Cox did this with my dad, fucked around and found out. To this day, if you bring up Cox Cable, my dad goes, "OH, you mean the company I was a loyal customer to for 32 years, 10 months, and 17 days?!"

He had one of those cable-internet-landline bundles and was paying something like $150/month for it, something about he just had to call every renewal or something like that. Well, him and my mom fell on some hard times and forgot/missed a payment/something happened with Cox.

My dad gets the bill the next month, and it says his package is now $300/month (or something ridiculous like that). He calls Cox and wants to know what's up, why his bill doubled in a month, etc They told him he missed his renewal and thus his promotional price was lost, and now he's got to do the regular price. He explains what's been going on and how they're doing their best, they want to remain a customer, but they're not paying $300/month for something they were paying $150/month for.

Cox refused to budge, offering a like $25/month discount at best. So my dad goes, "So, I just want to understand... If I was a new customer creating a new account, you'd give me my old rate? And if I hadn't missed the thing last month, you'd give me my old rate?" Correct. "So my being a customer of yours for over 32 years... That gets me nothing?!" That's correct, Sir, so would you like to renew, make any changes, or make a payment?

"Oh, you can close the account, I'll be dropping off your equipment in about 3 hours, thank you." And they still argued with my dad, I think they moved up to $50/month discount, and he just told them to kick rocks, he would rather have no internet, cable, or telephone, than give Cox his money ever again. And to this day, he refuses to recommend Cox to anyone, and tells them to check his file whenever they call or come to the door trying to get him to come back.

Plus, they absolutely destroy our roads and infrastructure, since our roads weren't designed for regular use by tanks.

Why don't we start just giving cops our decommissioned ships too? I'm sure the NYPD could find a way to use a nuclear sub to harass and kill minorities.

I personally believe we should have the right to die, moreso as an individual choice than one a relative should make. We as individuals, who did not consent to living in this absolutely broken society, should have every right to just say one day, "Y'know what, I've had enough, I'm done." This comment will likely be controversial, and I am not encouraging anyone to commit suicide, seek help where and how you can, suicide can be a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

A friend of mine told me once she considered those who commit suicide (outside of terminal illness) to be cowards, taking the "easy" way out and leaving their loved ones to suffer. I argued back that how is it unacceptable for loved ones to suffer, but it's perfectly acceptable for the individual to suffer to keep the loved ones comfortable? And that's what mental health (tin foil hat time) is entirely about: not comfort for the individual, but comfort for the society.

It doesn't matter if you are completely disenfranchised with society, struggling to make ends meet, working multiple jobs with no benefits, eating the same meal 2-3 times a day every day to save money, none of that matters because you're not contributing to society/capitalism they way you're supposed to. When the VA was trying to force me onto SSRIs despite my objections due to the side effects they can have, I told them flat out I wasn't taking a pill just so I could be "productive" for a society that will let me die in the streets at the earliest and cheapest convenience. And no "pill" is going to fix how sick and broken we are as a society.

We as a species weren't designed for this kind of society, we're an analog species trying to adapt to a digital world we haven't had time to properly adjust to. We aren't designed to work 40 hours/week, 8 hours/day, 50+ weeks per year. We aren't designed to work ourselves to exhaustion and forego social interactions in the pursuit of more money to try and keep the lights on. And we are watching the largest transfer of wealth to the ultra-wealthy, making the Gilded Age look like child's play.

So I guess, to sum it up: I think everyone should have the right to end their own life, regardless of the reason, but I don't believe anyone should have the right to end someone else's life outside of already-established practices (DNR orders, "pulling the plug" as PoA, etc). We are too broken as a society to trust ourselves to choose when others should die, but we should absolutely be allowing individual's to end their own lives.

Criticism should be constructive, they offered nothing constructive in their criticism.

It's sitting on my bookshelf. 😆 Haven't read it yet, but I do own it.

I recommend checking out ThriftBooks over Amazon, they sell new and used books, and they're not Amazon 😆

There are no stocks or profit sharing to make money on via USPS for the board of directors. They receive a salary, and I'm sure they receive bonuses based on performance (not the board level, per se, but postmasters and supervisors can).

USPS is actually a national treasure that we should be very proud of. Representatives of USPS went to Germany several years back to teach them how to efficiently institute 6-day delivery. Our "snail mail" service taught the Germans how to do something more efficiently.

Ass the other commenter said, USPS doesn't receive any taxpayer funding, all of their revenue comes from the sale of postage and their other services like PO boxes and such. They actually used to offer basic banking services too, back in the day, but not anymore.

The retirement funding they referenced was for employees who weren't even hired yet. Thanks to an act passed under Bush Jr, USPS had to pre-fund 75 years worth of pensions, and they were (and are) the only government agency to have that funding requirement levied on them. Simultaneously, USPS cannot change the cost of postage, only Congress can do that, so for almost 2 decades we were forcing USPS to fund 75 years of pensions while not allowing them to set their own postage rates.

