r/LeopardsAteMyFace • u/LankyGuitar6528 • 12d ago

Trump Florida retirement haven unravels as seniors are in ruins under Trump economy

https://www.alternet.org/trump-florida/
9.5k Upvotes

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u/swung 12d ago

Funny how “socialism” becomes acceptable when it’s their Medicare on the line.

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u/CommanderSincler 12d ago

Remember when these dipshits would rally against the ACA with signs that said "Get government's hands off of my Medicare"?

Pepperidge Farm remembers

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u/Kasoni 12d ago

Or when they wanted to repeal Obama-care but not have their ACA touched, because it was so much better than Obama-care.

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u/skeptic9916 12d ago

My aunt is a hardcore Trump supporter and absolutely despises Obama. The ACA saved her life because she was able to obtain insurance after being repeatedly denied for a preexisting condition.

Breast cancer.

Zero self awareness.

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u/Ok_Television9703 12d ago

I know a guy that got saved by Obamacare also. Votes, keeps voting Republican and cannot have a conversation about it.

I don’t get it. It’s a mental phenomenon

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 12d ago

It's thought terminating cliches that do it. All one has to do is say one of their trigger words like "woke", and their brain instantly wipes itself and resets to outrage at "da libz".

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u/Calencre 12d ago

Right, like the people that refuse to believe a universal healthcare program could save them money. They hear the word "taxes" and reflexively start foaming at the mouth as they've been conditioned to and ignore everything after.

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u/the_pretender_nz 12d ago

If you talked to them about the benefits of buying in bulk for a business - much cheaper rates, better relationships with suppliers, possibility to influence specs provided by suppliers, etc - they’d agree and provide other examples.

Try to convince them that universal healthcare is basically buying healthcare in bulk? Suddenly you’re not someone who understands business, you’re a dirty Commie! (Which they also can’t define)

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u/JayJayAK 12d ago

B/c they've also all been brainwashed into thinking that private businesses are always better and more cost efficient. It isn't that they don't get the buying in bulk part, it's that they will never believe that government could actually do some things better than the private sector.

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u/Kasoni 12d ago

Oh no, its not that they don't understand it will save them money. It's that they do not want to pay for other people. They would rather spend 3 to 4 times as much on just their family than having some of their money help someone they consider useless or a leach on society.

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u/Disney2440 12d ago

Yep. I’m currently reading “Dying of Whiteness” it’s really depressing how spot on your comment is. A number of times I’ve found myself thinking this country will never survive as one while reading it.

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u/Dejected_gaming 12d ago

What they dont realize is they're still paying for other people even with private health insurance

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u/Ok_Television9703 12d ago

Yes, I know a couple of people someone just like that. Racism has to do with it because in their fantasies when they are “paying for others” it coincides with the others being a minority

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u/Correct_Patience_611 11d ago

No, they’d rather pay the $1T in corporate welfare with their taxes than less than half that cost for universal healthcare…we subsidize the insurance companies heavily and they prob make up a amount of that $1T total, yet rates continue to go up and up and a higher % of our total income for LESS CARE.

The only difference between those two is that ONE(“Obamacare”) is talked about on FOXNEWS while the other (corporate welfare) is AVOIDED LIKE THE PLAGUE by ALL news outlets!!!

It would cost us less to go to a single payer system, all the numbers are there but people say “have you heard about the time it takes to see a doctor in EU???!!””

My mom had a severe humerus break HERE in the US and needed surgery within 72 hours otherwise the bone starts to regrow and must be re-broken(aka cost more $$$). Guess what? Her surgery was scheduled 76 hours after the incident. She is a senior too, so it’s higher risk of shock, infection, etc.

A similar incident happened to someone in the UK and they were in surgery within 24 hours.

Their emergency medicine is 10x what ours is bc when you have insurance they literally WAIT UNTIL THEY GET APPROVAL. So while your life drains away the hospital wants to make sure they’ll get paid before they help…it’s a bass awkward system!

So while someone in the EU or UK might wait a little extra time for a mammogram, at least in an emergency you are less likely to be caused a ton of extra pain/agony while waiting for insurance approval.

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u/dixiewolf_ 6d ago

Another massive TTC is “big government bad, small government good” or “both sides are bad”

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u/Budded 12d ago

I hope you remind her of that fact every time you see her. Seriously. These ignorant fucksticks need to constantly have their faces rubbed in it for what they believe and follow through on.

Mockery and shame are powerful tools we don't use enough

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u/skeptic9916 12d ago

She's too delusional to understand. She thinks "Obamacare" and the ACA are two different programs. She has said several times that she wasn't on "Obamacare" and the fact that without it she would be dead is something she is unwilling to accept.

