politics

I'm a disabled vet. I'm unemployable. SSDI is the only thing that makes things breathable for us. The only real way I have to make any money on the side is by painting DnD minis, dice towers, or maybe Gunpla commissions. It's so difficult to do much in a day that it takes me quite some time to paint just a couple minis. Months on a gundam. I just don't have the stamina to do much in a day. Fatigue is killing me. I've got a few painted, but I haven't had the energy to put them up anywhere yet. I have just as many to paint still.

Body wide small fiber neuropathy, a central nervous system issue and colon removal really tanked me. Winter (Wa state) and fronts rolling through, even in summer, tank me even more. I think the change in air pressure is what does it.

A cut in medicare means that I also now have copays. I have tons of doc appointments still. No one can tell me what the root of the issue is, or at least prove it as it's very likely chemical exposures. All funding that would have led to a "here it is" was shuttered. Regular blood tests due to colon removal. Regular tests due to the fucked up nervous system, which is still progressing 20 years after the last exposure and 18 after it started.

My wife is a PARA, but we're in a low income area and PARAs don't make shit. From my excel math, we can make it by with no SSDI. However, we'll have absolutely no extra money. No money to replace clothes. No money for home repairs. No money for vehicle repairs. Before you say it, we do need them. Taking public transit is incredibly painful, and shitty at best. Plus I have no energy to do that. I can barely do the appointments I have, even driving myself the only 20 mins, avg, to the various doc appointments.

I feel like such a waste already. I love math. I love engineering. I love turning a wrench. I love cooking. I can barely do any of it. These assholes seem to think we're all grifting and "welfare" queens. Sad thing is, there are many more vets in my position. Yet many don't seem to realize that the GOP hates us. They'll keep voting for it. Voting for that shotgun to the foot and pleading for more like a gimp gagging daddy for more.

@LillyPip @inclementimmigrant This is fucking insane, it's 2025, but these assholes want to take it back to like the 1900s for no reason at all.

IDK what else to say other than this admin needs to be stopped, and it has to happen now.

As a fellow writer I don't want you to die. I bought your book can't wait to read it. Stay safe and if we on Lemmy can do anything to help please let us know.

@LillyPip @inclementimmigrant

Sincerely sorry you’ve been caught in this mess. Have you considered reaching out to your congressional Representative? They can sometimes work magic for their constituents. It’s part of their job to get us through red tape barriers.

Also, every major pharmaceutical company has a compassionate care program for meds, although I don’t know about having to re-qualify every 3 months & how that might affect their assistance. If your doc has a hospital nearby, they should have staff dedicated to assisting patients in dire situations. Your state should also have help, especially if you’re receiving aid.

Don’t give up. You’re worth whatever trouble it takes. Being ill and disabled and homebound is all hard enough without this added bureaucratic bullshit to deal with. I wish you the very best! ♥️

i don't want you to die

I’d like to say I don’t understand what you’re going through.

I’m a 3x attempt survivor, disabled, and terrified. I’m on SSDI, Medicare/Medicaid, and in HUD housing. My situation is not the same but I see you.

I wish there was more I could offer, but you are not alone.

It's really disgusting how these self proclaimed Christians are so eager to discard the needy to give to the ultra wealthy.

There are still American out there are trying to fight to help disabled Americans like you and everyone else to be able to live a dignified life.

Hang in there.

@LillyPip @inclementimmigrant That's Trump for you! He wants to destroy you and many others!

This must be terrifying. I disagree with this new requirement to appear in person every few months for reasons just like this, and I'd like to share cases like yours when I talk to Trump voters. Would you be willing to share the condition that keeps you homebound and prevents you from traveling in person?

Thanks for sharing this with us. If my friend was in similar circumstances, I would tell them to read this de-paywalled 404 Media article with a doctor and lawyer next to them, to do what the doctor and lawyer say and comply with all laws and best practices and sensible precautions, and that it wasn’t medical or legal advice and neither is this Lemmy post.

