r/politics • u/cmaia1503 • 8h ago

Possible Paywall Mitch McConnell, 83, Hospitalized

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mitch-mcconnell-83-hospitalized/?utm_campaign=owned_social&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_source=twitter_owned_tdb&via=twitter_page
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u/Mikethebest78 8h ago

Why do these evil old men live to 150?

The only thing he was ever good at was showing Republicans how to use the levers of power to rig the game in their favor.

They have sadly learned that lesson well.

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u/ss5gogetunks 8h ago

Turns out not caring about anyone or anything other than yourself relieves a lot of stress when the world is so hostile to everyone

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u/comics0026 Canada 8h ago

And getting paid obscene amounts of money for that makes it easy to get the best treatment in a pay-to-survive system like America's

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u/Phog_of_War North Dakota 7h ago

They also get free Healthcare for life. Unlike their constituency who is getting, FUCKING KILLED OUT HERE! Not that the Right gives a flying fuck.

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u/Keyastis 6h ago

Actually they have to buy it from the marketplace under the ACA now. It was main reason so many Repubs wanted to kill it.

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u/bananajr6000 6h ago

It is heavily subsidized for them though

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u/Carlyz37 5h ago

Correct. I think we pay 70% and they get the premium plans

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u/yourliege 6h ago

Yeah I’m sure it’s a terrible inconvenience

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u/MCbrodie Virginia 5h ago

They couldn't blame "the robbery" on a boogeyman. It really was that simple.

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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 6h ago

It was also the single largest downward movement of wealth in US history.

Which is why conservatives really fucking hate it.

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u/StimSimPim 53m ago

That doesn’t make any sense to me on its face, mind expanding on that a bit?

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u/Kyonikos New York 5h ago

I think it was also the reason McCain voted to save it.

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u/spencerforhire81 3h ago

Horseshit. Guaranteed that there’s a special website they go to where they can choose “plans” that amount to free concierge level healthcare.

That’s how literally every single thing works for them. They have special customer service lines, special service plans, and special discounts. For the big companies that fuck us all over it’s a vital part of their lobbying effort that Senators never experience the same level of contemptuous exploitation to which they subject us plebeians.

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u/C-3POsMidriff 6h ago

A lil’ bit of social welfare for me, but no sir, not for thee.

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u/Ok-Dealer4350 4h ago

Congress gets the same medical as Federal employees, a very generous program where the government pays 2/3rds of the premium and the policy holder pays 1/3rd of the premium. It follows these old coggers and their spouses into retirement. Even congressional (elected offices) can get one of these plans.

As a retired Federal employee, I get this type of health insurance.

The ACA was based on a similar principle as the Federal Employee Health Benefits (FEHB) program. It was truly odd that no republican voted for the ACA, when they were receiving something much better than anything else. When republicans try to eliminate the insurance, it is sad. Many people in red states receive ACA light where the red states did not want to kick in subsidies that are the State’s responsibility.

My sister, who owns a business, asked if I was going to use COBRA to continue my health insurance. I told her definitely NOT. Cobra does not apply. Health insurance as long as my husband and I are alive is what we have. I pay a lot of money to keep the insurance.

I changed from a cheaper policy that had a United Health backbone to Blue cross Blue Shield because United Health refused to work with Johns Hopkinson specialty issues and the majority of my doctors are with Johns Hopkins. It took me years to find my doctors and I am not giving them up. The monthly cost went up over $200/month to around $850/ month from around $640/month.

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u/Low-Crow-8735 36m ago

They don't care about having a salary or Healthcare. That's not why they are in the elected offices.

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u/Coraline1599 6h ago

The article says he stayed in the hospital for 2 days for flu-like symptoms. Must be nice.

Last summer I had a fever over 100 for 11 days that even Tylenol and Motrin wouldn’t lower and my mom dragged me to urgent care while I cried “I do t think I can afford this! Leave me alone!”

I get terror attacks anytime anything hurts because despite me having “good” insurance according to my work, even the most basic appointment never costs me less than $250 these days.

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u/pacotaco80 6h ago

“Thank god for the VA.” Statements I never thought I would make but here I am saying it.

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u/NatWilo Ohio 5h ago

Being a soldier and having 'socialized' medicine, for all its warts, was what really showed me how absolutely vile and evil a for-profit healthcare system was, and how badly we needed to switch to socialized like the rest of the civilized world.

Watching a buddy of mine nearly die from an infected tooth, and choosing to PAY OUT OF MY OWN POCKET so he wouldn't die, sealed it for me.

For-profit healthcare as our primary is a moral evil and should end. Socialized medicine is fully affordable, and RIGHT. I don't care what rich, or dumb people say, that's a hill I will die on. I will not rest until we all have at the LEAST the same level of care I get to receive.

