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California to become first state to sell cheap insulin through state-backed program (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
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https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/10/16/governor-newsom-announces-affordable-calrx-insulin-11-a-pen-will-soon-be-available-for-purchase/

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[+] -33 points 1 year ago (51 children)

What I don’t like is that it follows the piecemeal approach that centrist liberals do where it is always too little and ineffective for the entire population which makes it mostly invisible.

“Let’s do socialism for 11% of the people while everyone else gets to pay taxes and get nothing”.

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  • [–] 88 points 1 year ago (34 children)

    “Perfect is the enemy of the good”

    Yeah no progress until we can instantly have 100% goal attainment!

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago* (28 children)

    Don't forget to not vote next midterms or primaries to show Newsom and the Dems we mean business!

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  • [+] -14 points 1 year ago (27 children)

    Sorry. I'm not voting for an anti trans bigot, even if they happen to have a D next to their name.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (24 children)

    Thanks for Trump a second time.

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  • [+] -7 points 1 year ago (20 children)

    Sorry, trans folks have to have a longer time horizon than you might. If Democrats are allowed to slide into a full anti-trans platform, as their sister party in the UK did, then trans rights will be set back generations. If Democrats are allowed to abandon trans rights, it will be 50 years before those rights are regained.

    Look, I just don't respect someone mansplaining to minority group members about how you know their best interests better than they do. It's arrogance of the highest order. For trans folks, the danger represented by having both parties be anti-trans exceeds the danger of even another Trump term. At least Trump is an old fat fuck who's going to die soon. The Democrats going the way of Labor in the UK will subject American trans people to state repression for decades to come, with no hope of voting in any party who will help us. Frankly, from my perspective, it's better for the Democratic party to completely die off than it is to allow anti-trans bigots to win simply because they have a D next to their name. At least then space would be cleared for an actual worker's party to rise up. But really, for trans people, an anti-trans Democratic party is a much much greater threat than another Trump term. Because ultimately, state repression is state repression whether it's wearing a red tie or a blue tie.

    I'm looking decades into the future; you're myopically focused on tomorrow.

    Don't want trans people to stay home? Simple. Don't nominate a bigot for the Democratic candidate. You have three years notice. If you simply can't help yourself and nominate a bigot anyway, don't blame minority groups for refusing to vote for their oppressors. You'll have no one to blame but yourself.

    And frankly, at this point, anyone still saying, "vote blue no matter who" is a brain-dead muppet. It's obvious now that that rallying cry is a one-way street. Progressives are supposed to hold their nose and vote for bigots, but that expectation never extends the other way. It's just a cudgel used to blame minority groups for refusing to vote for their own oppression.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    This is ignoring reality and consequences of elections so hard that it reads like a right wing troll cosplaying a liberal. Congratulations, your argument is so shortsighted and devoid of insight that it is indistinguishable from satire.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    They're not cosplaying a liberal, it's a pretty normal take among Leftists who criticize liberals. And more broadly, Democrats made "being the lesser evil" their main campaign strategy for so long that people are getting numb to it.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (14 children)

    You know who’s even more anti-trans than Gavin Newsom? The fascists currently controlling every branch of the federal government.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    So are your saying that voting for Democrats or Republicans is the same thing?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Obviously not.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    Republicans: Yes to genocide

    Democrats: WE SEE YOU, WE HEAR YOU, but also yes to genocide

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Does the fact that one party wast to let the populace shape the narrative, vs the iron fist of fascism?

    Please tell me you can acknowledge this fundamental fact, it will help me gauge the rest of your responses

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Both parties fully engage in Manufactured Consent if that's what you're trying to say though not entirely clear. Also, Republicans are embracing not opposing Fascism in line with their drift to the far right over the years.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    No. Notice they said "even more anti-trans," not "just as anti-trans."

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    I didn't realize there was an acceptable level of bigotry

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    There is bad bigotry and worse bigotry. If you don't have the option of no bigotry, you choose bad. Harm reduction.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

    Nothing like pushing the Overton Window solidly into Bigotry.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    Protest non-voting pushes the overtone window even farther to the right.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Are you suggesting non-voting and voting for Democrats is essentially the same?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    No, that protest non-voting helps Republicans, because it's much less likely a right-winger will protest non-vote.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Biden’s ineffective leadership and the centrist DNC gave America another Trump term. Trump should have been locked up immediately for their coup attempt.

    For the record, I vote in every election including the primaries.

