They are and we aren't fighting back tooth and nail to stop them.

We just let them do it because we (collective we) have grown so used to having it we can't remember what it was like before, people dying from treatable conditions because they couldn't afford it, average life expectancy been a whole decade lower (or more) etc.

We (again collective) won't realise what we had until it's gone.

Yep, they spend £600m a year on management consultants to tell them things they already know. Enough to run 8-9 large hospitals.

That's public money going to the private sector for no real benefit.

Long-term back pain that counted as a pre-existing condition for every insurance package I had, on the rare occasions when I could afford to be insured. That eventually degenerated into a couple of prolapsed disc that cut off the nerves to may legs, resulting in constant pain (the kind that leaves you screaming and writhing without a constant morphine drip) and making it impossible to walk, sit up, or go to the bathroom unaided. While not technically a life-threatening condition, my quality of life was low enough that I certainly would have committed suicide had it persisted indefinitely.

In the US, as I say, this would not have been covered by my insurance, and would have cost around $50,000 to fix. Completely infeasible for me to find that amount of money. The NHS did an excellent job of fixing it for free.

Organ transplant, edit: most likely

Thank Obamacare for that, and that only kicked in on 2011. Prior to that, insurance recission was a real and pervasive issue for those with preexisting conditions.

To give you an example - my dad had to take 2 boxes of Glivec per month to keep him alive(he was predicted to survive 3-6 months, thanks to Glivec he lived another 8 years). Glivec, last time I checked, is currently 12 thousand dollars a box in US. And sure, most health insurance in US would cover most of that. But if you have to take two $12k boxes per month, and insurer says they will cover $10k per box, you suddenly have to find $4k per month just to buy your life saving medicine. In effect sure, you have insurance, but unless you are rich, you are fucked. The whole idea of deductible on health insurance is pretty much a US-only invention, and it literally kills people who are in theory "covered".

Obamacare added three provisions in particular that affected my family. Annual and lifetime caps on coverage were banned, dropping sick policyholders was banned, and all plans were required to set maximum out-of-pocket costs.

My family has easily hit the pre-Obamacare lifetime coverage limits and fairly frequently would've hit the annual ones. Our $4k out-of-pocket cap saves us from 10-50k in coinsurance/copays depending on the year. As a result, they'd drop us in a heartbeat if they could.

Soon, it looks like they'll be able to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder - aka gutting of Voter Rights Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC - aka "Companies are people and money is free speech"

I have a hard time believing you after Trump said that he would get someone to repeal Roe V Wade and now he has the house and senate to do it.

All it will take is a reversion to "let the states decide", which may also be what we see with issues such as abortion. What scares me though, are the decisions like Citizens United, issues with privacy and regulatory oversight, and that kind of thing.

The check and balance is that he has to get all those people to agree with him. Certainly on major issues where he aligns with Republican philosophy that might happen. But he's not a dictator that can do as he will tomorrow. If he decided he wants to transfer the entire U.S. treasury into his personal bank account he wouldn't be able to.

Certainly I doubt our founders thought an entire political party would control every single branch of government. But even if it does the only things that can be accomplished need to be agreed upon by that large group of people. If the will of the people is to elect a group of people into those positions that all hold the same philosophy and values, then that's just democracy. It's what we voted for. I don't know if any party has controlled all three branches of government at once, but it's not like that negates the principle of checks and balances

He's been reading Kurt Goedel's writings on the constitution, ... so he found there are none ;)

I don't know why you believe that, if anything his partisans were more pro-free speech than Clinton's ones.

It's not just a trump presidency, it's a trump presidency rubber stamping a republican house and senate, which will follow through on their stated intention to install judges to repeal Roe V Wade, and to establish a more conservative, evangelical agenda.

e.g., the nomination and appointment of a Justice:

See Currier:

- http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/currier-v-jackson...

- https://www.statnews.com/2016/07/01/mississippi-abortion-cli...

Also see Whole Woman's Health:

- http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/whole-womans-heal...

- http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/us/supreme-court-texas-abo...

Nonsense.

Clinton's projected by the NY Times to win the popular vote by 1.2% right now. That's hardly a huge mandate for a singular agenda. It's a margin that would still be at massive risk if people continued ignoring those non-coastal populations feeling economically left behind.

Instead, despite that 1.2% lead for the Democratic presidential candidate, that party will be the minority party in every branch of government? That's a better, fairer system?

Structurally separating everyone into groups drifting further and further apart for everyone is a recipe for a system that can't get much useful stuff done.

(And the media ate up the Trump campaign despite it being incredibly unappealing to those small coastal bands. Nobody build an unassailable media monopoly by ignoring something like 48% of the population.)

That sounds awful, until you realize just how many people live in those "small bands".

In what way am I spamming, and in what way is pointing out that a generation-long shift to the Right is going to be the result of this election via the SCOTUS?