This happened two years ago. They needed to win with a 60 vote margin. It didn’t pass.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/house-insulin-prices/
Congrats, they failed at their evil plan…
The bill didn’t need to pass with a 60 vote margin. The House is simple majority, and it passed the house. It’s a little murky to me what happened next, but it seems like the Democrats were arguing that it could be treated as budget reconciliation in the Senate, only needing simple majority. However, the parliamentarian said it’s not budget reconciliation, and so it would have needed 60 votes total in the Senate to get past the filibuster, which it didn’t have.
Then, strangely, the Senate amended the entire title and text of the bill and turned it into a general appropriations bill, which passed both houses and became law, but with the entire original text of the bill struck.
Maybe someone a little more familiar than me with the machinations of government can fill in some of the gaps of what exactly happened and why. My point is, you’re right that it didn’t pass, but neither house of Congress requires a 60 vote margin. The Senate requires 60 votes total for a bill to be filibuster proof.
The Senate has a de facto requirement for a 60 vote margin because Republicans will, without fail, use the filibuster to block any bill that doesn’t sufficiently own the libs. (I was gonna say any bill they don’t like, but they’ll even block their own bills if Democrats decide to support it.)
Both sides suck, but at least the Democrats don’t want to turn America into an ultra-capitalist evangelical dictatorship and a white ethnostate.
Republicans are the fucking worst, prove me wrong
They are so weird, with the crazy shit they’re always talking about.
They want everyone poor and pregnant
Vance says, “how can you trust people without kids. They aren’t invested in americas future.”
Mother fucker, my dad will vote for that ticket and I’m telling you he does not give a shit about me or america.
I have to live here with all you evil assholes. Why would I want to bring a kid into this?
We have sitting members of Congress who raped and sex trafficked children. The Supreme Court is bought and paid for.
America is no longer viewed as a respectable nation, just a big bully corporate oligarchy infiltrated by Russian money.
prove me wrong
Easy. Every democrat is as well
Easy.
Didn’t do it.
So do it
Lololol both sides, GTFO
Ok but who are those 11 that voted correctly?
Apparently it ended up being 12. You can look them up here:
- Don Bacon, Nebraska
- Brian Fitzpatrick, Pennsylvania
- Andy Harris, Maryland
- Jaime Herrula Beutler, Washington
- Richard Hudson, North Carolina
- John Kakto, New York
- Nicole Malliotakis, New York
- Daniel Meuser, Pennsylvania
- Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa
- Bill Posey, Florida
- Christopher H. Smith, New Jersey
- Frederick Stephen Upton, Michigan
Probably some of ones with diabetes or a family member who has diabetes since Republicans only care about things that affect them personally.
Gotta preserve those family values of inter-generational diabetes and related diseases
It builds character!
Not only do they no longer represent the people they consider most of the population… The Enemy
I’m going to vote for the party that actively seems to want me and my family to suffer, because that’s what mAkEs 'MuRiCa GrAtE aGiN!
Or,
I’m going to not vote and let in the party that actively seems to want me and my family to suffer, because… bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe… LoL?
Two flip sides of the same political weak minds, both subjugated by abusive right-wing propaganda.
Democrats in 2008: “If you vote for us, we’ll cap the price of Insulin at $35/mo”
Democrats in 2018: “No, for real, this time we’re going to do it.”
Democrats in 2024: “Its happening, we promise. We just need a majority in Congress.”
Democrats in 2032: “Do you want $35/mo insulin or not? Then JUST VOTE!”
Listen, I get it. Trump’s a fascist and he’s going to shit all over the country if he wins this year. But can we stop it with the Lucy-and-the-Football shit, where we all pretend neoliberals are going to do literally anything that undermines profits for the pharmaceutical industry? Ya’ll needed the Bush Administration to get Medicare Plan D because the Clintonites fumbled the bag so badly. Obama endorsed legislation delivering bigger cuts to Medicare and Social Security than his GOP counterparts ffs. Democrats in the House Majority deliberately fought to keep Eli Lilly as an exclusive provider of insulin back in 2014.
This isn’t the party of universal health care. It isn’t even the party of cheaper health care.
It’s sure as shit the party of protecting health rights and at least proposing these things. I’ll take that over the alternative.
the party of protecting health rights
Democrats have been folding on health rights faster than Superman on laundry day. From abortion to gender transition, they’re in full retreat.
