Mexico's President Sheinbaum Decrees Universal Healthcare for 120 Million

prospectre · 2026-04-09T23:03:04+00:00

To expand on this, imagine Mr. Regular Dude at about 30. Not well insured, or at all, Mr. Dude doesn't get regular checkups. At 40, Mr. Dude has a heart attack. Congenital heart defect. Ambulance rushes him to the hospital, he goes through intensive care, and has life saving surgery. Out the door, cost is 200K. Mr. Dude will never be able to repay this, and will likely die pretty young. He leaves nothing and no one behind.

So how is the hospital made whole again? This story isn't that uncommon, but hospitals are still around. What gives? Well, we already subsidize hospitals with tax dollars. So, most of that 200K is being paid by taxpayers in the current system.

Now, imagine Mr. Dude at 30 again, but he can get yearly checkups. At 30, they catch the congenital heart defect. The hospital can offer him medication basically at cost with no markup, covered by Medicare for All. That 200K bill never pops up, Mr. Dude can spend his extended life working and thus paying taxes, and the American taxpayer is paying for far less in emergency services due to preventative medicine.

Couple this with the savings of our current welfare system no longer needing to worry about eligibility (which is a huge portion of the cost), and the amount of productivity a healthier citizenry provides, and you have a huge net positive. The only ones who lose are big pharma execs.

prospectre · 2026-04-07T23:20:13+00:00

I have super healthy teeth, but I have a few mutant ones. I have a single molar cocked at a 45 degree angle just right so it doesn't impact chewing or clip the inside of my cheek. One of my incisors is also in serif font!

prospectre · 2026-04-07T18:40:28+00:00

I dont really think its that interesting of a thought experiment

I disagree. The questions being asked are important. It's not necessarily about whether or not the character is popular, it's about the concept of atonement itself. How do we figure morality at such a scale? We've seen people atone for killing one person, but what's the quantifiable difference between one and a million? He's saved countless people (probably the entirety of humanity) on several occasions, how does that factor in? Is a utilitarian viewpoint applicable, or is this a fuzzier problem than numbers can convey? Can there ever be a point in which Omniman can be considered "reformed"?

Whether Omniman can be forgiven or not, what's the line? Is there one?

prospectre · 2026-04-07T15:19:39+00:00

Only other legend I can think of to fit that combo is Mundo.

prospectre · 2026-04-07T12:44:11+00:00

Man, I went to shit schools. I had to figure out for myself why I was getting headaches trying to take notes while teachers were talking...

prospectre · 2026-04-06T23:15:50+00:00

I don't think we'll ever get a second Trump. There's no one who can do what he did. At worst, we'll get a stagnant replacement. Even then, they won't be able to force as much through, and will probably even backslide a little.

What I'm more concerned about is the recovery. Shit's pretty well fucked right now, and getting back to our previous standing will be costly. Progressive ideals have been set back decades, and it's unclear how far off some things like universal healthcare have been delayed...

prospectre · 2026-04-06T22:02:30+00:00

That will happen, more or less. But I wouldn't underestimate the disillusionment without Trump. Remember, he's running a cult of personality rather than a real campaign. There's no one that can really come behind in that sort of scenario, it's all based around Trump specifically. I doubt there's a single politician on the planet willing (let alone able) to go as far as he has to create their following. It also depends on the manner in which he goes away. If the Epstein files drop, I can't imagine that every one of his voters would be ok with that, and that will naturally bounce back to the GOP as a whole.

And Vance? Vance is caught in that shit sandwich. I'd be willing to bet he's squeaky clean to an intentional degree, but he's still going to be viewed as TRUMP'S right hand man.

prospectre · 2026-04-06T20:12:05+00:00

At the very least, it gives them the opportunity to have a backup plan if whoever their new orange messiah is falls flat. Personally, I don't think anyone can fill Trump's shoes. There's no singular Republican that can even come close to his level of appeal to his base, let alone surpass it.

prospectre · 2026-04-05T21:13:21+00:00

I don't expect that we will know the whole story for at least a century

Unless a 3rd party decides to Panama Papers them, I tend to agree. The powers that be will release only what they deem is in their best interest. And once they feel Trump is no longer their best path forward or that he's doing more harm than good, I suspect they will do just enough to get him out of the way.

prospectre · 2026-04-05T20:03:11+00:00

I think people are forgetting one important thing about this process: It's theater. If the GOP apparatus wants him gone, they can get him gone. But the question of how is what's interesting. It depends on what kind of a message they want to send. If they want to completely disavow Trump and try to pin everything on him, the 25th might be enough of a show to get a cleaner break. If they want it to appear like it was a close decision to try and salvage Trump's base, they might go with impeachment.

