[quote=AN][quote=outtamojo]A little anecdote, close to home for me, coming soon to some of us here:
So my sister-in-law on the East coast goes in to the local doc in a box urgent care. New patient so no medical history so you get interviewed. She disclosed she was a stay at home mom, took care of kids and elderly parents- taking them places and translating for them. (they are Korean). During her exam, male doctor starts talking about Trump and then ranting about immigrants out of the blue and then tells sil her parents should go back to Korea if they can’t speak English.
Did he always speak to his patients like that, or did he become emboldened by the prospect of institutionalized covert racism coming back in favor?
If he had just taken the time to learn about her parents, he would discover how they legally came to the country with nothing and built a mini empire of laundromats and liquor stores. They do speak some English, heavily accented, but they do the best they can. Are they not the embodiment of what was the American dream? And yet the emboldened racist can only see them as foreigners who don’t belong.
Yah, sure, Trump had nothing to do with this and was nowhere near the building so how why was this his fault..[/quote]
+1
This is exactly the $hit I’m afraid of that BG and the many Trump supporter fail to see. Just look at what happened to the Japanese not too long ago.[/quote]
Uhh, AN, if you’re referring to me as a “Trump supporter,” you should be aware that I haven’t made up my mind yet but am leaning towards Cruz (a long shot, I know). I don’t know how many times I have to post this to get it through your thick head(s) but I WANT TO SEE THE ACA REPEALED ASAP!! I think Cruz could get the immediate support for that in Congress. It’s much more important to me than having a “wall.” I’m not seeing anything concrete in Trump’s agenda on how he plans to repeal the ACA (either piecemeal or in its entirety) and I don’t think he’ll be able to get the support of the “establishment” to do so (unless possibly he puts Ben Carson in charge of H&HS).
Also, Trump is leaning towards “universal healthcare” and I feel that may happen if he gets elected and isn’t able to successfully convince Big Insurance to sell portable health insurance policies nationwide (after the Federal and state exchanges are gutted, of course). There are many parts of the US that Big Insurance doesn’t want to have anything to do with unless they are “enterprise” accounts (large employer accounts spreading the risk between younger, healthier workers and the few boomers left in the workforce). Yes, this practice is considered “redlining,” for sure, but there are BIG, spread out “diabetes and heart disease pockets” of this country which shouldn’t be there because most of these diseases are entirely preventable. Big Insurance won’t touch these individual markets with a ten-foot pole if they can legally get away with it. The regional Native American tribes in these markets are trying mightily to educate their members and get their diabetes and other related health issues under control at their tribal-run hospitals and clinics but it is a long, tedious process with a group which is mostly very stuck in their ways.
Also, Big Insurance charges a fortune ($1300 mo++ at age 55) for “ACA-compliant” individual PPO plans for boomers in the Rockies within the states of WY and CO, both on and off the exchanges. This is due to regional hospitals being located 25-100 miles away from many “retirement towns” and often over high, narrow, dangerous passes for ambulances to traverse. Emergency search and rescue personnel are located in almost all the small towns (with or without doctors present in them) but they bill insurance companies for their services as well. Select popular retirement towns have at least one (often necessary) hyperbaric chamber, which bills insurance plans up to $1000 per hour for a patient to sit in them. Often, the nearest “trauma center” is more than 350 miles away (assuming a “life flight” helicopter can get there before the patient dies, wind and weather permitting).
I would love to consider the (rural) rockies or living close to some of my peeps in bible-belt flyover country for “retirement purposes” but (unaffordable and/or nonexistent) health insurance is one of the issues which is keeping me exactly where I am … for now.
I don’t want “universal healthcare” but for me it is probably a better option than the horrifically unfair and corrupt mess we have now (which I predict will go up $200-300 month every year until I reach the age of 65), regardless of where I live.
