[ToucanLoucan]

We don't do that in America. We pick whichever boogeymen are more scary to our given political team and make that the only cause while arguing back and forth and not actually doing anything while we all get robbed fucking blind and pay our politicians six figure salaries for doing fuck-all.

I fucking hate it here.

[llamaimperative]

Not really. The current administration has been going after healthcare on several fronts: lots of FTC enforcement against PE in healthcare; increased number of funded medical residency slots; allowed Medicare to negotiate prices directly with drug companies; attempted to stop excessive consolidation in healthcare businesses.

All of these are reasonable attempts to solve big, important problems and I don't think it's helpful to throw your hands in the air and say no one is trying to do anything.

[tracker1]

The Medicare negotiation allowed has still been VERY limited. It should be granted full out by congress, as well as combined for federal employee and VA coverage as well as congress itself... they should all have the same coverage, thus the same incentives. Open/public pricing models would be a good start. As would domestic production and multiple supplier requirements for medications and devices just from a security stand point.

In general the current FTC is better than most in my lifetime, that said, there are plenty of other areas of Govt that are really bad, and even the FTC and SEC could be doing much, much more. It's a mixed bag.

Contrary to a lot of replies, I don't think that another Trump presidency would be particularly worse in these areas as they are pretty populist in nature. Trump isn't a die hard conservative, he's really a populist first.

[llamaimperative]

Agreed it all can and should be better. That doesn't mean "it doesn't matter which administration" etc. There are meaningful differences and the sane thing is to prefer the better option over the worse option, even if neither is particularly perfect or downright evil.

When it comes to improving systems like these, incompetence, hamfistedness, and inaction can be plenty damaging by themselves. "I will roll back ACA and replace it with [crickets for 4+ years]" is a worse alternative.

[tracker1]

If course there are differences between different administrations. Unfortunately, the best I can hope for is one that I agree with even 60% of the time.

And even then, some issues are far more important and foundational than others.

[ToucanLoucan]

And the next republican president, Trump or otherwise, will undo it all on day one.

We need ACTUAL SOLUTIONS. Changes to existing laws, or new laws. Consensus governance, not just executive orders.

[llamaimperative]

Sure, but that's not a "both sides" problem. Lay blame where blame lies.

[ToucanLoucan]

I do. We have the Democrats who are mostly alright and well meaning, with exceptions but in practice are not capable of handling what the Republicans have become, which is theocratic-fascists. And the Republicans are filling the legislature with dipshits who scream about Jewish space-lasers and want to regress us socially to the 1920's.

They both suck, one side notably more so.

[llamaimperative]

Preach, brother/sister/tropical bird.