OTC Stocks / Funny Stuff / Trump
Joined March 2016
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BitMan retweeted
Mark, you started by saying we have no idea what healthcare costs to buy or to provide in this country. None. Then your conclusion is to propose that the people who cannot see the costs should be the ones to run it.
There is a reason nobody knows what anything costs, and you listed it yourself. Medicaid, Medicare, supplemental plans, Medicare Advantage, self insured employers under a tax code that hides the premium in the paycheck. Every layer you named is a government program or a government created structure, and in every one of them the person getting the care is not the person paying for it. That is where the price went. Prices exist where buyers pay. Remove the buyer and you get exactly the fog you are describing. Universal care removes every buyer who is left.
Then look at what you are asking for. Every private contract in the industry published by federal order. Every claim in the country handed to state and federal researchers. The DOJ turned loose on the pricing structure. Bipartisan legislation to work out what care we need to provide and what it should cost. That is not a market reform. That is the state seizing the information of an entire industry so it can set the terms of trade for every doctor, hospital, and patient in the country. You call the conglomerates Too Big To Care. The entity you want running it is the only one with a monopoly on force.
And the number. The post you are replying to has CBO at $3 trillion a year in new federal spending, 21.4 percent of payroll, with the author conceding it is illustrative and not scored. You respond that nobody knows the real cost and we should find out after we commit. No investor you have ever met would fund a company on those terms, and you have never funded one that way yourself. Only government gets to spend money first and discover the price later, because only government can send the bill to people who did not agree to it.
The information asymmetry you are describing is not a reason to negotiate blind. It is a reason to stop having a single buyer negotiating at all. Put the patient back in the transaction and prices appear on their own. Cost Plus is proof that you already know this.
Mises showed a century ago that a planner without prices cannot calculate, Hayek showed why the knowledge he needs is never in one place, and Rand showed why he has no right to try. You are proposing to prove all three wrong with a commission while you admit no one has any idea how much all of it will cost. Do you think they did not know what they were talking about, or do you just not want to find out?
We have no idea what healthcare costs to buy or costs to provide in this country. None.
States cover Medicaid at some level, but not all offer the same care. Nor do they all receive federal support in the same way.
Traditional Medicare requires supplemental and drug coverage. All of which differ by plan, and are offered by mostly huge conglomerates we should break up and are Too Big To Care
Medicare Advantage is all offered by those same Too Big To Care conglomerates. Every contract with a provider differs and while those contracts have pricing that is transparent, the fees and other charges are not.
67 pct of employees that get coverage from work get it from a self insured employer. I can tell you with absolute certainty that most get it from the same conglomerates as well. As a results they have zero idea how much they are paying for medical care or medications (even with recent legislation)
Every thing that is covered and paid for in this country has an actual cost, across the direct costs and indirect costs, that is hidden by the Too Big to Care conglomerates that should be broken up.
Market Dominant hospitals and most non profit hospitals are not innocent. They play along when they have to, use their own leverage when they can. Increasing the cost of care.
And the PBMs that are owned by the conglomerates have bastardized the cost of brand and specialty drugs in a way that should be investigated by the DOJ.
Put simply , HUGE dominant distributors are forced by PBMs to pay RETAIL Price for drugs that make them unaffordable to everyone.
If we want universal care, we can say the Feds will negotiate , but the information asymmetry is so insane, they will be negotiating blind.
The first thing a bi partisan legislation should do is require that all healthcare contracts be made public with no redactions other than personal information
AND
All claims be de-identified and available exclusively to state and federal researchers to determine what care and medications COULD cost.
Then we can start to extrapolate what care we need to provide and then determine what it costs and whether it will save or cost us money.
In parallel we can determine how we will deal with the technology and processes to handle implementation of some version of universal care
BitMan retweeted
So using the Russell Brand case as precedent, any woman can wait 20+ years and then go to police and say the sex she had on a particular night all those years ago wasn't consensual so the guy is then guilty. We're living in the twilight zone.
BitMan retweeted
“Influencers” used to be a genuine asset for the Republican Party. Most promoted candidates and policies organically, as a side interest rather than a career. When paid promotions happened, the amounts were modest and the content stayed aligned with the party’s agenda. Most of these people had full-time jobs outside politics.
That has changed. Over the last few years, large amounts of money, from special interests and foreign sources, have flooded the space. Influencing has become a full-time profession for many, and loyalty has shifted from the agenda to whoever is writing the check.
