course, red states are more affordable in many ways, with significant drawbacks.)
The Republicans did this to themselves, and their voters. (Us too, but at least we are aware and can exercise more judgement and caution than the oblivious.)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@SpaceUnit:
Good thing Ozark Hillbilly croaked when he did, otherwise, he’d get cut loose and that would be acceptable collateral damage impacting Democrats who happen to live in blood red areas in blood red states from the perspective of those who’ve never experienced what it’s like to be a Dem in such an area like he, me and several others here.
FYI, his county went for Hair Furor 80/20.
Lobo
@They Call Me Noni: It more goes to the systemic impacts. Blue states will be saving things they can. Without the Federal Government to spare the pain in redder states. Another commenter said this:
A lot of first order and second order effects(mostly bad) will happen that will require new approaches.
WTFGhost
@Captain C: “end up dead” maybe
Eyeroller
@They Call Me Noni: The electoral college is in the Constitution. The only reliable way to get rid of it is a Constitutional amendment, which will be fought tooth and nail by small states who benefit from it. And we need 3/4 of the states to ratify a constitutional amendment.
We could work on the popular-vote-winner pact that some states have passed. It is just a law, however, and at the state level at that; it could be repealed pretty easily, so it’s not reliable. But it’s something.
The EC made no difference in 2024 since Trump won the popular vote, but using popular vote would have kept him out in 2016 which would very likely have ended his political ambitions. It also would have kept out Bush Jr. So definitely worth trying to eliminate it. But a very heavy lift.
The whole Constitution needs to be thrown out and something modern put in its place, but that is far too dangerous to consider currently. I think it will happen someday but probably not in my lifetime. But our current Constitution is a horrible design that has been a significant factor in our dysfunction.
NutmegAgain
I actually (foolishly?) drilled down into some of the responses on TwitteX. It’s all people slamming the guy who posted the election record: “why are you so mean?” “can’t you have empathy for them” etc ad nauseam. They really, really don’t get it. At all. “Just because we voted to fucking end democracy & everything else good about this country down’t make it OK to be mean to us on the internet. ” Bunch of Morans.
SpaceUnit
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
It’s not the Democrats that are cutting these communities loose.
Eyeroller
@glory b: No, it just requires an amendment. We got rid of state legislatures electing Senators through an amendment. The amendment would only need to say something like “Presidents will be elected by popular vote total over all State and not by the several States” or whatever legalisms they need. Would be very simple. But small states will hate it since it reduces their power.
But an amendment requires (IIRC) 2/3 vote in both Houses to send to the states and 3/4 of the states must vote to ratify. That’s why we have so few amendments.
But you’re right that a constitutional convention would be terrifying and probably go straight to White Christian Nationalism as things stand now.
no body no name
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
The carnage will hit blue areas in blue states as well. The only people that can gloat about red suffering are high enough up the income ladder they’ve floated above most of the carnage of the past forty years.
They Call Me Noni
@Elizabelle: thank you. I know it’s more than aggravating to see election after election red states just being all about TACO. But it’s more aggravating to live in a red state and pay a lot of taxes and being represented by people who don’t give a damn about me and most of the people who sit around our dinner table. I get it, I really do. But living surrounded by Trump flags and MAGA hats ain’t easy. And then to realize that, yes, there are Democrats who think we’re not worthy of the fight. Like this isn’t our country too. The one my grandfather, father and uncles wore a uniform and defended when called.
chemiclord
@bbleh: And those voters do so happily because their whiteness and their place in the social heirarchy fashioned by their forefathers matter more than anything else in the world.
Geminid
@gene108: I thought the way the Tea Party cranks pulled Virginia Republicans rightward hurt Republicans here long term. They lost only a few Republicans, but they lost plenty of Independents and those are almost one third of the electorate.
Virginia has gone from red to purple to blue in this century. I think the greater part of this shift came from demographic change, but the Republican transition from a “Center-Right” party to a “Right” party played a substantial role also.
suzanne
@Elizabelle: Rural hospitals don’t hire us. They haven’t been growing in ages. Urban hospitals are exploding with all the Boomers reaching their peak healthcare-consuming years and there’s not really any expectation that that will change. ‘Twas ever thus.
ETA: Most urban markets have a ton of healthy competition in their healthcare markets. Customers have many choices. I would never live outside a city if I expected to, you know, live.
Mai Naem mobile
Waiting for AZ GOP Reps Crane,Ciscomani and Gosar to blame Biden for medical facilities closing down in their rural areas. They’re going to be pissed when their providers move to the ‘inner city’, ‘urban’ and ‘barrios’ in Tucson and Phoenix. Probably several brown/black immigrant providers who’ll be happy to leave the hicktowns.