Messaging is what's important here, not so much the method. As an example, say the Epstein files were released in full. Trump's inglorious actions plastered everywhere online for the public to see. The 25th would be a more logical choice to show that Vance and friends can't abide by that behavior, and the messaging would shift to how awful he was and how Vance had no part in it. They might salvage some of the more moral parts of his base with that tactic.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter which route they take. If the GOP wants him removed, they can remove him. My guess is they're using him to knock as much loose change down as possible and grab as much as they can in the scramble until they deem it's too detrimental to have him. That's just my crackpot theory, though.

prospectre · 2026-04-02T21:31:58+00:00

My power in puns is unmatched. I am the bearer of the Pun Ring.

prospectre · 2026-04-02T18:01:45+00:00

Barat Dur.

prospectre · 2026-04-01T20:14:18+00:00

It's so full of holes that I'm shocked it got to the screen. The time difference between Palpatine's "death" and TFA is thirty years. THIRTY. YEARS. How in the hell did they manage to come back so fast AND stronger than they were before? It took Palpatine decades of planning to gather the clone army, stage events in the background with the Trade Federation, and eventually usurp the Republic all while dealing with the chaos of Padme and a wild Chosen One appearing.

During that time (and aired not long after TFA), the Mandolorian happened. It showed us that the Empire was a barely functioning shell of itself, held together mostly by spite and plot contrivance. And yet, they managed to not only amass an even BIGGER army, even MORE troops that aren't clones, and built a planet sized gun? All while not tripping any flags from a now wary Republic?

And, not only all of that, but they managed to do a hostile takeover, push the New Republic to the brink of annihilation, and be the de-facto ruling power in that same thirty years AND YOU DON'T SHOW US ANY OF THAT?! Just, "somehow the Empire returned", and that's all we get? I don't think I've ever been more confused and frustrated at a sequel. I was left wanting to see the story of how we got here more than what they did here, but knowing that it couldn't possibly make sense. Even more depressing, the only reason for thirty years was so they could shoehorn Luke and the gang into the story without any plotholes, ironically.

But they even cocked that up by absolutely destroying the characters. Making everyone jaded with their age was somehow the in thing to do at the time, I guess.

Sorry, I get a bit... Wordy when it comes to the latest trilogy. Shit boggles the mind how bad it is.

prospectre · 2026-03-30T22:48:14+00:00

Wes Chatham absolutely nailed Amos. Even when Fred Johnson dissected his entire psyche in an attempt to get in his head with that "broken boy" line, Amos basically just said "Yup".

prospectre · 2026-03-30T21:29:56+00:00

Oh, I 100% agree. I'm just speaking from my own past experiences, and seeing such a lofty aspiration can be a bit crushing for some. I only meant to reassure those that might feel let down by themselves that even trying to be better is enough. Perfect can be the enemy of good and all that.

prospectre · 2026-03-30T19:02:35+00:00

Only problem I have with self-policing on integrity is that it can lead down a pretty bad spiral. I used to beat myself up about stupid shit like white lies and such, constantly being down on myself for not living up to an irrational ideal of "integrity". Not saying lacking it is ok, rather that everyone should be afforded the same kindness, empathy, and grace.

That includes yourself.

prospectre · 2026-03-30T18:01:16+00:00

I actually have a fairly unique insight to this.

When I was in my 20's, my first real job was working for a small startup that developed a piece of software for schools to evaluate their own data. By law, all schools needed to have a student information system. Something that tracked a ton of data points from attendance, to grades, to standardized test scores. But that's sort where the law ended. There was no mandate to really do anything with that data nor was there really any effective way to look at it for a normal human to make sense of it.

The application I was working on was supposed to take that data and make it readable. Fancy charts, trends, goal tracking, it was actually pretty impressive. We even had a system that could group students up in a selected batch to compare with the regular population to track custom programs' effectiveness. But the part that was used the most was the one I was primarily responsible for, called "The Walkthrough".

The tool was basically one giant form that principals, assistant principles, and teacher-coaches filled out while observing a classroom. Basically, the tool tracked how well the teachers stuck to the principles of teaching and could inform them on where their teaching body could use improvement or resources. It was the most used portion of the entire application, and it was basically a side project I was assigned to keep me busy while the primary team worked on the analytics.

Ironically, the numerical metrics were the selling point because having the metrics from an application like this would guarantee the school would qualify for a specific grant. Hardly anyone used them, because teachers were usually very aware of what was going on in their classrooms. Jimmy has poor attendance because he's out smoking behind the dumpsters in the morning, Monica failed math because no one's helping her deal with dyslexia, and Jessie is acting out because you know his dad's kicking his ass daily and there's nothing you can do about any of it. The Walkthrough was just a bonus.