    There’s nothing more reliable than a centrist attacking the base of the party for each and every single one of their losses. I’ve yet to hear Harris or HRC talk about their inept campaigns that keep trying to attract Republicans to vote for Democrats. It’s never going to happen. Maybe we can have a Cheney run the DNC.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago

    Look, I'm all for incremental progress, but you don't start from a compromise position and then compromise further like the centrist Democrats have done whenever they've had power. You start with the hardline position (free, universal, single-payer healthcare funded by a progressive tax system) and then compromise from there only if necessary to get something done. Centrists stupidly think that they can get what they want without a fight by proposing something that's already a compromise, but the hardline conservatives are just going to fight anyway and the centrists are forced to negotiate. The result is that the right always gets a favorable outcome and the left feels betrayed.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Often the good is the enemy of the perfect. Obamacare was such a joke that it set the Democrats back a generation. They managed to get something passed, but their clinging to norms and refusal to nuke the filibuster meant that the bill was a pro-corporate mess so convoluted that people didn't even realize they were benefitting from it. It legitimately helped people, but it also so sabotaged the Democratic brand that it set progress back decades in many fields. We got Obamacare, but we traded Roe v Wade for it. Without Obamacare, abortion would still be legal nationwide. People saw what Democrats would do even with a supermajority, and many voters just gave up on politics entirely due to Democratic corruption and timidity.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    That is a saying by centrists for suckers. Nobody is asking for perfect. People want effective leadership.

    Seems like the only solution centrists support is stupid sayings to make people accept ineptitude and corruption.

    The DNCs ineffective leadership under Obama led to thousands of political positions lost throughout the country. They didn’t even bother locking up Bush and his cronies for their crimes.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    Like I said: gotta start somewhere.

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  • [+] -16 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    My point is that the start is so small that it allows republicans to demonize and ultimately kill it since it doesn’t help the vast majority of people.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    You’ve given up before you’ve even began (believe me, I know that feeling).

    But don’t let your paralysis leak out to other people. If you see someone taking baby steps to make this world better, you be their cheerleader. You give them your energy so that they can take bigger strides.

    And who knows, maybe in the process you’ll have taken your first baby steps too.

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  • [–] -3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I haven’t given up. I’ve seen these baby steps from centrist liberals for the last four decades. They’re stringing us along like donkeys.

    Centrist liberals will only do the bare minimum for the working class while fully enabling the capitalists.

    Homes, food, insurance, cars, etc are much more expensive than ever and wages are not even close to catching up. Corporate profits are through the roof though.

    Tell me how 8 years of Clinton plus 8 years of Obama plus 4 years of Biden improved the life of Americans. That’s 20 years of millions of Americans dying from being denied care and/or going bankrupt because they got sick.

    All they did was stabilize the markets for capitalists.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Tell me how the republicans have done any better.

    Look we can sit here and back and forth all day long. Yes, our system fucking sucks donkey balls. Will it get better? Who the fuck knows. But I guaran-fucking-tee you that shitting over things like affordable insulin is not the way to go. We gotta take our wins where we can. And when our centrist D’s don’t, we gotta get out there and hold their feet to the fire; whatever that means.

    But giving up is not a fucking option, because that’s how we got Trump and friends in the first place. And look at where that’s got us.

    We gotta a fucking gestapo in the US. We are at the cusp of a new nazi regime. And NOBODY that matters is freaking out about it.

    What. The. Fuck.

    So you know what: I’ll take a state 3,000 miles away from me FINALLY doing something right. Even if it’s not perfect. Because right now I need some goddamned good news. Even if it doesn’t affect me personally. Because what else do I have, if not that?

    Just give me a goddamned gun otherwise so I can paint my walls in red.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Republicans are way way worse. You’re misunderstanding my complaint.

    My complaint only points out that the baby step method that modern centrist liberals (Clinton, Obama, Newsom, Biden) push ends up being controlled opposition by the wealthy.

    They all know what the real solutions are. They don’t hesitate to kick in socialism during every crisis that affects wealthy people. They go all the way with those. For anything that can help the public it is always some half-ass job that excludes a lot of people which will only upset a large segment of the population against it.

    And speaking of the gestapo.

    Do you know what’s going to happen if we ever have another election and a centrist liberal wins? The centrist liberals will say that it is time to move on from division and forgive and forget all offenses and government criminality. Just like Obama did with Bush and Biden did with Trump.

    I don’t want to vote for controlled opposition centrist liberals. I want to vote for FDR Democrats.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

    Edit: as pointed out below, these numbers are for type 1 and 2, so the population is requiring insulin is much lower than this.

    Among the U.S. population overall, crude estimates for 2021 were:

    • 38.4 million people of all ages—or 11.6% of the U.S. population—had diabetes.

    • 38.1 million adults aged 18 years or older—or 14.7% of all U.S. adults—had diabetes (Table 1a; Table 1b).

    https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/php/data-research/index.html

    Sure, the majority of folks don't have diabetes, but come on, this affects a huge number of people, and I would bet that a vast, vast majority of people at least know someone with diabetes.

    And yes, those are national whereas this is California---but it's also about changing hearts and minds. When someone from Texas, struggling to pay for their kid's insulin, learns about this, they might just question some things.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    type 1 is the one that needs insulin the most but they dont make up a large part of compared to type 2.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Sometimes that may be true but neurologically, empathy is often driven by experience and most people have a relative with diabetes and many people have a diabetic relative who struggles financially with it. This would be hard to demonize.

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