If you want to know why USPS is the way it is rather than the Department of Mail like it used to be, I'd start with the Postal Strike of 1970. Thousands of NYC carriers went on strike after being denied a raised while Congress gave themselves one, Nixon called in the national guard to deliver the mail (and they failed spectacularly), and in return for giving up the right to strike, the Dept. Of Mail was reorganized into the USPS. (If I'm remembering all my history right, it's been a few years, I used to be a carrier.)

Related anecdote, my sister's fiance (at the time) gave me a guitar he supposedly found by a dumpster or in a storage unit. It looked like a Les Paul, but wasn't, I forget the name on the top. I sent it to have it looked over and a couple little things repaired.

The repair guy ended up calling me and making sure I was good with XYZ, and I asked if he could tell me anything about it. Apparently, I had a Japanese counterfeit Les Paul. I guess back in the 70s/80s/90s, Japanese companies would make clones of Les Paul's and sell them for a reduced price, but their quality was kinda comparable to the real deal.

Les Paul would sue and/or send a cease and desist, and the company would shut down and pop up a few months later under a different name, rinse and repeat.

I ended up selling the guitar back in high school, kinda wish I hadn't, but actually ended up buying another a few years later, different color but a Japanese Les Paul.

I've always liked "Just don't punch down." But you're right, we're all hypocritical in some form or another.

I didn't downvote you above, idk why anyone would, I didn't think you were being rude or anything.

I understand where you're coming from, and I don't disagree that the ACA helped a lot of people. But it also left a lot of people out in the cold, and after over a decade of being told we should be happy we have it when it doesn't help us... It gets old, it's not what we were promised, and it hasn't been improved on, only ever on the chopping block.

A lot of my resentment comes from my disgust and utter disappointment with the DNC, which you can find plenty of examples of in my comment history (I did vote for Harris, begrudgingly, for harm reduction).

I don't remember every number, but that's another big part of the problem: I have an associates degree and have worked mostly blue collar jobs outside of the military. I'm not stupid, but I also don't have the energy or bandwidth to be a sudo-expert in everything society expects us to be: health insurance, retirement accounts, investing, budgeting, the law, etc.

I'm not a health insurance guru, I shouldn't need a degree in health coverage to work my way through these government websites and try to decipher all the jargon and legalese and what they mean by this and that. I understand there are services to assist people, but I've never had luck with my state outside of the DMV (and that's a nightmare too), and they're usually only offered during working hours with varying wait times.

And then not to add, I need to work, so when I do qualify for the state's insurance, I have it for a month at most because I can't afford to not work much longer than that. So it's dealing with every headache above, for assistance that you'll have to give up in a few weeks.

Again, I agree and am glad the ACA is helping people, but it's not the Progressive-Win that people online like to parade it around as. I was frustrated earlier (lots of that going around lately) and took some of it out on you, so for that, I apologize.

I have only a little bit of knowledge of Tricare, but everyone I know that has it loves it. I'd be on board for that for everyone too. Does this mean you were in the military? I'm really beyond my knowledge now, but does that mean you would have VA health coverage (which I know has its own flaws)?

As for Tricare: it's amazing. You show up, and if the doctor says you need this med, you get that med, and it's free. If the doctor says you need a specialist, you're referred to the specialist. There's no middleman insurer bullshit who have a doctor who's going to "thoroughly" review your claim and medical history in 7 minutes and deny you. And it's free, it's paid for via our taxes, when you leave the doctor/pharmacy/hospital, there's no bill. No letter 8 months later saying you owe $9k cause the anesthesiologist was out of network, none of that.

I have access to the VA, but not all veterans do. You need to be rated a certain disability percentage (I think it's a minimum of 30%-60%) to have access to all VA healthcare, otherwise, you can really only be seen for your service connected disabilities. I am fortunate that I do qualify based on my percentage.

But like you said, there are downsides: many VA facilities are understaffed, under budgeted, and overburdened. The staff do great work for the most part, but they're approach can be more... Institutional. For example, I have depression, but I don't go to the VA for mental health and pay for a private therapist instead because I hate the VA mental health approach. They seemed entirely focused on you just not killing yourself: take this pill so you won't kill yourself, try this job so you won't kill yourself, here's a group to meet with so you won't kill yourself, we're committing you so you don't kill yourself, have you thought about killing yourself with all of this talk about killing yourself? Like, I have suicidal thoughts and a lot of veterans commit suicide so it's kinda their big PR focus, but for fuck's sake, it just bugs me...

There were no real decorations, just stone beige walls with maybe a plant here or there. You can't get at the root causes of the issue or build a rapport and a history with a therapist whose sole goal is to just keep you alive and make sure the meds are still working during a 30 minute appointment every 4+ months. All via telehealth (my therapist at least paints the walls behind her desk and has plants and it's bright and welcoming), so imagine how depressing it would feel in person. And that's not the individual doctor's fault, it's the VA not being staffed and funded properly with probably anti-fun decoration policies.