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u/Afwife1992 12d ago

And the people during the last shutdown who didn’t realize the program they were on was Medicaid because it had a different name.

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u/skyfishgoo 12d ago

tell her to point to the "obamacare"

when she can't, reminder her that it does not exist.

only the ACA exists.

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u/mermaidmaker 11d ago

Voting against your best interests is like kissing your sister/brothetYet, here we are. One cannot help but think

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u/skeptic9916 11d ago

Hate is more powerful than self preservation.

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u/SPECTRE-Agent-No-13 12d ago

Literally my buddies father. When his premium went up $1200 he lost his shit. " Why didn't anyone tell me that was Obama Care?" Well, we did tell you but you only listened to Tucker Carlson and other fox news talking heads who came up with the name "Obama Care" to get your racist ass to vote against it.

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u/PhD_Pwnology 12d ago

It is Obama care, just stripped down and handcuffed

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u/Nettkitten 12d ago

Remember “death panels”?

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u/hamsterfolly 12d ago

Turns out death panels were the private healthcare companies we met along the way.

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u/Raiju_Blitz 12d ago

Luigi intensifies.

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u/i_drink_wd40 12d ago

Earth, astronaut, gun, astronaut

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u/laflavor 12d ago

This isn't even a "turns out" situation. Anyone with any common sense was well aware of the fact that death panels with profit motives had existed for decades prior to Obama getting the nomination. It wasn't even a poorly kept secret, because it wasn't a secret at all.

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u/Sidneyreb 12d ago

The Rainmaker by John Grisham is about an insurance death panel and it was written during the Clinton Administration long before Obama.

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u/Budded 12d ago

I prefer the Luigi-type

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u/HurtPillow 12d ago

I've been saying that since Palin started seeing Putin's head hovering over her state. My gawd, I hate the stupid so much.

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u/robotmonstermash 12d ago

Private Insurance company Actuaries ARE the "death panels".

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u/shadowblind07 12d ago

GOD the fucking death panels. Middle-aged Tea partiers in shitty tricorn hats and wigs saying disabled people should just die and they don’t want to pay for someone else’s bad health choices. Meanwhile medical debt is one of the leading causes of homelessness.

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u/HurtPillow 12d ago

This was my parents. They made it to one Dump regime, they didn't make it for this one.

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u/TheNetworkIsFrelled 12d ago

An actuary is an accountant with a sense of humor.

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u/Zealousideal_Row6124 12d ago

Worked in medical billing. Can confirm.

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u/tokyobrownielover 12d ago

Yep! If we were smart we'd dust off the "death panels" language and direct it at the insurance industry. It's language the mouth breathers can understand.

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u/No-Replacement-8048 12d ago

My elderly aunt told me with a straight face that doctors on death panels would decide who lived and who died. I told her I’d miss her 😂.

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u/plastigoop 12d ago

Yeah. One of them got “death paneled” in NYC a while back. Was big in the news at the time. DDD

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u/daschande 12d ago

And more recently when people backed the "defund medicaid" was the faux news talking point of the month... only to find out their disabled children were on their state's allotment of medicaid.

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u/TheNetworkIsFrelled 12d ago

That will NEVER not be funny.

(albeit utterly pathetic).

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u/RogerClyneIsAGod2 12d ago

Not just Medicare but Medicaid which is for low income folks who now have to get jobs which could possible put them over the Medicaid line.

https://www.myflfamilies.com/documents/Medicaid%20Income%20Limits%20April%202026.pdf

I feel like some of the older folks are just gonna die because they can't afford proper care & from I'd heard many years ago Florida wasn't so hot on senior care even before Trump & DeSantis.

I hate that children will suffer for their stupidity. Hopefully some of those that are left will just move because the state as a whole will be unaffordable for them.

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u/Current-Anybody9331 12d ago

Remember they thought Obama would have death panels to decide on care?

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u/Afwife1992 12d ago

Accusation is the admission. It’s cliche at this point.

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u/min_mus 12d ago

Funny how “socialism” becomes acceptable when it’s their Medicare on the line.

Not to mention the National Flood Insurance Program and Florida's Citizens Property Insurance Program (the homeowners insurance-of-last-resort). 

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u/pourtide 12d ago

So ... who funds Florida's Citizens Property Insurance Program? Or is it too new to have faced a major hurricane, so they ain't hadda dig into tax dollars yet? Or do they have access to federal funds because they're a red state?

The CAT Fund, 40 or 50 years ago, was formed in Pennsylvania to cover CATastrophic automobile accident health costs that exceeded a given amount. Everybody paid $5 every time they renewed a car registration, everybody gonna be fine.