Also, corsetry kicks ass and your work is gorgeous. My SO found creators like Abby Cox, Bernadette Banner, and Nicole Rudolph during 2020 and it’s been an absolutely mesmerizing rabbit hole to fall into even for a cishet fella well outside the key demographics. Although, unisex medical compression support garments are more relevant to me lately; is that an angle that drew you to them with EDS and everything?

I’m glad there’s a gamepad in that picture too. What you’ve shared speaks to a life lived very well in spite of health and circumstance.

😳😱🤯😮😲🙊😯

Anyway.

the tax cuts in 2017, saved the billionaires around 1.7-2.4trillion, this is double that. plus the continuing pillaging by trump.

I think from now on we should only use the term "parasite class" when talking about the elites, the 1%, the billionaires, the wealthy, the rich, the landlords. Make it a habit, maybe even trendy. Parasite class. I like it.

Yay freedom!

Keep an eye on RFK Jr. though. He seems like the death-panel eugenicist type.

For-profit Health Insurance companies are death panels, always have been.

Profit Uber Alles.

People had their chance to stop him last November. A third of those eligible didn’t even vote.

Now it’s up to the courts. The other branches of government are controlled by a deranged Authoritarian and his sycophants.

This can be stopped but the GOP is unwilling to do the legal process to stop him

Remember that time conservatives said they needed guns to defend themselves from a tyrannical government?

and the msm have rarely brought up that over the years.

republicans think the middle class starts at 100 million dollars

Whaaat, the EO that the stable genius claimed will save "TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS"?

“It really does seem the plan is to ask manufacturers to voluntarily lower their prices to some point, which is not known,” Sachs said. “If they do not lower their prices to the desired point, HHS shall take other actions with a very long timeline, some of which could potentially, years in the future, lower drug prices"

That executive order?

You think he would write a toothless, narrowly-focused, bullshit executive order as, what?

A distraction?

From the massive cut to medicaid? That he and his entire party promised a thousand times over they would never do? That will absolutely, directly, fuck over not just Americans on medicaid - but all Americans? Everywhere?

If you didn't know, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is far more than just an insurance provider! It's a critical part of our healthcare system.

As most nursing homes rely almost exclusively on CMS funding, they also have to obey CMS rules if they want to get paid. Rules which - in a lot of states - are basically the only thing keeping grandma alive!

The piss-poor quality of elder care in this country can and will plummet even further if CMS was ever reduced in scope and funding. That would be horrifying and evil.

Can you imagine, a sitting president willfully dismantling a load-bearing pillar of our society like that? And lying about it? In writing?

Were you aware that much of our problems in US healthcare - in one way or another - tie back to CMS not being allowed to negotiate drug prices at all? At least until recently in 2022, when democrats pushed a bill that at least allowed some drug prices to be negotiated?

Which is why an executive order would ever be necessary - because CMS, the single largest American insurance provider, is legally not allowed to negotiate most of its drug prices, and instead just has to take what it gets?

And you think a sitting President would do that? Write a bullshit executive order as a distraction? Set up a faux protest from major pharmaceutical companies, who have a vested interest in privatizing as much of the healthcare industry as possible?

Pharmaceutical companies who will loudly complain about the executive order on maybe-potentially-in-the-future reduced drug prices, but for some reason keep funneling money into the Republican warchest?

All while he further hamstrings the literal life support system for senior citizens in America? Claim he's saving us trillions of dollars, while quietly pulling the plug on our most vulnerable neighbors?

You think he would pretend it's for our sake, even though the downstream effects of forcing people off health insurance inevitably leads to abandonment of all routine, preventative care? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, you know!

All those poor patients will then get debilitating mountains of illness where there should have been easily treatable mole hlls, the total cost to the healthcare system will skyrocket, local family health and preventative care services will suffer and bankrupt due to a sudden lack of insured customers, and chronically underfunded hospital systems in low income areas will collapse as they increasingly pay the costs of keeping their community alive!

And you think a sitting president would do that? Throw out a bullshit distraction while he pulls the trigger on a decades-long effort to collapse all public funding for healthcare? Send our rural and urban healthcare systems into a tailspin? Open up the floor for private equity to finish cannibalizing whatever's left, all for higher stock prices and earning reports?

Surely that could never happen in a civilized society.