US Navy: Socialism = terrorism

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Am I right that a person who declined health insurance can end up in emergency room and leave it with unpayable debt?
Am I right that even insured people can end up in debt for their medical bills?

Speaking of debt... https://shiftprocessing.com/american-debt/

Doesn't really sound like much freedom.
The only question is who owns the cage...

The thing is, Conservatives want the Employers to own the cages, and have employees converted to slaves.

That's what TheRobotLives is *really* talking about: Re-institution of slavery.

Whether you call it racist slavery or wage slavery or conscription slavery - or some other kind of slavery - it's still slavery.

Insofar as Republicans/Conservatives have been enablers for socialists, they are certainly not innocent. They use parallel tactics with their respective voter bases. But terrorists on the level of Democrats/Collectivists? No.

NAZI and Soviet governments followed a similar and now-familiar pattern, and it’s all stuff we’d recognize straight out of Saul Alinsky’s playbook.

In the NAZI scenario, Hitler’s brown shirts were the thugs and party enforcers who enjoyed a fairly free-spirited existence. They were the exceptions to all the rules and flouted party moral codes that anyone else would have been killed for. They were basically useful idiots who kept the population in a state of constant anxiety. They were good for maintaining party control at the street level. Once Hitler had military support, they were no longer necessary. And since their lack of discipline chafed against the high moral code of the military, high ranking officials in essence came to Hitler and said “it’s either them or us,” and Hitler knew that he needed the military more than he needed the Brownshirts.

Stalin would keep various agencies and groups around to maintain control, and when too many people became unhappy and Stalin faced rebellion that couldn’t be easily contained, he’d pretend to have no idea what was happening, express outrage over such extensive corruption, and then follow that up with a purge.

American political parties are no different, except that at least with the Democratic Party these tactics are better practiced. Certain feminist organizations, BLM, Antifa, #defundthepolice, #metoo, and so on represent grievance groups and others that create a destabilizing effect within communities. That’s the main reason why collectivists in the USA have as much power as they do—they are all fighting the same enemy: Republicans/Conservatives. As long as they are effective in keeping Democrats elected, they are useful. Right now these groups don’t seem to be getting much press. Sure, there’s been some rumblings about Bill Cosby being released, but you don’t see millions of pink hats taking to the streets. The whole defund the police thing seems to have been walked back since communities do need protection by police. The Biden Flu has been a useful crisis to capitalize on, but that’s only temporary. There are still holdouts on restricting individual rights so that those in power don’t really have much work to even do. As soon as grievance groups and victim classes return to burning police precincts, burning down minority-owned businesses, running affluent taxpayers out of adjacent neighborhoods, attacking gentrifiers, carelessly exposing corruption and forcing collectivist pols out of their jobs, and pushing more voters right, Democratic governors and Presidents will start calling the National Guard if they can’t have people quietly arrested and coerced into playing like good little boys and girls again. The long knives will either come out, or there will be large swaths of party members who can take the fall.

That’s how it works in America, and minority groups pushed Obama to the brink. Nothing ever came of it, though, and these same groups continued to be useful in keeping pressure on Trump. People now are too skittish to really kick up and protest, so there’s still a sense of celebration with having a Democratic president in power. There’s a kind of balance of fear, which I believe is due to the Biden Flu scare. We have yet to see what’s going to happen during the next midterms, but I’m predicting something will emerge shortly afterwards. That would fit the cycle of “terror” we can expect to see throughout election cycles.

The current administration doesn’t need to fuel terrorist groups because the pandemic is doing all the work for them. I would watch out for more things like due process violations along the lines of Cosby. I’m convinced that all the talk about Trump’s taxes will fall along the same due process lines—Trump would never have been investigated if he hadn’t won an election. There are many, many more examples, and I’m honestly more surprised by things that have NOT happened. In Canada, a church pastor was in jail for fighting for freedom of religion. American churches and leaders haven’t had quite as difficult a time, but I remember a church close to home that tried to hold services when police were called. At first they issued citations for anyone who showed up, then later blocked the street so no one could even get in. The governor of Mississippi got involved and reminded city officials statewide that a pandemic is not an excuse for violating civil rights, especially with respect to freedom of religion. This was well before the election, of course, but it demonstrates how easily one can exploit a virus and pandemic as itself a terrorist force to maintain a firm hold on power and implement collectivist ideology over local populations. Don’t forget that the Great Depression was going on as Hitler rose through the ranks and that NAZI party members were elected to government positions by a majority of German voters. It was through the democratic process rather than force that Hitler achieved power through emergency actions. NAZI and Soviet terror groups were always at party disposal as-needed and there were any number of scapegoats to choose from any time there was some failing within the party or government. In America, the illusion of peace is sufficient to maintain power beneath the shadow of the Biden Flu scare. There’s no need to blame anyone for anything. But collectivist parties and governments cannot function without victims and common enemies, and domestic terrorism will resume as soon as it is expedient to do so.