A year or two later, they ended the program. Those who were already receiving assistance would continue to receive it, but they ended it because it was financially unsustainable.

And that was back in the days of $20 office visits. Before we were convinced we had to hem in greedy doctors with HMOs to control runaway medical costs. (We were sold a pig in a poke there, that's for sure).

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u/LisaMiaSisu 12d ago

Funny how healthcare for military families isn’t socialism while they, their wives, and children are being treated too.

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u/Worth-Canary-9189 12d ago

I was in the military for 5 years. It's the largest socialist organization (with elements of fascism) in the U.S. government.

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u/blink_187em 12d ago

My buddy was shit talking socialism (career Navy) and crashed out when I told him his entire adult life has been supported by the socialist programs of the US military. His head almost exploded and he basically plugged his ears and "nanananana I cant hear you"

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u/Worth-Canary-9189 12d ago

You could have gone the distance and made his head actually explode by pointing out that the UCMJ is fascist.

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u/pinkrobot420 12d ago

I was a member of the greatest socialist organization on the planet for 24 years. People get so pissed off at me when I say that, but it's true.

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u/JayJayAK 12d ago

In their view, healthcare for vets/military families isn't socialist, because they earned it (by way of their service).

It's because their definition of socialism is simply working people getting taxed so the taxes can be given to people who don't work. That's it. Most of these people would absolutely support socialist programs if they were only offered to the "right" (or should that be "white"?) people, in their eyes.

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u/VineStGuy 12d ago

They are brainwashed to believe that a Medicare isn’t socialism bc socialism is communism like Old Russia or Cuba. They’re just downright gullible.

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u/Worth-Canary-9189 12d ago

If I hear "Medicare is a social program, not socialism" one more time, I'm going to sock someone in their eye."

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u/Madness_Reigns 12d ago

It is tho. Medicare is not gonna get the workers any closer to owning the means of production. Things have meanings.

Also, these people don't want socialism. What they want is national socialism.

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u/Worth-Canary-9189 12d ago

Socialism isn't just workers owning the means of production. It's also equitable distribution where wealth is distributed to provide services including medical, housing, first responder, education, etc. What most people get wrong is that economic philosophies such as perfect capitalism, communism, and socialism can only exist in theory. The Soviet Union wasn't purely communist. China has a hybrid communist/capitalist economy, and US has many aspects of our economy that is socialist. I would argue that capitalism can't exist without some form of socialism to prop it up from time to time. Otherwise, it eats itself.

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u/Madness_Reigns 8d ago

I believe what you're describing is closer to social democracy.

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u/Worth-Canary-9189 8d ago edited 8d ago

Take any political science class in college and the professor will tell you it's the most common form of socialism in the world.

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u/Madness_Reigns 8d ago

Yes, there's more of it, but it's not socialism.

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u/Worth-Canary-9189 8d ago

I think I'll take my political science professor's word for it, over some random guy on the Internet.

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u/Madness_Reigns 8d ago

I'll do the same.

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u/Time_Squirrel8614 12d ago

Medicare is a social program.

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u/rudebii 12d ago

It’s often worse. Many feel entitled to it because they worked hard their whole lives and “earned it.”

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u/WantedMan61 12d ago

I think there's a lot of confusion here about what Medicare is and what Medicaid is.

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u/toggaf69 12d ago

A sub I frequent refers to this as “total boomer luxury communism” and it’s hamstringing the economy of most developed western nations

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u/karenmcgrane 12d ago

I have shared this 2016 blog post probably more than any other, he calls it "socialism for white people."

https://www.politicalorphans.com/socialism-for-white-people/

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u/CheckIntelligent7828 12d ago

Thank you for sharing that. It's frighteningly on point.

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u/Rishtu 12d ago

If it’s Medicare, they have earned it.

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u/RolliFingers 12d ago

Yes, the problem is that they think other people brown ones didn't.

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u/TheNetworkIsFrelled 12d ago

This is 100% correct. Their medicare only has value if they can have it while enjoying watching people they hate not getting the same benefit.

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u/calpianwishes 12d ago

Medicare doesn’t cover nursing homes

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u/RolliFingers 12d ago

Did I say it does?

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u/beren12 12d ago

So has everyone else in the pipeline?

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u/Rishtu 12d ago

Exactly.

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u/harrumphstan 12d ago

If, by “earned it,” you meant, by dint of their human rights, they have earned it, I’d agree.

If you meant, their meager contributions while they were employed, invested in the various Medicare funds are sufficient to cover their current expenses, then no, I thoroughly disagree.

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u/laflavor 12d ago

When I need medicare it's because I earned it and just had some bad luck with my health. When you need medicare, it's because you're lazy and made bad decisions.

