ragebutt

Did you read them? The link explains the terms fairly clearly. It’s not a 50 page Eula from some software company, it’s like half a page and written in plain language

Like it or not mental health services have liability involved. As an ethical service or practitioner it is important to make these liabilities clear to you as part of informed consent to use the service

I do the same thing when people have their first outpatient mental health appointment with me. Explanation that costs incurred may be your responsibility, that while there is confidentiality it has limitations, that the service is voluntary, grievance procedures, expectations for you, etc.

It appears they spell out the same:

Costs: it is a free service but they make it clear they cannot be held responsible if your carrier charges you for text messages. You may also be billed by your carrier if 988 has to call 911 on your behalf. They may submit referrals that result in billing depending on where you live.

Confidentiality: they reserve the right to escalate to emergency services (mobile crisis or 911, depending on area) which requires disclosure of PHI if they determine there is a risk of imminent harm or disclosure of abuse. This is pretty standard and I have the same caveat

They clarify that they are not a substitute for a provider and that they are not responsible for treatment decisions you do or do not take as a result of conversations (eg if they give you a referral to outpatient and you take it and it sucks, they don’t take culpability)

This is necessary because if they do not do this they will be endlessly sued by people and the service will be closed overnight. Remember that even if they win every lawsuit (which they wouldn’t) it still costs money to defend from lawsuits. With this they can basically have frivolous lawsuits easily thrown out (eg someone suing because they are upset about a referral, someone upset because they were suicidal and had the cops called) saving a tremendous amount of resources

It may genuinely come down to that was the only single letter domain left. Like it could all be z bullshit but someone snagged that one first

https://kamalaharris.medium.com/my-plan-for-medicare-for-all-7730370dd421

First I misunderstood “donor class”. I feel a bit silly. I interpreted as a class of people making small donations but it’s so obvious in retrospect and obviously I’ve seen this term used before. My reply is basically backwards as a result. Whoops

Financial assistance was woefully inadequate because it was mostly based on federally defined poverty guidelines (and still is). This, like the minimum wage, is not tied to inflation and is adjusted irregularly

As stated I understand the point of forcing people into the system to subsidize care. I do not think that it is fair to give them substandard insurance to benefit an elder generation that has higher rates of retirement savings, home ownership, Medicare enrollment, etc.

simply put the individual mandate does not work if it is contingent on giving the youngest generation garbage coverage in exchange for their premiums. Kamala’s proposal continued this

The donor class (im using it correctly now, hooray. I did misunderstand) greatly benefitted from the ACA. This does not mean they would not also benefit from its repeal. Both can be true. They benefitted in the short term from increased subscription rates but they would benefit in the long term from decreased regulatory oversight.

I feel like there’s no way you read my entire post in the 4 minutes since I posted but

The donor class wants to protect the flawed ACA because the benefits it brings, like protections against pre existing health conditions, are important. I said as much. They also don’t want to walk back what they see as the only bit of progress that has occurred, which is understandable

But do they really “love it”? This is battered partner syndrome. American health care is abusive. We can’t possibly love this. But we are so entrenched in this garbage system of administrative waste and obnoxiously overpaid staff that do not bill we cannot envision a better future

Early in her campaign Kamala co opted Medicare for all and described her proposal. On one hand it was nice to see someone finally describe healthcare reform again (though she was silent for the rest of her campaign). But on the other much worse hand her system was horrible, continuing the system of privatized Medicare with a 2 lane system. Basic Medicare for all Americans but premium Medicare via private companies if you had the means. This is an improvement, for sure, but ultimately it is the ACA and all of its flaws all over again. Excessive administrative overhead raising complexity and costs significantly, a 2 lane system creating a class divide and confusion for consumers as providers will not all work for everyone, and a return of the individual mandate via taxation (which to be fair is necessary, we need young healthy people paying in, but it’s not fair if it results in them getting substandard insurance again to fund the plans of the rich!)

The ACA and Kamala’s proposal, which is a more aggressive version of it co-opting Sanders terminology that polled well, is class warfare. The donor class works to defend it because they do not realize they are being sold a pittance and that they need to demand more

The ACA did give incremental change in updating things like the long overdue “no coverage for pre existing conditions” bullshit. That was admittedly a big win.

But the individual mandate with no financial assistance was tone deaf at best and corrupt at worst. People who were uninsured were uninsured because they couldn’t afford it, not because they thought it was cool to not buy health insurance. Now they were forced into a position of buying expensive coverage or penalized financially for not doing so. Huge win for the privatized insurance industry, which has been doing amazingly well since the ACA. And this ultimately weaponized a generation against healthcare reform! I would bet at least some trump voters are disgruntled people that are still furious that despite being barely able to get by their government forced them to spend $3-400 a month on a bullshit health plan that covered nothing because it still had a $4000 deductible

I would buy the whole “this was a compromise on the path to something better” if there was any movement whatsoever on healthcare reform since. The ACA was fifteen years ago. I work with high schoolers that are older than the ACA.