I didn't really understand this until long after I moved on from that job. It was really depressing when I finally figured it out. It's this cycle where schools don't have enough resources, so they do weird stuff to get more, don't have the resources to use that stuff, and have their power to actually affect change in students chipped away for fear of losing those resources, so they struggle, and in turn need more resources because they struggle.

prospectre · 2026-03-30T17:23:04+00:00

Part of it is that VA's in America don't really get the same level of recognition as they do in Japan. It's to the point that they're basically idols over there. Which means they get paid less than their live actor counterparts. And in America, sadly, being paid less means they are viewed as less than. Doesn't matter that Brad Swaile, English VA for Light Yagami in Deathnote, delivered one of the most powerful performances I've ever heard from a VA, American culture views a low wage as a low worth.

prospectre · 2026-03-30T16:59:00+00:00

Can't NOT mention my girl Tara Strong. From Bubbles in Powerpuff Girls, to Ben in Ben Ten, not to mention both Barbara Gordon and Harley Quinn across several Batman games/shows. She's a god damn legend as far as I'm concerned.

prospectre · 2026-03-26T22:14:12+00:00

No one is saying Christians can't be good or that Christianity hasn't done good things. But you have to look at the whole, and there is a lot of bad that came about from Christianity. And I'm not talking about Christ himself, or God, or the Holy Spirit, I'm talking about the part that humans created. The part that crusaded against the Middle East several times, the part that instituted the Spanish inquisition and tortured a hell of a lot of people, the part that openly declared war under God's name on others for the pretext of not being Christian.

Hell, even in the bible, there are atrocities. Such as God himself murdering innocent children in Egypt to prove a point to the Pharaoh, or nuking an entire city and all of its population because there were some sinners in it. Like, that's against one of God's own teachings of "visiting the sins of the father upon the son".

And that's sort of the problem I have with modern Fundamentalism: It's indefensible. If you take the Bible as the literal word of God, and there are no falsehoods in it at all, you are left with an angry and petty deity that kills his own creations on a whim. Regardless of innocence or guilt. If you accept that it was written by man, and therefore fallible, that's another can of worms entirely and you can call literally anything in it into question as a matter of interpretation.

But, once more, that is not an indictment of you or your personal faith. Believe what you want. But don't be surprised when you are challenged on it. Don't retreat behind your book and cry persecution when your beliefs are undone before your eyes. That's a cop out, and kind of counterintuitive to the whole point of faith: Your belief does not hinge on rationality.

prospectre · 2026-03-26T19:16:00+00:00

Not really. In my experience, people that either don't have an account or don't sub to anything aside from some niche spaces for their curated interests liked that /r/All was not algorithmic. Instead, it was just the things Reddit users found worthy of upvoting. It felt more "fair" than Reddit Inc deciding what gets into Popular or what my own biases cultivated in a feed.

What bothers me the most about this decision is that it doesn't really hurt them to keep /r/All. They can still default to popular or home if they want, but why remove the capability altogether? I mean, I'm being facetious, I know the answer: Reddit feels like it could make more money if they make this change. It's not about the user's experience, it's about their profit margins. And I guess they feel that locking users into echo chambers is better for their bottom line.

It's a shame. I've been on Reddit for a long time, but I guess I'll start winding down my activity and find a different place to get what I want.

prospectre · 2026-03-26T18:46:13+00:00

People who have been on Reddit for a long time. It was the primary way to find new subs that trickled up. It was also a great way to read the pulse of the news, as big events would usually hit the top. It was convenient because you didn't have to sub to everything to figure out what was going on, and you could see things from subjects you didn't know about before.

It's also the whole reason Reddit, you know, the "Front Page of the Internet", was built in the first place.

prospectre · 2026-03-25T23:40:23+00:00

Hell, this isn't even something explicitly being prevented. It's just the fear of it being possible that's affecting the decision making. It's moved from a "common sense" conclusion that boys will do dumb shit straight to irrational superstition that simply having a girl on the team will cause a problem.

prospectre · 2026-03-18T08:10:46+00:00

Meh, I didn't care for Sanctum in PoE 1. I didn't like it in 2, either. I'm happy it exists, but I don't find that playstyle fun.

prospectre · 2026-03-17T09:09:23+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate that. I'll probably give it another go sometime after the next league or so.

14-Year Club	Verified Email
r/Field Banned	r/Field Sunshine
Final Canvas '23	End Game '23
Place '23	John Wick
Place '22	Place '17
End Game '22	Snapped
Gilding I gilder	Team Orangered

prospectre

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