I don’t say much about the Republican equivalent. Those would be all the tinfoil hats and conspiracy theorists. It’s important to acknowledge that this happens on both sides. I see Republicans as under the influence of the collectivist brain parasite, though perhaps not as pervasive as with Democrats. IDK. But QAnon seems to me the equivalent of Brownshirt-type groups. I don’t understand how these people can honestly believe the rhetoric—it’s like they’re playing some RPG and not letting the rest of us in on it. They are too detached from reality to be effective, though, hence why we aren’t quite as worried about them. But they serve the same function: To make sure that there are still victims and common enemies. As to actual Republican pols, opposition policies have functioned to convert emergency measures into entitlements, healthcare and Biden Flu bailouts being among them. Republicans are too afraid of losing what power they have, so they never ACTUALLY work to eliminate entitlements. They talk a lot about it but never actually do anything. They’d rather sacrifice conservative principles and morality for votes and never accounting for how their complicit stance is actually hurting the country. They play right into the hands of collectivists and then whine and moan about how Democrats are never willing to compromise.

Of course socialism is terrorism, or more appropriately terrorism is a significant facet of socialism. And it will be American political reality for as long as Democrats and Republicans cooperate and collude. At this point in time, I believe wholeheartedly that the best conservatives can do to fight it is to completely, suddenly disappear from politics. Hand the country over entirely. Collectivists will destroy each other from the inside out. Restore the constitution and individual freedom, and do it without the help of those who hate freedom.

AngelRho, Reynholm and TheRobotLives:

Stop talking about your damned freedom, when you don't even recognize true liberty!

We have that liberty, you do not get arrested for being unemployed but you better be really skilled at making do with nothing.

Here's the thing about so-called liberty in the American sense:

I want to be free from unhealthy workplaces. But if I have no other way to get money, to have something to eat and therefore live, then I'll have to accept unhealthy work.

This now begs the question on who's liberty/freedom is MOST important: The freedom of the Employer or that of the Employee?

Socialists say the liberty of the employees is the most important. How can you disagree?

AFAIK, in practice, you can get arrested for being homeless.

So, what American individual freedoms were US soldiers fighting and dying for when the US invaded Iraq in 2003?

You are right to an extent.

To answer your questions, we can decline health insurance and up with unpayable debt, yes. It’s really the medical community that suffers, though. They are not allowed to deny life-saving care in the e.r. In the past they would send these debts to collectors within a few months. It’s fairly standard practice, and if you’ve ever been there more than once, you just get used to it. Back in the day you could try to send some hospitals partial payments, even if it was just $50. They would send payments back because if they accepted it, that implied that they were settling and would be unable to collect the full amount within the time frame they wanted. What you would do is negotiate how you would make payments and, if you’re lucky, you could actually get your total cost reduced. Most of the time it amounts to hospitals and doctors just need SOME money, and bill collectors are able to get a little money to providers quickly even if it’s not the full amount. I’m more of a Lannister type of person who likes to pay everything I owe, and I don’t like waiting. But when the cost is so high that no income will suffice to pay it, then not even collections can recover very much. So they accept that some debts are uncollectable. They can sue you, of course. But if you have no wages to garnish, no vehicle or real property they can put a lien on, then the collectors are screwed. Even if it you DO own property, all you have to do is file bankruptcy and all your unsecured, non-priority debts will go away. A Chapter 13 will put you on a payment plan up to 60 months and put you back on track with paying mortgages and keeping a vehicle for work. See, collectors know this. So even though they will harass you and threaten you with a lawsuit, very rarely will they take you to court. Even if a judge ordered you to pay up, they can’t put you in jail if you have no means to pay. Not even the judge has any power to recover for a collector. Eventually collectors just give up. So you just have to decide if you want to screw the collectors or if your ethics compel you to at least try. We’ve always worked to pay in full, even after our bills went to collections.

We are so good at it that we’re friends with our collectors! We have a good, positive relationship with them, and they’ve actually been very supportive and helpful with us. Not everyone knows how to work with them, but because of how heavy-handed these people are known to be, how many times debts have been canceled because of bad behavior, and all the lawsuits against collectors, there’s more incentive for them to act like decent human beings. We were never ones to wait to make a deal, but between us being nice to them and rule changes our medical debts have been easy to manage.

If you have insurance, well...that’s a beast. We’ve had employer-based insurance before that, for a family plan, cost more than our combined salaries. No kidding, we’d have to choose between paying insurance premiums and getting food for our children. Now...premiums would be so high we couldn’t save up enough money for deductibles and out of pocket. So if someone was sick or injured, we were just stuck trying to figure out how to deal with it ourselves. If we had an emergency that we couldn’t deal with, we were stuck with a deductible, and we rarely had enough expenses to meet the deductible. And when we DID come close to meeting the deductible, by the time we paid it off it was already a new year and we started over from square one. There was no point in even reporting it because we couldn’t afford it, anyway. And THEN they’d raise our premiums even when we didn’t make any claims.

