Lokasenna
Posts: 9297
Joined: 3/3/2012
From: Iowan in MD/DC
Status: offline
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Hoo boy.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
Lokasenna, you altered this beyond the scope of the original discussion. Poor Americans in general may delay healthcare choices (as you point out) but the discussion was that they would have access to healthcare no matter their economic state. There may be some with Covid-19 who delay healthcare due to economic conditions. Most won't. They'll go the doctor or emergency room or call 911 and they'll be cared for. That was the original assertion. I haven't seen any reports contrary to that to this point.
As for DD96's comment, it's generic rather than political. You have to be an awfully sensitive Californian to take exception to it, since regional jokes are common in the good ol' USA. It's probably too critical for this environment but everybody would give him the benefit of the doubt since he doesn't post often and doesn't have a track record (that I'm aware of) of being offensive. Heck, I just told an Alabama joke (that's what we Georgians do, etc.) and it certainly couldn't be construed as political except by some folks in here, I think.
Yep, by quoting posts in this thread and continuing a line of inquiry begun by others, I've certainly altered it beyond the scope of the discussion I've been quoting and referring to. /s
I understand you're a lawyer by trade and so assertions are your former tools of trade, but you're supposed to then back them up with findings of fact (and findings of law, were this a court - correct?). Instead, I am also finding your assertions to come across as an effort to gatekeep this thread (and sometimes this forum), and what is and isn't allowed to be talked about, with preference given to your preferred points of view (whether intentional on your part or not; in all likelihood it's not intentional, but just a consequence of the way the human psyche works when it comes to processing conflicting points of view). The consequences of this gatekeeping, where you have usually been polite although sometimes passive-aggressive, can be seen in the willingness of others to pile on to mind_messing in a much more unfriendly tone that is clearly intentional; you don't see this happening in the reverse. You don't see mind_messing (or I) telling others to, in so many words, shut their mouths and go away. Gatekeeping of this nature can kickstart the creation of a hostile community. In full disclosure, I have come to this community less often precisely because of this undercurrent of hostility and microaggressions, but I haven't posted about it because being accepted by strangers on an internet forum is not important to my sense of self.
We've butted heads in this thread going back 50 pages, always somewhat around this issue, because to me your statements have come across as having the goal of centering the narrative around a preferred perspective, sometimes with snide and borderline impolite rhetoric towards posters who commented something that you didn't agree with. I'm not mad or heated. My intended tone here is simply to be blunt and matter-of-fact-like. I'm sure my statements, even or perhaps especially those buttressed by references to public health authorities and statistics, come across the same way to some folks. Our perspectives are all colored by our news sources. Some of us acknowledge this; some of us don't. There's a great quote from Edward Murrow: "Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences." While this forum does have a diversity of posters across a broad spectrum with respect to several demographics (age, geography, etc.), some of those categories are weightier in places than in others (e.g., age). It would be interesting to see a survey, as my impression from interacting here is that posters on the WITP:AE forums skew older, whiter, and US-centric, which a higher proportion of military veterans. Those characteristics track with certain political viewpoints more than others, and it's only natural that shared political viewpoints among posters will leak into conversations on these forums here and there.
I guess you haven't been reading all the posts (and do understand that I bring this up not to single out any poster, but to point out that there are veiled and not-so-veiled comments in this thread of a political nature, loosely interpreted as being "on the other side" from those comments you've taken exception to). Missing those is rather normal, as those comments and experiences which cause someone (of any persuasion) to bristle are going to be more memorable to them (negativity bias is very well documented). Allow me to quote a few posts other than the ones mind_messing pointed out. I don't call them out in real time because my approach is to generally let mildly political things slide, as putting a signpost on them tends to just escalate things and I'm mostly not interested in arguing with strangers on the internet. I (usually) have a lot of better things to do with my time and if a place isn't pleasant to be at, then I don't go to that place.
Also, most the other posts by these posters (well, most of them) are apolitical in nature and generally advance the discussion. However, sometimes comments that are "micro-political" in nature get posted. One of them ran against your grain and so you caught it. I'm only going back through 1/14th of the posts here; there were plenty more occurring in real time during the first 80 pages as well and that is not something I am going to spend the time to collate for posterity. But perhaps going forward, if we're so intent on keeping anything that's vaguely political out of this thread? There's a part of me that relishes the thought of policing that in real time, although I'm not typically a preemptive agenda-setter.
quote:
#2662
As per one of my previous posts, a Coronavirus was killing people from 2005 to 2013 and being labeled as THE FLU.
This is noise that originated in political entertainment masquerading as news.
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#2832
I dread the cure.
(Image of questionable veracity and full of right-wing denialist BS, so bad that I'm going to quote it below)
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#2843
"American exceptionalism" is used here as an intentional insult. We can all see right through it.
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#2844
A lot. So do LA Clipper court side seats and Lamborghinis, neither of which are taxpayer funded.
(Let's leave aside the massive public subsidies for pro sports for now; that's its own ball of wax and is truly nonpartisan although still political in nature.)
quote:
ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn
I dread the cure.
This is misinformation at best. It's so bad that even Facebook flagged a milder version of it as false. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/facebook-posts/post-leans-flawed-numbers-compare-number-abortions/
quote:
ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive
quote:
ORIGINAL: Canoerebel
What you wanna bet that there won't be 25% of Americans not receiving treatment for Covid-19? I bet 98% will. The other 2% (or whatever it happens to be) will likely be those who expire before they realized the severity or otherwise didn't seek medical attention. Everybody else, rich or poor, black and white and brown and red and yellow, conservative and progressive, athiest or religious, will receive medical care.
I think the problem is that it is very difficult to prove either way.
If you follow mind_messings viewpoint then potentially many of the most impoverished Americans will die of COV-19 at home having never accessed healthcare in the first place and potentially never being tested post-mortem. That supposition is impossible to prove either way at this point although I guess in the fullness of time looking at 'excess mortality' statistics might give an insight.
As before I'm not taking sides - just pointing out that the two of you will get nowhere with arguing about that point in particular and most likely with your dispute in general.
No, the likely scenario is that they would prolong seeking life-saving treatment at a disproportionate rate (due to financial concerns, in turn due to misinformation) and therefore a disproportionate number of them will die. Same thing that happens with any other health problem that they don't seek treatment for when it first comes up.
Way back in this thread there was an anecdote posted by someone who "knew someone" who spent several weeks in the hospital and, because their income was low enough, they didn't have to pay much/anything. That's great for that person, but it's just one anecdotal data point and completely ignores the stark reality that large numbers of Americans routinely go without adequate medical care for financial reasons only. Beginning with states that have not expanded Medicaid, costing them 14K lives per year.
By the way - does anybody else find it absurd that we're arguing about what's off-topic in an off-topic thread?  It's not like this is all irrelevant to the extremely broad thread subject line, and as I stated at the outset of this post, it's not like I've been opening new lines of discussion.
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