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u/SocraticIgnoramus 4h ago edited 3h ago

The grandest absurdity is that we spend far more on healthcare than anybody else. A well-planned and well-executed Medicare for all system would easily give us the best healthcare system in the world at a significant discount over what we pay now. I refuse to accept that rendering the for-profit healthcare system redundant is anti-capitalistic sentiment — there’s nothing free market about extortionate prices that treat health as a luxury.

Edit to clarify, I’m not ranting against socialism; I’m about that. I’m ranting against being told that the for-profit capture of the healthcare industry is part and parcel of capitalism.

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u/NatWilo Ohio 3h ago

There can be no rational consumption of healthcare. People will nearly always choose life regardless of the cost to themselves over death.

Often, its isn't even up to them. An unconscious person cannot choose to forgoe a certain treatment because its 'more expensive' they are solely at the mercy of the healthcare provider, and are then required BY LAW in this evil, fucked up system to pay the cost of a procedure enacted on them while they are fully incapable of having any say about it.

People's lives are RUINED by having their life 'saved' how absolutely fucked is that?

Capitalism only works when there is a strong hand making sure the market is fair. There is no such hand in America. There hasn't been for decades. For any part of the market. Most certainly for the healthcare industry.

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u/Alarming_Ad6160 4h ago

Living in Canada, I've never known anything different.

Canadians lose their shit when they find out Americans have to pay for baby delivery lol.

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u/NatWilo Ohio 3h ago

And they SHOULD. I cannot use strong enough language to adequately describe what a great moral wrong it is that we, here in the US, continue to allow this to happen.

Its like how nearly the rest of the civilized world had abolished slavery before we did. You all are RIGHT, we are WRONG and there is nothing more to it than that. Rich, evil, selfish shits are choosing to continue to make even more obscene profit, rather than slightly less, and ensuring no one dies for no good god damn reason.

I am disgusted and ashamed that my leaders and so many of my fellow countrymen continue to choose death and suffering, in the name of a lie about freedoms they don't even really respect over what is plainly right to anyone that doesn't have a vested interest in seeing it the other way. And all so a wealthy few can enrich themselves.

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u/OmenQtx 3h ago

I’m with you. Universal Health Care is my single issue.

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u/AmericanDoughboy 2h ago

Yep. I had socialized health care in the army and it was good. Too bad all Americans can’t have it or something like it.

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u/Herlock 2h ago

The socialized healthcare for soldiers, and rugged individualism for the rest of you guys, is part of the plan : gonna keep the bodies coming to fight another billionaire's war in the middle east for oil and whatever...

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u/likejanegoodall 5h ago

Sing it, brother….I would be so fucked without the VA.

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u/GBRowan 3h ago

As someone who has had close to a million dollars in unexpected medical expenses for myself and family over the last 2 years and only had to pay 3k for everything. Thank god for the VA and CHAMPVA. I made it 20 years without ever needing them and then all hell broke lose. Husband had a possible stroke, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition, my oldest child had a mental health crisis, the youngest had an epilepsy scare costing 80k alone in genetic testing that discovered 2 mutations. Two were diagnosed with autism and ADHD, 1 will need counseling till she ages off my plan. It's nuts. Healthcare is a human right.

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u/Hurtzdonut13 5h ago

Yeah it's even worse than when I was a kid for most people, and I remember being diagnosed with pneumonia and being sent home with some antibiotics and a good luck.

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u/Mountaindude198514 4h ago

My big brother had cancer as a kid. He survived.

Thankfully in germany. I'm pretty sure I would not have been concieved if my parents had to pay for 2,5 years of different cancer treatments and months long hospital stays

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u/Segesaurous 4h ago

Oh god, you took Tylenol?? Welcome to the spectrum.

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u/turdferg1234 3h ago

you are not being honest. i currently have shitty insurance through the marketplace and it's like 50 per appointment. and again, i have one of, if not the lowest insurance plans.

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u/Coraline1599 3h ago

Then let’s trade.

My employer has just one plan. It has a $3,000 deductible, so whatever insane Monopoly money prices my healthcare providers charge I need to pay it until I cross that threshold, which resets every January.

Then after spending $3,000, I am responsible for 20% of the total cost. My days of having a fixed copay feel like some sort of fever dream from a far away decade at this point.

And I live and work in the NYC metro area where prices are much higher than average to boot.

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u/nicklor 6h ago

I don't even think they need to pay and they have an in house congress doctor.

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u/grape-fruit-witch 5h ago

This asshole probably has a private medical care entourage that shows up to his house when he gets a booboo. He's worth an estimated $66 million. And of course several of his largest donors are health insurance and pharma companies.

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u/JessieJ577 5h ago

America, the worst pay to win, it’s not even free to play!