butdiduvote
butdiduvote's JournalBe careful selecting your plan every year if you get insurance through the marketplace.
This is my 3rd year getting a marketplace plan, and before that I was on my parents' insurance. Every other time, my copay for therapy has been the same as my specialist copay, so I assumed that would be the case with all plans. Turns out the real info on mental health care was buried deep within the longer version of my explanation of benefits. The marketplace shows you a benefit summary, but this didn't mention anything about mental health costs...I thought a mental health care provider just fell under the same category as a specialist.
Turns out there is a deductible I have to meet before my insurance will cover any therapy at all, and then after that, they pay a percentage rather than me paying a copay. The result is I'm not able to afford therapy until at least next year. This was the worst possible year this could have happened between Trump's election and personal circumstances. I've been an anxious, depressed mess and don't have many options for dealing with it other than crying a lotand reminding myself I'll hopefully have new insurance if the GOP don't take that away in X number of months.
I hate these weeks when the Russian investigation seems to be at a standstill.
There haven't been any major drips lately. Nothing confirmed anyway. There are still the usual "inside scoop" Twitter accounts posting claims but nothing that has been properly verified and reported by mainstream outlets. At least to me, it makes it feel like the entire thing has been contained and we'll never know the truth. I know the behind-the-scenes work doesn't magically stop during times when the public isn't getting any new information, but at the same time, the lack of leaks makes me wonder if the Trump people are getting better at burying the story and silencing those with information to leak.
Explain to me in dummy terms the implications of these people agreeing to testify?
How is everyone interpreting the fact that Stone, Manafort, and Page have agreed to testify before the House? It seems a good number of people are giddy about it, but why is their eagerness to talk a good thing?
Have my fellow red staters also felt lonely since Nov 9th?
I've always hated living here, but it was bearable because, even if the people around me were backwards thinking folks who would gleefully take away my rights given the chance, I still lived in a country that was more blue than it was red and I still knew I was on the side of reality. Now that these fuckers are emboldened, my stress levels living here are through the roof. I feel like I can't even do things I used to do to escape when life got to be too much such as go on a long walk because I'm fully aware that 70% of the people I smile at while they walk by are Trump voters who are quite proud of themselves for dashing my hopes of a caring, inclusive government. No one is physically doing anything to me, yet I feel under attack in a sense. I don't belong here. These people don't understand me.
I know living in a blue area won't make everything about our current situation magically better and that there will still be a fair number of conservatives nearby literally anywhere, but I guess it's the proportion that would make a world of difference. I so wish I could afford to leave here.
When will things get bad to the point that those currently unconconcerned can't deny things are bad?
Forgive me if I don't describe this very well, but I feel like I'm in some kind of weird place where, on one hand, holy shit look at how much damage this guy is doing to our country's institutions, image, social climate, etc., yet on the other hand, nothing concrete has really changed in my life if I just block out politics (other than that gas has gone up a few pennies).
I think most of my distress right now has come from just being someone who values our institutions, intellectualism, dignity, and you know, facts. As a woman, I also on principle am very distressed to know that so many of my neighbors are okay putting someone in office who thinks so lowly of women to the point that he brags about sexually assaulting us. However, at the end of the day, can I say he has done anything to alter the way I go about my daily life? Aside from the obnoxious political discussions I now have to avoid from Hillary-hating family and friends, not yet.
Do you think we're going to see a day when everyone and not just those of us who are so disturbed by all of what is going on for mostly cerebral reasons is hurting because of this administration? How long will it take to get there? Will it ever get there?
**I do acknowledge that life has already gotten objectively worse for the people affected by the travel ban, deportations, and increase in hate crimes and do not mean to in any way minimize their suffering. I just know that those consequences aren't enough to make most Americans feel their daily lives have been concretely impacted by this asshole.
Is colluding with Russia to influence the election necessarily illegal/impeachable?
Obviously working with Russia to straight up rig the voting machines would be, but say it is proven that Trump worked with them to put out propaganda to influence voters' minds. Would that alone automatically do him in? Or is there a case to be made that, while slimey, it's not illegal?
Trump is my anxiety's worst nightmare from a personality standpoint alone.
I remember last year when all of those mass killings were happening seemingly all at once -Orlando, Paris, Dhaka, and others- I was so anxious it was hard for me to go to the grocery store without jumping at every sound. I recall Obama coming on the TV to do a press conference about it all while I was in a cafeteria and thinking that his calm demeanor and the fact that he, you know, knew stuff made me instantly feel more at ease and safe. There's nothing Trump could do that could make me feel reassured we're gonna be okay...he just inspires more fear and anxiety the moment he enters a room, let alone opens his mouth. The only nights since inauguration where I've gone to bed actually relaxed were the nights when a bunch of news stories dropped and it was looking like he really was about to be forced to leave the office. I don't want 4 years of this. Why do so many want this as their leader?
This might sound like fragile snowflake stuff, but when you struggle with intense anxiety, having your country in the hands of someone steady and competent makes a world of difference.
What is the strategy behind drip drip dripping info instead of dropping it all at once?
I keep seeing people say the IC or the "Obama people" are strategically leaking info little by little as part of some strategic plan to take him down, but what I don't get is why put the country through this hell if the incriminating info is there now? The only thing I can think of is there isn't really anything damning enough to warrant impeachment, so they're just trying to make his life miserable, bring down his favorables, and keep him as distracted from governing as possible.
This (already) great country didn't deserve any of this.
The more I sit and stew about the Russian hacking of our election and collusion with the Trump campaign, which I find it hard to believe didn't occur, the more I realize I'm just pissed at how much it all did to divide and distress our country. And for what? For oil money? For a narcissist's ego? It all seems so unnecessary and, ultimately, unfair to the American citizens who are the ones suffering for all of it.
This past election should have been an opportunity for us to spend a year and a half exchanging ideas about ways to improve lives for everyday Americans. Instead, it devolved into a shit show that left just about every group but white men feeling thrown under the bus by a major party nominee for president. It left our sane candidate desperately trying to have her ideas heard among the spectacle and propaganda of it all.
Right now, we should be continuing to discuss policies that impact people's everyday lives, but instead, we're losing our minds trying to make sense of all this incredibly complex Russian plot. So many of us are experiencing strained relationships and often straight-up physical manifestations of the stressful situation this administration has already put this country in.
I think what I'm most angry about is I feel like my vote this past election wasn't honored and valued, and those in power don't give a shit about it. I can accept my candidate losing fair and square in an election, but this election wasn't fair and square; it's people like me who are the ultimate losers because of it, and the attitude from Washington seems to be, "Oh well. What happened, happened. Let's move on now."
Also, aside from the entire thing being incredibly unfair to America as a whole, women in particular didn't deserve this. We didn't deserve for the first time a woman is at the top of the ticket to be a rigged election.
Is the Russia story good and buried now?
It seemed like the dam was definitely bursting there for a while with the reactions to Comey's closed-door meeting and Flynn's resignation. Since then, a whole lot of nothing major has come out, and so many signs point to those in power having no interest in pursuing a thorough, impartial investigation.
Is this it? Did the chance to take him down with this pass?
Profile Information
Member since: Sat Jan 28, 2017, 12:32 AMNumber of posts: 284
