Oh, nice! They found a new contender for the least corrupt and criminal Republican in government in the USA.

I was really surprised to learn that the fairly new hospital that was built in my parents’ home town is on the list of most likely to close in my home state due to medicaid cuts. It was just completed maybe 10 - 12 years ago, I think. The bulk of people in its service area will face an additional 20+ minute ambulance ride to the next closest hospital if it closes.

I’ll give you 3 guesses which party that county voted for pretty much straight ticket.

“Our lives were so much better when Trump was president” is what I heard back in 2024.

Honestly, it’s some of my family I’m most disappointed in.

In prior years they started vegetable gardens because they supposedly couldn’t afford to buy fresh produce from the store due to “Bidenflation”, but suddenly this year, they didn’t bother even though prices on produce and so many other essentials are higher than ever.

I had written a long comment, honestly way too long, and then realized that one anecdote perfectly demonstrates how ridiculous it is. These are folks that spent years blaming Biden for post-covid, worldwide inflation and every single time some random thing got expensive like when eggs spiked last year. Then, late January 2025 rolls around and suddenly not a peep since. Any attempt to discuss the topic, or draw attention to the fact that this time around the spike in food prices and general inflation are largely and directly a result of Trump and his administration, the story changes to “the president doesn’t control grocery prices.”

And I know they’re feeling it, that the reality of the situation is affecting them. But I guess I had held out hope that they were better than this.

The relatively new rural hospital that’s saved the lives of people in my family and offered others the ability to spend their final day(s) / hour(s) of life close to home is on the chopping block. I just found out this morning that it may be closing, specifically cited as being due to medicaid cuts.

As far as I am aware, the next closest hospitals are going to add another 20 - 30 minutes or so to an ambulance ride for people in that area.

I think about the “widow maker” heart attack or the aftermath of the car accident that shouldn’t have been survivable, and I wonder if those situations would have turned out differently if it took 20 extra minutes before starting surgery / treatment.

I also think about the ambulance rides that insurance increasingly considers “out of network” and thus people are on the hook for 100% of the cost. Those often charge by the mile. One way or another, things are going to be even more expensive for those folks.

Almost literally, the moment Trump was sworn in as president, the same exact folks who spent the prior 8 months of their lives blaming Biden for the high cost of eggs suddenly had an epiphany that the president does not directly control the price of eggs. And then when the president DID specifically and directly affect the price of groceries as a result of tariffs, those same people suddenly insist that grocery prices are based on complex and rapidly changing global socioeconomic phenomenon that cannot be predicted nor controlled and besides this is still Biden’s economy because it was so broken that Trump hasn’t been able to fix it yet (even though he promised to have it all sorted out in a timeline of days).

They live in a separate reality, void of fact and logic, and I honestly have not figured out a way to reason with that. As wiser folks have said much more eloquently than I could, you cannot reason people out of something they did not reason themselves into.

Looking forward to reading this and the comments.

Having said that and assuming my interpretation of the headline is correct and that the headline is factually correct, my response is DUUUUUUUHUH HUH HUH HUH.

Because DUH HUH HUH HUH HUH.

Is failing. Has failed. Same difference I suppose.