If you have good insurance, they’ll pay your claims after you meet your deductible. What we’ve mostly experienced is that companies will go out of their way to deny your claims. But you can’t sue them because you can’t afford a lawyer or legal fees. We use a medical sharing program to stay legal, and they have used every possible trick to avoid paying our claims. We are due a substantial payment from them, but they have weaseled out of paying our largest bill even though we have long last paid the deductible. They try to wear you down until after the debt goes to collections hoping you’ll just give up and pay it yourself. They are not LEGALLY insurance, so they are able to skirt many of the rules. But they are extremely difficult to work with. We only went with them to get around the Unaffordable Patient Care Act mandate. That is how you get insurance and stay in debt anyway when they refuse to pay things they purport to cover. Once we finish paying off the debts we have, we will probably drop our sharing company.

There are government entitlement alternatives, too, in the USA. Medicare/Medicaid will cover pregnant women below a certain level of income. The CHIPS program covers children. So I could switch to an employer-provided plan for less than what I’m paying now and get health care that is essentially free. The danger you run into is making a move to another insurer or equivalent and they refuse to pay due to preexisting conditions. That’s another way you might accumulate debt. But since you cannot be denied emergency care and those debts are uncollectible, you still pretty much get care for free. Suppose you are diabetic and can’t afford insulin. Well, when you know it’s time for your shot, just go to the emergency room. I’ve seen people practically camp out in the emergency room, pretty much the same people, same nights of the week. I’ve seen people in for a headache look condescendingly on us because they take my wife straight through the door because she was in labor. It’s that whole “white privilege” thing, that “yeah, they’ll take a white pregnant woman back but won’t even give me a Tylenol.” Part of the reason I’m not wild about the idea of universal health care in the USA is because we really kinda already have it. When my oldest daughter was born, we got hit with a bill for over $30,000. Within about 6 months of non-payment, even after trying to strike a deal with these people and being refused every time, that debt quietly vanished. We don’t know where it went. It’s not even on our credit report, like it never even happened. I’m not suggesting people exploit loopholes or cheat the system, but I am saying that these things do happen and our health care system is not all that terrible.

We do have some problems, yes. Insurance companies not paying sometimes, yes that’s a problem. Unaffordable premiums and deductibles is a problem. Going after poor people for non-payment isn’t really a problem we have. But I think what bothers me the most is that people who CAN afford better care could be denied the right to do things they can afford. People on free plans will look at those with Cadillac plans and complain that they aren’t getting good care and are being discriminated against because of their income. I don’t think devaluing high levels of care when people can afford more specialized options for them is really a good way to go. When doctors and hospitals have increased disposable income from wealthy patients, all of that can go back into more advanced equipment for diagnosis and treatment, ongoing advanced training for professionals, and continuing research. The standard of care increases even for the poorest patients. So perhaps people really need to understand better how to either protect themselves from debt or learn best practices for managing debts. Poor people need to learn just what their options are, too, and how to get access to care even when they can’t pay for it. For the most part, insurance companies are ok, so I don’t want to encourage the perception that all insurance people are evil. But I do think that we need a better way of holding insurers to their responsibilities without resorting to methods that only line the pockets of lawyers and screw the patients. It is unnecessary to resort to socialized medicine that devalues health care for individuals.

Yes.


These debt statistics are meaningless because they include mortgage debt.

A person can be living in a $750,000 home, and owe $100,000 on it.

It doesn't mean much.

@AngelRho that sounds like a really, really bad system if we consider that what we really need is
- patients getting treatments,
- equipment kept operational and up to date,
- medical professionals getting decently paid.

It seems your medical insurance system is wasting even more resources than a typical state-operated healthcare system.

No, because the majority of times insurance does pay once the deductible kicks in, plus Medicare/Medicaid. No matter what, patients ALWAYS get treatments. There are also many wealthy donors and charitable organizations along with programs that do fund hospitals and research, not to mention private companies in biomedical research, pharmaceuticals, and so on. Doctors who do well, of course, can afford their own equipment and pay off their own student loans and live in hilltop mansions besides. What you have to understand is that when bills go to collections, even if it doesn’t earn as much money for providers, it still offers those people a steady income. Pennies on the dollar from collections still beats nothing, and there is an impressive load of money to be made from non-paying patients.

What ends up happening is a realization of how much medical care is truly worth: not really that much. It balances out because insured people end up paying for those who can’t pay, hence why for middle and high income families health care costs are sky high. Those who can’t pay get stuck with the same bills, except providers can’t actually collect on it. Don’t underestimate how well hospitals and doctors are doing under this system. They are quite well off. The lowest income people can still get on a government program to cover expenses. Doctors and hospitals still get PLENTY to eat.

https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-expe ... ery-state/
That means most of those 80% are not mortgages and certainly not almost-paid-off mortgages.

Think of it like a pep talk.

Military leaders: Saddam and his network of terrorists threaten our way of life.
Military leaders: They hate our country, hate our freedoms.

George Bush: "The terrorists who attacked us and the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent".

George Bush:"This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will take the fight to the enemy. We will defend our freedom".

Full text: George Bush's Iraq speech
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/29/iraq.usa

The wealthy pay to balance off the poor? Sounds like a bad word starting with S
And neither-poor-nor-rich folks bankrupt on it - that sounds quite unhealthy.

In other words: "freedom" as a popular propaganda buzzword.