And what major reforms have we seen in those years? Not a ton:

Repealing the individual mandate - republican win in 2017, pulling those disgruntled voters in

Alt health plans - pooled and short term health plans. Short term health plans reintroduce denial based on health history, pooled plans are potentially unstable based on the pool, both limit coverage options fairly substantially compared to traditional plans

Medicaid funding cuts

Prescription drug pricing changes - some wins here but also some concerns about potential access to novel treatments for people on Medicaid and Medicare

The ACA did far more bad than good. Like typical democrat shit the good could not occur without padding the pockets of the donor class at the expense of the worker class.

To be clear I agree with you still. I think they should do it but I think they won’t

I am an American and this action will cause me pain but I think things need to get worse here unfortunately. I think the only potential silver lining of this situation is that it may get so bad that people finally develop a bit of class consciousness and demand change.

I do not hold out hope for this though, and even if it does occur I do not hold out hope that it sustains beyond our four year election cycle. Power forces and moneyed interests working against it and such. But it would be nice

Maybe they kiss

This has been worked out in a bunch of states like New Jersey because of hardcore lobbying from tesla

Fuck Tesla but direct sales make sense. Fuck dealership middlemen more. If I can save several thousand dollars buying directly from Nissan or whoever instead of padding some douche who’s only adding a high pressure sale and maybe some oil changes

Fishing wires is a nightmare and is really individualized to each home

Like my house is a modular home built in the 80s so there’s a big cavity in the center of the house where they joined the two halves together. My networking gear is in the basement so getting the first floor wired was pretty simple, but the second floor was much harder. It was easiest to run all the cables up through that central cavity to the small space under the roof and then back down into each room. Took way more cable this way but I did it with 0 cutting into walls

Get a decent quality fish tape. You don’t have to go crazy. Harbor freight has them for like $40. Based on my old place that didn’t have a giant central wall cavity: get good at patching drywall. It sucks but it’s inevitable. Good news is if you’re a homeowner this is a skill you’ll absolutely want to have down

You’ll have to spend a little bit getting a lay of the land. What is current situation, what do things look like? Keep in mind for a house that’s 60+ years old you will run into stupid bullshit (I sure did).

Also consider what you want from your network. Planning things out beforehand makes things much easier. Also remember it’s very viable to buy old e waste networking gear. My rack is filled with stuff I got from recyclers and auctions for crazy cheap. Like my main switch is 48 gb ports and 5 10gb ports and it was $30. My poe switch and my fiber switch were similar. I never spent over $70 for anything.

I ran fiber to key points and spent the extra time running extra Ethernet drops for poe cameras. The latter was a fucking pain but my old place had WiFi cameras and they dropped out all the time. The poe cameras were cheaper, I actually covered all the poe gear by selling the WiFi cameras even though I needed more plus a poe switch, and they always just work. The fiber was a bit extravagant but it’s really nice to be able to send files between pcs on lan basically instantly. I only have gigabit so it’s way overkill but someday if this garbage country ever invests in infrastructure I’ll be ready. I technically can get up to 4gig Internet now but it’s crazy expensive

I wonder how excited these guys were when they found out horny goat weed is an actual thing

Ultimately I agree with you but if I’m a leader of say, Canada or somewhere in the EU I wouldn’t bank on it

For one I’ve also been around many “disordered folks” as you call them (outpatient therapist) and rhetoric can escalate. This is a common behavioral pattern called an extinction burst. You stop giving into his bullshit? That’s the most dangerous time of all. Even putting that aside there’s just the risk of him getting escalating amounts of unchecked power. Those threats might get cashed once he decides he wants to check and see if he can actually get away with it.

But that aside it’s not him as much as the entourage. There’s a group behind him and some of them are clearly looking to push him towards alienating the us from all their allies. He doesn’t work in a vacuum. He has a bunch of people saying “maybe you should do this”. He even has people saying “you have to do this, I gave you x million dollars”. Again, if I’m leading Canada this is what truly worries me. Trump may be a chickenshit but the warhawks behind him that want to sell a bunch of military gear and get contracts are frothing at the mouth for this kind of thing.

Would also depend on how captain dipshit responds. This could be interpreted as an act of aggression considering he and his cronies are itching for a reason to invade somewhere