Ummm maybe we’re watching different realities but look at how Democratic states are handling the overturning of Roe V Wade and how Republican ones are. It’s obvious who believes in what.
Do you not remember the clusterfuck that led to the Affordable Care Act? It was most certainly the best they could do at the time, and because the vote margin was so razor thin and Republicans were all in on stopping it, it had to be watered down a lot to appease one asshat on the Democratic side: Joe Lieberman. 95% of the Democrats were trying to pass a bill that would have, among many other things, made insulin much easier to get, but they were derailed by one traitor and every single Republican. What exactly is the logic of blaming Democrats for that?
Do you not remember the clusterfuck that led to the Affordable Care Act?
I remember the bill being held up for weeks over The Hyde Amendment, because “pro-life” democrats didn’t want anyone using a thin red cent of federal money for an abortion. But this was when Dems had a 257 seat majority in the House (39 vote margin) and a 60 vote Senate (10 vote margin and functionally filibuster-proof).
It was most certainly the best they could do at the time
Democrats couldn’t get Democrats to vote for a bill every single one of those fuckers campaigned on.
95% of the Democrats were trying to pass a bill that would have, among many other things, made insulin much easier to get
I’ll spot you 85% if I’m being generous. Even then, quite a few of those assholes were hiding behind the conservative hold-outs and trying to run out the clock before they might be forced to actually pass something.
What exactly is the logic of blaming Democrats for that?
Dem House, Dem Senate, Dem Presidency.
Lemmy: “Republicans did this”.
So now that they did something, you’re mad it didn’t go far enough so that means both are the same.
Some 4D chess right there.
So now that they did something
They didn’t do anything. The bill didn’t pass.
Dem House, Dem Senate, Dem Presidency.
Lemmy: “Republicans did this”.
You’re hopeless.
One side is less corrupt than the other. We’re still stuck with two bad choices. One is extremely bad, the other is just passively bad and tries to work and compromise with the extremely bad side for no discernable reason.
We’re allowed to criticize politicians even if we vote for them. We don’t have to like them just because they’re the only option.
It’s like asking if I’d like to wipe my ass with single ply or sixty grit sandpaper.
Both parties are super corrupt but one wants to force 12 year old rape victims to carry babies to term that they had no choice in the making of, segregate minorities and shove every non-straight cis person back into the closet at best, and the other party sometimes passes legislation that actually helps average people a little. But don’t worry, both parties will whole heartedly support a genocide an ocean away, so at least they can agree on something!
This is from 2022. It’s worth noting that in this vote it was bundled with a Marijuana decriminalization bill, which is probably why the Republicans voted against it.
So they voted against 2 things that would have been good for the working class.
What a piss poor justification. They don’t want to help sick people or get tax money?
That soubds like an excuse as they regularly vote against any kind of regulation that would help the average person. They voted against the ACA, remember?
Remember how much they talked about “repeal and replace” but never did even with full party control of all branches of the federal government? I remember that. It was simultaneously scary and hilarious to see that crowd fall apart when it came to actually trying to bring their vague talking points into real legislation and pass them
In terms of the world’s wealth, if you own a million dollars US or more - you’re one of the top 1%, richest people on the planet.
This means ALL of the people in Congress and the Senate are in the top 1%, or being very close to it.
America is ruled by a wealthy ruling class.
America is ruled by a wealthy ruling class.
Always has been.
A quick search shows that $5.8 million is the threshold to be in the top 1% net worth in the US.
You are comparing apples and oranges on purpose by comparing US lawmakers, making laws for the USA, against the world top 1% metric.
Except no. US laws often have global significance. Like wars and resource grabs and stuff. So we should absolutely be using the world as a standard.
The problem there is he said worldwide, not in the US. The searches I’m doing for amount of wealth needed to be in the top 1% worldwide does seem to be around a million dollars. And I mean since a lot of what the US does affects the rest of the world through US companies and the influence the US has you can definitely argue we are led by the 1% who are enacting laws to benefit themselves and the people in their class.
Huh, I was going to comment something about how the global top 1% has a lower threshold than that, but it really doesn’t. $1M of wealth would put you in the top 0.7%.
And apparently the top 0.7% hold 45.9% of global wealth. The top 30% hold 97% of wealth.