A clear example is this campaign against President Trump’s tariffs on India. Accounts that built their audiences by aligning with the MAGA movement quickly turned against a core policy of that movement. The most plausible explanation is that they were paid to do so by interests lobbying for India.
This pattern isn’t isolated. We’ve seen right-wing influencers attack Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the MAHA movement for criticizing soda companies. We’ve seen influencers who long opposed the Ukraine war reverse course and call for the U.S. to send Patriot missiles to Zelensky. The list of such reversals keeps growing.
I used to help identify deals for influencers and know this industry well. I never accepted money from foreign governments or companies, or from any domestic interest that opposed the movement I supported. Too many others were willing to sell out.
Nearly a year ago I concluded that the industry had gotten out of hand. Since then I’ve been using what I know to work with lawmakers on both sides and with government officials to strengthen disclosure requirements for paid political content.
I’m not trying to put influencers out of business, but paid digital advocacy is modern-day lobbying, and it should require disclosure. If you’re paid to promote protein bars, you have to label it a paid partnership. If you’re paid to support or oppose a political issue, no disclosure is currently required. That double standard needs to end.
BitMan retweeted
There’s a faction who told massive audiences to either vote Democrat, or withhold Republican votes.
That group is currently blaming the group that actually voted Republican, for the Republican loss.
BitMan retweeted
"Medicare for All" means a mandatory government-run insurance system financed through mandatory taxes.
Will this lower healthcare costs? No.
Will it make heathcare better? No.
And who benefits from "Medicare for All"? Insurance companies.
Who do you think is pushing this? Lobbyists.
BitMan retweeted
Every counted vote must be from a legal, living American citizen.
There are now detailed Federal databases by county that can surface election fraud cases for investigation.
And @TheJusticeDept previously committed to doing so.
Was this a mousetrap election?
HOLY CR*P 🚨 Official Election Administration and Voting Comprehensive Report buried all the way on page 193 of the document shows Texas processed 2,900,357 new valid voter registrations between 2022-2024 without proof of citizenship
Documented proof of citizenship like birth certificate, passport and naturalization papers is not required at the time of voter registration in Texas
56.5% of Texas voter registration were classified as “new valid registrations.”
This is extremely suspicious that 55% of Texas voter registrations were “new”
BitMan retweeted
Wait, what? Where did those extra 1.7 million votes come from? Something is not adding up here in Texas.
BitMan retweeted
Every freakshow podcaster on the “Right,” from Tucker to Candace and everyone in between spent the last two years demoralizing their 10s of millions of listeners with the message that the GOP betrayed them, Trump is controlled by the “Epstein class,” that their vote doesn’t matter, and that they have no agency or sovereignty over their lives or their nations politics.
So millions of demoralized people on the Right stayed home. That’s what happened. The base didn’t show up because they were told it didn’t matter. And they’re about to spend 2 years re-learning why it did matter.
BitMan retweeted
The real winners last night were the podcasters who spent the last two years sowing discord among conservatives and now get to spend the next two cashing in on the division they helped create.
BitMan retweeted
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
BitMan retweeted
The hard truth that many don't want to accept is the fact that nobody in government is going to save you. Not a Democrat, not a Republican, nobody.
Your own survival depends solely on you.
BitMan retweeted
The People Have Spoken
- Back to open borders
- massive fraud
- high crime
- Deep State Nonsense
- Naked Tranny’s
- our Kids speaking Arabic
- Back to business as usual
BitMan retweeted
Two years of HISTORIC victories for the American people:
🚨 Secured the border
💊 Fentanyl overdose deaths at a decade-long low
💰 Historic tax cuts
👨👩👧👦 Trump Accounts
⚖️ Ended DEI policies
🎓 Pushed to make higher education more affordable
🏫 Parent's choice in children’s education
📉 Cut federal bureaucracy
BitMan retweeted
If you still need a reason to Vote Republican today, look at this chart.
The second Democrats regain control, they will open the border and continue the replacement of the U.S. population with foreigners who hate our way of life.
If they retake power, we will lose our country.
VOTE.
BitMan retweeted
WATCH: ABC’s George Stephanopoulos tries to get Walmart’s U.S. CEO to bash Trump and claim the economy’s in a tailspin. CEO John Furner was not having any of it.
First, Stephanopoulos tried to argue turkey prices are way up, but Furner replied Walmart’s turkeys will be their *lowest since 2019* and the price of their Thanksgiving basket for ten will be $14 *cheaper than last year*
BitMan retweeted
Maybe don’t take a selfie in a hotel lobby that most Kentuckians couldn’t afford to stay in, @AndyBeshearKY.
