leadore

It's nice to see more people stick to their principles. I wish more WaPo staff/reporters would leave. Oh, and she can add Tim Cook to that cartoon now as well.

Sick. 😠

I think "how we got here" is more because of the massive and powerful opposition to health care reform by the Powers That Be, not because of regular people being grateful that we made a small amount of progress in spite of them.

These limp dick positions just provides political cover for poor policy

If you want to criticize me for my position on the issue, my position is that we should have universal healthcare at least on a par with the other developed countries.

My post was me griping about how pretty much impossible it has been to do anything about health care in this country for decades, and even the little we've gained is still under threat of being taken away. It took decades to get even the protections of the ACA passed (not allowing them to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions being IMO the most important one, which IS an improvement that has saved a lot of suffering and my life, among others, followed by expansion of Medicaid, which has also saved lives).

So yes, I did say things were even worse before the ACA and they were. That's a fact, whether you want to admit it or not. If they repeal the ACA, it will cause more suffering and death. That's a fact.

If you want to see how it was before the ACA, watch Michael Moore's documentary "Sicko". You'll understand how the ACA is an improvement, regardless of its flaws and failure to be The Ideal One True Universal Healthcare we wish for.

Trying to get something, anything, passed to improve the HC situation took decades of fights. Read the history of it. Did you know Nixon tried to get universal coverage done back in the late '70's, but Ted Kennedy decided to make the perfect be the enemy of the good and led the effort against it, killing it (before he died he said that was his biggest regret). He and the unions calculated that if they killed it they could deny Nixon a win (sound familiar?) and get single-payer next time there was a Dem president, which of course they couldn't. Clinton tried to do it, HRC led the effort and they were inundated with massive opposition. It got nowhere, not even close.

Next up, Obama. However imperfect it is, it was a significant accomplishment to get the ACA done. It was hoped it could continue to be improved and worked on going forward. Instead it's been a constant battle just to keep it from being repealed.

Very interesting.   I hadn't noticed that before.   Something to consider.   I'll keep an eye out for that. /s

OK, I just didn't take it as being an argument that smartphones were bad or that they haven't helped anyone. I took it as OP saying that having one hasn't benefited them personally, which I can understand and relate to, and is why I was defending that opinion (I explained my view about them in an earlier post in the thread). Anyway, no point in continuing since we just have different interpretations of what they were saying. Thanks for being polite about it and giving me a better idea of what some responders were upset about.

OK, you thought their opinions were antagonistic and we may have different definitions of antagonistic. But read the thread. There are a lot of aggressively antagonistic posts telling OP they're full of shit, lying, a troll, etc. Apparently they just couldn't believe someone didn't think their smartphone has made their life better, and attacked. Maybe I missed something, I didn't see any posts from OP calling anyone names, accusing anyone of lying, or telling anyone they're full of shit.

I guess it depends on how you take it, could be vice versa. I see a lot of posts that could be taken as other people dismissing OP's valid points that don't suit their preconceived points of view. Downvotes on most of OP's posts that aren't saying anything offensive, just expressing their POV.

Have we gotten to where everyone has to agree with the majority or they get piled on? Even if the opinions seem antagonistic to you, could that you be feeling personally attacked because you do like smartphones. They're just opinions of phones, not opinions of people who use them. It just seems weird how strongly people are reacting to someone who hasn't done anything wrong or insulted anyone, but is just not conforming to the norm.

Except at Aldi's.

Perfect! Those things look just like a dumpster too.