Eyeroller
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I honestly don’t know what we are supposed to do about Democrats in red states. Democrats at the national level try to pass legislation that will help everyone so they do not single out red-staters (of any persuasion) for punishment. We haven’t “abandoned” red-state Democrats, because we don’t really have the ability to do anything for them if we have no political power. For sure, we should not revel in schadenfreude over their plight, but what can we do about it?
Geminid
@japa21: Yeah, the “fix” was just another cheap shot at a party the commenter despises to begin with.
Steve LaBonne
@suzanne: Health care in the Cleveland area ain’t cheap, but if you can afford it (and until they get around to destroying Medicare, we can) it’s as good as it gets in this country. We are grateful for that.
Betty
@bbleh: It’s lazy video game watchers this time around.
Elizabelle
@suzanne: Ah, thank you.
suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: I worked on the new hospital (now a couple of years old, I suppose) in Mentor. And my current firm has done a ton of work for OhioHealth. You’ve got good healthcare there. Most cities do, and I don’t expect any change in that. If anything, it exacerbates the trend of people moving to urban areas and real estate prices spiking.
Citizen Alan
@Eyeroller: it doesn’t even require an amendment to fix the electoral college. If we revisit congressional apportionment and assign one representative for every a 100,000 people, thereby increasing the house of representatives to about 4k members, that will rebalance the electoral college away from the small rural states and towards the larger industrial states, with the majority of the new congressional districts representing major cities. And that would only require control of the house, the senate, and the presidency.
Elizabelle
@Citizen Alan: Yes. I like that plan, and hope it is tenable.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Eyeroller:
I agree with all of that sentiment. The problem is we see here constantly people doing exactly that in terms of reveling. Oh, they’ll try to reframe it in various ways about “that’s not what I mean” and yet, Dems that live in red states and red areas in red states like I used to, see it exactly for that but fuck us, our opinions don’t matter.
Nobody here who pushes back against that sentiment is saying “do something about it”. What we’re saying is stop with the “red states deserve everything they get” or “let em secede” and various bullshittery along those lines by the same people here who live in their comfortable metro, nominally blue bubble.
Again, in some ways I’m glad Ozark’s not around to see that shit that gets spewed here along these lines because it’s basically about him and Dems like him.
They Call Me Noni
@Eyeroller: Just seems to me that it is an issue that needs to be tackled. It’s just a can that keeps getting kicked down the road because it doesn’t seem important enough. What the hell is more important? We cannot keep having our elections hinge on a handful of swing states. Much of the money and campaigning happens in a few states and most of the states and their voters are ignored because they are viewed as reliably blue or red. I surmise that many people feel their vote does not count because they are in the wrong state. So why bother? He or she who garners the most votes should win.
We are not the same country we were in 1787.
They Call Me Noni
@Eyeroller: For sure, we should not revel in schadenfreude over their plight, but what can we do about it?
Just not reveling would be enough for me. I live in a red state but I vote for Democrats just as consistently as a Democrat in a blue state. Quite honestly it sounds pretty elitist to me to read anyone here post that “we gotta cut the red states”. But everyone is entitled to their opinion.
SpaceUnit
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I think people (including myself) who disparage red states and rural communities are just expressing our frustration. We’re not actually turning our backs on the good people that live in such places or even the awful people who live there. We’d like to see them all keep their health insurance.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
@They Call Me Noni: What do you want us to do? Your neighbors don’t listen to you, what makes you think they’ll listen us?
I’m tired putting my hand out to help people that hate me for it.
You seems to think that all the blessings we enjoy just rained down for us. We WORKED for them, and we have to keep working to keep them. We don’t have the energy to spare for you and yours.
If you don’t like it – MOVE.
MagdaInBlack
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno): Oh shut up.
Jeezuz H.
MagdaInBlack
@They Call Me Noni: I’m just sitting here minding my own business and agreeing with you.
Sorry for the disruption.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno):
You just won the award for Awfulest Person Here.
And there’s typically a lot of stiff competition for that award.
Eolirin
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno): That’s honestly insane. As if our fights haven’t and won’t always be for everyone. As if there’s even a way to make them work that way given what our goals are.
We can be powerless, and right now we are when it comes to mitigating red state outcomes, but we really can’t abandon people when we have power and still reach our objectives.
WTFGhost
@Eolirin: Honestly, I’m willing to say “screw the red states, let the Republicans fight for them, if they care.”
I’m not sure we can pull that off, but, if we got back in power, I’d be all “we’ll restore Medicaid expansion in all solidly blue states, and any state that tries to twist our arm, then gives us gifts, when they realize we aren’t kidding, and won’t bend to threats.”
I know that’s not the right thing to do, but, jezum criminey mother fucking *keee-rist*, I’m not willing to lift a finger for people who won’t even vote in reps who give a flying eff at a rolling doughnut for them.
ascap_scab
Curtis, Nebraska. Population 146 thirty-five year-old gamers living in their parents basement.
Seems about right.
Vigilhorn
Good. Fewer republicans.