You’re conflating two things here. You’re taking the top 1% of global wealth and equating that with America and saying it means they’re a wealthy ruling class.
Which I don’t necessarily disagree with in fact, but the premise of your argument is flawed. You need to look at what the top 1% in the US is. The US is heavily skewed towards the top of global wealth in general.
It would be like saying the US is mainly oligarchs and there aren’t people suffering because Americans tend to have more wealth than others. You have to normalize it within the country – or at least against a cost of living index.
In the USA, the threshold for top 1% of net worth is $5.8 million.
Not saying that congress isn’t disproportionately rich, but 1% absolutely does not start at $1 million.
if you have a million you’re one of the richest ON THE PLANET
The planet is bigger than the USA buddy
It certainly is, but when we’re talking about US leadership, global wealth comparisons are irrelevant when talking about the moneyed elites. It needs to be national comparisons.
If you only looked at global wealth metrics, you’d think the US was full of rich people who could afford everything, and it very clearly is not the case. There’s plenty of Americans living in poverty and paycheck to paycheck, even though their wealth would be considered high globally. You have to normalize by cost of living. If someone makes $1m annually but they spend $975k to meet the bare minimum, are they rich?
Yeah, but being richer on paper than some Sudanese warlord doesn’t make it any easier for me to afford a house. Are you seriously gonna argue that we should just ignore the huge differences in the cost of living between countries?
if you own a million dollars US or more - you’re one of the top 1%, richest people on the planet.
Is an American with a small house in some hyper-inflated corner of the California real estate market really wealthier than a guy out in Malaysia or Nigeria who owes property that’s 1/10th the price but can pay $2/day for an army of laborers?
I think this puts too much faith in the value of the American dollar relative to the functional value of real estate and human labor trading at a fraction of the price thousands of miles away. Real wealth needs to have some degree of political power behind it. A guy with a $500 rifle who can command a hundred acres of turf and a thousand other people is - in my opinion - substantially wealthier than a guy with a $500,000 condo who owes his continued existence to some Madison Avenue ad agency.
This means ALL of the people in Congress and the Senate are in the top 1%
All the people in Congress and the Senate command votes in one of the wealthiest political bodies on the planet. Having a 1/438 share in the $5T us appropriations budget is worth far more than a piddly million dollars in a savings account.
one of the requirements of getting into congress or senate should be that when you are getting in AND out you should donate any sum of assets exceeding a couple millions. then anyone wanting to use government as a means of making money by licking the ass of powerful lobbies will mostly stay away. this will not completely eliminate the problem (there will still be people willing to work for lobbies for a couple mil) but will lessen the importance of wealth on politics greatly (along with not allowing donations to presidential candidates or organizations promoting them in anyway).
Anyone saying both sides is a clown.
or almost as if most politicians are nothing but puppets to more powerful organisations
Ah there’s that “both sides” again
“This is corruption”
“This is lobbying”
No, it’s FUCKING EVIL
Those people are evil enough to put money ahead of the health of other humans
And if you stand by and watch people doing evil things and just say “Well, it’s lobbying” you’re a wretched coward
It’s all of the above, comrade
It’s worse. They put money above the life of other humans. Type 1 diabetics literally cannot live without insulin… Not for very long at least (days at most).
And it’s not a nice death either. Anyone who has seen, first hand, the effects of diabetic ketoacidosis, can confirm.
We see pictures all the time of dafties walking about with signs in the US protesting all sorts of inane, brain-damaged shite
How the fuck are yous not standing outside these evil fuckers’ houses with signs?
“This evil cunt chose to kill diabetics because some evil cunt gave him cash. Let’s hang him from a fucking tree, he’s an absolute cancer on society”
How are yous just sitting back and watching?!?
I’m not doing shit because I’m not an American.
Thank fuck for that. This shit is goddamned embarrassing.
I think my country just passed a law saying that our national healthcare system would cover insulin and diabetic equipment. I don’t have all the details, but the fact that it took this long to do is pretty fucking embarrassing in and of itself.
That being said, at least we got there. The USA can’t even agree to not bankrupt people for having a very manageable condition (with proper medication at least).
Anyone saying “both sides” is a lying right troll, period.
People that say both sides are Republicans that are at least self-aware to know they’re the assholes.
But think of those poor multi billions pharmaceuticals and their struggling investors and stock holders.
