of all the things that Orange Shithead has done....

[callmeslick]

the response to the opioid study and solutions to the matter might be the single most ignorant, callous and shortsighted, and lord knows there are valid examples to be found elsewhere.......To wit, he not only failed to declare a national emergency which would have freed up expidited funding for a range of treatment options and emergency health responses. He actually proposes cutting funding for a host of agencies directly on the front lines of dealing with opioid abuse. But, the topper was his observation that he feels the problem might be addressed by simply telling 'kids' that 'drugs are really, really bad'. For fucks sake, we aren't talking about 'kids' here. A dear friend of mine lost a sister a couple months back. She was 51, perfectly aware that heroin could, and likely would, kill her. So it goes, coast to coast. This isn't, by and large, pre-teens experimenting. These are adults, often poor or working class adults, who got started by overusing prescription meds. These are out of work young adults, looking for the cheapest way to get loaded and forget that life sucks. These are self-medicating mentally ill people. Trump is literally giving the middle finger to the whole of America.

[Top Gun]

Is it too much to say that if he happened to drop dead tomorrow, he would immediately make the entire planet a demonstrably-better place?

[vision]

As someone who lost a friend from opioid addiction a few years ago this news distresses me. My friend hurt his back sometime in his 30s and more than a decade of reoccurring pain keep him on medication. His decline was slow. We even think he knew he was going to die because a week previous to his death he had hinted as much to his wife in some unexpected bedtime talk. Left behind four kids.

But in good news, another friend's mother, who has had an inoperative brain tumor for the last two decades, was able to kick her addiction to prescription painkillers. That tumor will probably kill her eventually, but at least she won't OD long before that time comes.

[Tunnelcat]

Well, today Trump suddenly changed course during a press conference and WILL now declare a National Opioid Emergency. I guess all that flashback made an impression. Moron.

http://fox6now.com/2017/08/10/serious-p ... emergency/

[callmeslick]

impressive quick backtrack. I knew bitching about it would accomplish something.

[Tunnelcat]

There's a YUGE difference between declaring something will happen and then actually getting around to implementing that something.

[Tunnelcat]

Oh, this is just rich. I'm one of those "individuals" that this mess affects the most. Trump is a soulless rat bastard. I guess I'm not buying health insurance yet again next year either, despite the mandate, which I'm guessing WILL be enforced if Trump follows his continued form. If the rates go up as forecast, the fine will probably STILL end up being cheaper, but yet, it will be a big hit for my bottom line. Dammit!

https://www.yahoo.com/news/study-trump- ... itics.html

[woodchip]

You confused tc? Why blame Trump when the senate is the hold up1. All Trump said was he would watch it implode, which it will.

[Tunnelcat]

You confused tc? Why blame Trump when the senate is the hold up1. All Trump said was he would watch it implode, which it will.

The Senate is in Republican control. We have a Republican president who's supposed to the the leader of Congress and the nation, so why the gridlock? The only reason things haven't gotten done is because Trump is not leading the nation. He's running around like Captain Bligh screaming at his crew as to why they're not getting HIS campaign agenda done for him. He demands loyalty from the people he hires, but never gives it in return, so they abandon him like rats on a sinking ship. He uses people as whipping posts to vent his grievances and then he blame others for his own failures of leadership. He's created a poisonous atmosphere that few people want to be associated with, let alone work with. The crew is now starting an open mutiny because no one likes the abuse. The only people still around him are diehard masochists. Trump is the one who's failed.

As for letting Obamacare meltdown, I'll be one of the several million Americans that gets screwed because it's going to take years for it to eventually fail for people in my situation. People who have insurance through their employer and Medicare won't feel the sting for a long time. In the meantime I'll still have to pay for either exorbitant insurance rates, or an increasingly heavy fine because the Orange Buffoon sat on his throne and said: "Let them eat cake".

[Top Gun]

The main reason it's "melting down" is because Trump's bull★■◆●ing has created a massive amount of uncertainty in insurance markets, so risk-averse companies are bailing on the nonsense, and people wind up suffering more.

[callmeslick]

precisely. If you are going to leave insurers in this sort of control, the last thing you need to do is introduce uncertainty. They are in the betting business, as are most investment entities. Uncertainty fecks up the odds, so they raise EVERYONES rates to cover the bottom line(and, insure built in profit margins, of course). The implosion is solely caused by the GOP, blocking full implementation here, holding back payments that were scheduled there, all for a period of 5 years or so. They have singlehandedly caused premiums to rise by at least twice what they would have under full ACA implementation, and overall societal costs to rise due to governors not raising Medicaid thresholds. The mere filibuster of a public option likely cost the average policyholder over $2000 per year every year since passage.