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Anywhere that ‘Big Corporations’ take on health care , there will be calamity. Even here in Blue New York , the corporate entity has taken over not for profit hospitals . The number 1 problem is : Care Standards go down . 2 . Pay for the workers goes down .3. Staffing goes down. 4 . Another empire to enhance the CEOs and higher ups with big sums of money. 5 . Another “ who cares” company who cares only about their profits. We as consumers are left listening to their recorded propaganda sometimes for forty minute as we wait ‘in the order as we’ve been received’, trying to contact a drs office.

I had a Drs appointment several months ago , i showed up on time for my appointment. The office was closed. No one there . The date and time were correct. Soon after this robust practice of thirty years+ was closed.

The patients are not the winners here . Nor are medical staff .

The Corporate heads are the only winners... they win the Greed award. Again.

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Correlation isn't causation; the South has long been poorer and more agricultural than the North, and until the 1960s was solidly Democratic but still had lousy health and education statistics. A lot of that was due to treatment of its African-American population, and in low lying areas the climate isn't the best, but still it is shocking to see the difference. Another thing that really pops up on the county level is the areas with high Native American and Alaskan native populations. Those are clearly places of sinful neglect. Really what Americans should see is that graph between life expectancy and expenditures, and so much for "socialized medicine". But in a country where prescription drugs are widely advertised, it's easy to see how money has distorted health care away from all logical delivery.

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Thank you for your reasoned analysis, and correlation can be used as confirmation bias and is by both biased sides of our corporate and "progressive" media. Medicare for All, which Democrats have fought against as furiously as Republicans, would likely even some of this inequity out.

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Damn well better get ready is right. But as Ralph Nader just observed in an interview with Jim Hightower, in the 2024 election 24 Democrats are up for reelection in the Senate, and only 10 Republicans, all from solidly Red States. Do you really think the Democrat establishment and corporate money hungry honchos have the guts or savvy to prepare for that? For going door to door and registering and persuading people who don’t vote to go and vote, for actually doing grass roots work rather than relying on idiot consultants and tv ads? I don’t. Disaster looms.

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Thom, would love to see you over on Mastodon!

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New Mexico?

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Human nature and motivation is, by definition, well, very human, and full of deceptive emotions and exaggerated statistics as we each struggle to convince ourselves, neighbors and co-voters that our particular points-of-view are bigger-better-scarier than those held by others.

The US is divided down the middle and, perhaps, the benefits of this division, politically and emotionally is for all of us to us the time to discuss which pragmatic compromises we are able to join hands on. For example, building a new US electrical grid in order to optimize the use of alternative green sources of energy is probably doable by large margins. And guaranteeing prenatal care for all mothers to-be ought win even the vote of elderly baby-boomers. So, rather than focusing on the negatives, let's focus on all the wonderful positives that we can agree on. The mid-term US policies showed the migration of independent voters away from the scariest and least rational candidates, and our younger voters began the generational turn out to vote. But, still, https://www.votefromhomeusa.org/ and https://voteathome.org/ as well as https://braverangels.org/ would benefit from a $10 monthly contribution from a thousand Hartman readers - and the Brave Angels would offer an opportunity to Zoom meet outside the echo chambers with people of different philosophies.

We loved living in Oregon, but have chosen to live in Tennessee. We miss Oregon's Vote from home, but not Oregon's Portland dominated politics. Thus, the differences outlined by Mr. Hartman in his current article did not weigh out as he suggested they ought to. But, objectively, as adults, we are always interested in finding areas we can agree on that are doable via respect and care.

Mr. Hartman's citations:

Republicans are about to take over the House of Representatives and begin their “investigations” into, well, anything that will distract from these terrible statistics. In the meantime, Americans, particularly those in Red states and counties, will continue to die at rates considered obscene by the standards of every other developed nation in the world.

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