The VA also doesn't cover everything: I have VA healthcare, but I don't have access to their dental care because I'm not rated a high enough percentage and/or lack a dental disability. It's also not health insurance, so outside of certain ER visits, if you go to a private doctor without a VA referral, you're paying out of pocket.

So the VA is like the ACA: it helps a lot of people, but it's definitely nowhere near what we need. Tricare should be the end goal, single payer, and we shouldn't accept less than that next time (I'm assuming Trump and the GOP are going to repeal it finally, and I don't want excuses from the Dems next time that we have to reintroduce it as it is now and build from there).

The military and the VA offer gender affirming care, and what they offer varies.

For instance (I'm going off memory for active duty, I got out in 2017), if you're active duty, I believe they'll pay for everything so long as you lay out in your Transition Plan everything you want covered and your commanding officer approves it. You need "approval" to ensure that your absence during medical recovery won't hinder mission readiness, so basically, if you're about to be deployed in a month for 6 months, and you're supposed to have gender affirming surgery tomorrow with a multi-month recovery, your surgery will likely be postponed.

The VA, which is for veterans, covers a majority of gender affirming care, but they aren't legally allowed to cover everything. GRS/SRS is the big on, the military will cover that I believe, but the VA cannot and will not.

With Trump coming in, I have a feeling this is all going to go away, and they're going to use a similar approach as the Federal Minimum Drinking Age Act to basically make LGBTQ+ healthcare illegal via withholding federal funding from those states who try to continue after a federal ban. "The states can choose their drinking age gender affirming care, but those who don't follow the federal guidelines will lose access to XYZ federal funding."

What's even crazier is that, in the modern US military, less than 1% of the population serves in the military.

There are also more NYPD cops than there are active duty Coast Guard personnel.

You're communicating you're making over $61k/year

I'm communicating I cannot afford ACA healthcare, you all keep throwing out the $61k/year salary. I did the math, even if I hadn't lost however much unpaid time off to depression this last year, the most I would have made between my salary and my disability was $58k.

When I put all of this information into my states ACA marketplace back in August of this year at the behest of my therapist, I was told I qualified for plans via subsidies, but made too much to just qualify for the state's plan.

The first plan I found that I felt was reasonable, reasonable, not good, just reasonable, was just under $400/month with the subsidy, didn't have my therapist in network, and still had a $6k+ deductible. The cheapest plan had a deductible over $10k, and cost around $260ish a month.

I can't afford that, I'm sorry, between my mortgage, my car, insurance, utilities, bills, food, gas, credit card debt, etc, I don't have an extra $260-$400 a month for health insurance. I just don't, I'm sorry, wish I was as financially astute as everyone else on here seems to be, so I guess just fuck me.

But I'm not, hence why I think the ACA being held aloft like some grand triumph is a joke, especially considering John Oliver even has a segment on the Medicaid gap, and how people who should be covered aren't due to a myriad of reasons.

Best health insurance I ever had was Tricare, which is literally what America should have, and is arguably one of the largest socialist programs in the US. We did single payer already, for the military, and it's amazing. The ACA are the crumbs the liberal elite felt we deserved, and I will never not be pissed about it when I've seen we know how to do it right.

I live in a blue state in the Northeast, we went to Harris, and we've had a Democratic governor since at least the mid-2000s.

So am I allowed to complain?

Right, must be why I don't have health insurance via the ACA because it's unaffordable.

I make too much to qualify for actual help, but not enough to actually afford their awful health insurance plans with deductibles that negate the entire point of insurance to begin with.

And it's all about to be undone anyway, so let's keep singing the praises of the Democrat's least-failure in the last decade.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Which must be why the DNC has adopted "Progress is the enemy of our money."

Still waiting for you to enlighten all of us about how to properly participate with the DNC, troll?

We're waiting, c'mon Troll Genius, all of us morons need you to enlighten us, how do we participate with the DNC?

Well?

I was actually asking the other guy.

Cool story, but I was talking to you.

But uh, nice, uh . . rant.

Says the troll out for his daily round of trolling, the legitimate only thing the sad troll can contribute to their sad, trolling existence.

most gun owners seem completely incapable of doing so.

You got a source for "most" gun owners being "completely incapable of doing so?"

Cause I've yet to see a study that says any of what you said above.

I would say rightfully, yes.

Yep! Told my family that once they strip me of my disability, I will be priced-out of society: I won't be able to afford my house anymore, I won't be able to afford my bills, and I will likely lose everything. And I'll likely have nothing to live for.

They tell me I'm overreacting and that there are "checks and balances" in place to prevent them from doing that stuff. I just point at Roe v Wade and they tend to change the subject.

How is that not an achievement?

Because the Dems let the GOP gut it to get it to pass. The ACA as it is now, and as it was passed back then, was not what we were promised, and we still haven't gotten the ACA we were promised.

In fact, Harris dropped support for M4A and didn't campaign on it, so is that an achievement too? The Dems giving up the fight before it even started? Like they did during this administration, literally bending over any time the GOP put up any kind of resistance to any of the Dems legislation?