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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 17th, 2023

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  • While everything you say is true, it’s not all scornful.

    Some folks work 8-16hrs a day and if they don’t, their child will cry in hunger, the lights get shut off, and immediate needs get difficult.

    It’s not all about TV and fast food, it’s about the bottom layer or two of Maslow’s Heirarchy.

    It’s why we had riots post George Floyd. People had time (off work) alongside an unemployment check (no scorn as I type that, just laying out some of the contributing variables that made it so.). Hell, lack of social interaction may have brought folks out to where other people were as well.

    The root reason can be noble as fuck, but without the right set of circumstances that allows for some assurance of not losing job, roof, health care and such, it ain’t happening, at least not to any effective scale.



  • whitepawn@reddthat.comtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldMOM!
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    1 year ago

    This is a leadership problem. The problem really does need to be solved at the top.

    The reality is most working class cannot just stop, unless handed a practical alternative because stopping would mean not going to work, not earning income, and being rendered homeless. Likely living in their car first which would put oil consumption right back in play.

    Whatever alternative you’re thinking of that the working class might be able to achieve as an individual probably has a buy-in cost. Given the even greater number of folks living paycheck to paycheck in the last two years, that buy-in isn’t a plausible ask.

    Sucks. But here we are. Find a cost free (to the working class individual) solution that doesn’t interrupt the 5-6 day/wk work schedule or require any extra costs or moving and you’ll solve it. Until then, working class folks are going to do what they must to keep the lights on and the water running, and that’s usually going to be commuting to work in a gas consuming vehicle. As such, the solution needs to come from the top, not the bottom.

    Earnest question. Is there enough lithium on the planet to turn around every vehicle in the United States to electric? Assume infrastructure for charging. Even then, do we even have the lithium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, and graphite or whatever else electric vehicle batteries need for it?






  • Had a relative in a car accident. They climbed out the vehicle, walked to the ambulance, and took their suggestion to get looked over at the ED.

    Nothing needed but an X-ray then a CT to make sure the spine was fine. Doc saw them for all of 10min. Most of the time was spent doing nothing, alone, waiting for a ride in a mostly empty rural ED.

    Bill comes. $15k.

    I did charges in the 2000s as part of my ED tech duties. Back then the stroke/heart attack go to ICU or get prepped for life flight charge, the most acute of 5 tiers of service was ~$2.5k. The lowest, say getting a ring cut off, was less than $200.

    I know costs have risen in the last 20 yrs but how the fuck do you go from what is at a very generous at most a tier 3 for ~$1k to $15k. AND that CT scan, 90% of what happened there, was billed separate.

    AFTER Medicare, the ED bill is $1.8k. Imaging is $800, and the ambulance ride, that didn’t even put in an IV, is $1.9k.

    So an elderly person on a fixed social security income is getting billed almost $5k for a ride, a glorified wait for my ride room, and a CT.

    One non displaced broken rib btw, that’s it.

    $15k. Is ring removal in ED now $15k a pop? I just don’t know. Or is a remote, empty ED soaking anyone who goes because they don’t have lines out the door and around the block like city EDs do?

    Either way, that’s several months of social security to pay for it while not buying groceries or driving.