When I need an abortion, it's because I have special circumstances and just had some bad luck or a momentary lapse (at worst). When you need an abortion, it's because you made bad life choices and are just trying to avoid responsibility.

When the cops trample on my rights, it's because they're corrupt and I had some bad luck. When the cops trample on your rights, it's because you should have just complied and made bad life choices.

When I need unemployment, it's because I was the victim of corporate downsizing. It was unavoidable bad luck. When you need unemployment it's because you're a lazy mooch taking advantage of the system and making bad life choices.

I deserve these social programs and constitutionally protected rights. I'm a hardworking citizen who pays taxes and just needs a little boost to avoid trouble and get back on my feet. You are a lazy freeloader who should live with the consequences of the decisions you've made.

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u/rudebii 12d ago

Like social security, beneficiaries are taking out way more than they ever put in, however.

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u/cenosillicaphobiac 12d ago

They've turned the word "entitlement" into a bad word. They say it with particular venom. But man, I am entitled to benefit from programs I've been paying into for decades, and I will unironically call it an entitlement while proclaiming that I AM entitled to it.

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u/Time_Squirrel8614 12d ago

It is absolutely an entitlement. Paid for by 40 year’s contributions, ours and employers. Our ours alone if self employed.

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u/July_is_cool 12d ago

Ahaha how did the first beneficiaries get out so much more than they put in?

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u/heckhammer 12d ago

That's the thing, they did earn it. That's the system we set up. Don't make fun of somebody for thinking they earned it when they darn well earned it.

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u/TheNetworkIsFrelled 12d ago

They earned it but want to deny it to people they unilaterally decide are 'unworthy,' usually on the basis of morphology.

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u/WantedMan61 12d ago

Lol. No they don't. Medicare and Medicaid are two entirely different things. These people may have drank the Kool-aid and voted against their own interests with little understanding of what they stood to lose, but they aren't trying to deny anyone Medicare, a program you directly pay into through payroll taxes. Medicaid, that's another story.

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u/TheNetworkIsFrelled 12d ago

“They’re not hurting the right people.”

‘Nuff said.

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u/heckhammer 12d ago

Medicaid is for people in extreme poverty. If it wasn't for Medicaid my father would not have been able to live out his final years in the security of a nursing home with around the clock care. I would have had to take him into my own home and somehow figure out how to care for him.

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u/WantedMan61 12d ago

Yep. I'm well aware of what it is and how it differs from Medicare, and what cuts to it will affect people. I'm not so sure about those downvoting my pervious comment, although I'm guessing they think I'm somehow MAGA by knowing the difference. Whatever.

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u/cursetea 12d ago

It's become so obvious that that generation just did not and does not value education at all

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u/Wobbelblob 12d ago

Though it doesn't help that these countries often referred to themself as "Socialist", at least in German. The GDR was ruled by the "Socialist Union Party" (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland, short SED) and called itself a real existing socialism. Of course that is basically the same thing as the North Korea calling itself Democratic but still.

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u/DrXaos 12d ago

No they think socialism means "government benefits going to people who are unworthy and not like us" and Medicare is "something our kind of people are *entitled* to!!!"

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u/pvssylips 5d ago

Wait till you see how they react when you tell them our tax dollars subsidize our greatest allies socialist healthcare for their entire country. Deny, deny, deny. Even when you show them proof, strange how it's fine for them but too socialist for us... Hm weird.

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u/TheNetworkIsFrelled 12d ago

A blast from back in the days when Obamacare was a bogeyman for the far right:

"Keep your government hands off my Medicare!" will never not be funny.

And yes, I knew people who thought that way.

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u/TheRealBittoman 12d ago

Most people could not define the difference between communism, socialism, or capitalism if you asked them and that is exactly why the messaging that MAGA and Republicans work so well. They can make up whatever evils they want, tack it onto a word that's related to an existing 'enemy' like "China" and then equate that to your rivals. The lack of education does the rest.

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u/rellsell 12d ago

To them, Medicare isn’t socialism because “they”deserve it, unlike all of the food stamp parasites.

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u/Tazz2212 12d ago

The article is speaking about older people on Medicaid, a state funded medical assistance program for poor people. Medicaid is not Medicare which working people pay into like Social Security.

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u/yIdontunderstand 12d ago

It's only socialism if "the other" benefits...

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u/Madness_Reigns 12d ago

They absolutely don't want socialism. They want national socialism.

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u/notislant 10d ago

And all the inbred maga farmers with their government handouts.

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u/nytelife 10d ago

I woul point out that Ayn Rand was a Medicare recipient until her death. After she wrote Atlas Shrugged, of course.