My VA clinic (and the closest), hospital has gotten much worse since that article was written. Leaders are all about saving money over the patients, and covering their own tails. It was never perfect but the best providers are now driven out. They just can't keep them.

Unfortunately, I've lost trust in the 'specialty' clinics. They follow the same prioritize money and cya over patients. Community care could be good. It wasn't easy to try and use the DB of providers before, but now it's impossible. On VA.gov years ago, I was able to find 15 pages of orthopedic doctors in my area but since then they quit paginating. So, you can be in the middle of NY city and will only get a small number of results.

The DB was never maintained well as Triwest/VA said it was the others responsibility and doctors where supposed to let them know, if they no longer took it. How stupid is that, any company would have a non-activity hook/flag and check if their insurance hadn't been used in a year or more. Of course Triwest itself has been a boondoggle from day 1

I don't disagree but there are a lot of factors that went into it. No one is happy in America today. Day to day, I think those of us that are struggling have the same issues. The difference is Fox News made a horrible precedent. A billionaire wanted the country distracted from the plutocracy. News was never perfectly unbiased, but they used spin so well to redirect anger, and blame; so much so that it became a model for others like the Sinclaire Group. It's sad though because around 2016, there were a lot of op-eds discussing how news should concentrate on being trustworthy, but that's not what happened. Even sources that are much better than others, are more biased than they were. No one is represents labor. Citizens United was the death nail but there are other issues. The Democratic party gave up on the working class. My history isn't great, so I don't know why, but my guess would be corporate funding. Lobbyist/Money have killed democracy. We are effectively without representation at this point; well 'we' the labor class. Billionaires/Executives get there way, while the rest don't. It's obvious in even browsing the web, we have less control over our own browsers/computers as the corps control them (web standards, or just norms like admin access to your own devices). Then billionaires control the corps. They are only a lever for power and wealth for those that are wealthiest among us, already.

I use trackers for my keys and wallet, but my normal usage is at home, and yeah google really messed that up. I would prefer to use Chipolo network with no google, but that may die and of course there is no guarantee they aren't sharing/selling data now that they have partnered with google (or before, but a bit less likely). The trouble is their wallet one sucks for me. It seems they wanted to advertise thinness but made the button an outtie, instead of an innie so it gets pressed and dies for me.

For now, I have to use a Tile for ONLY my wallet. I need the 'where did I drop my wallet', in the house, more than 'where in the world' is my wallet. The latter has helped me twice over the years. Once when I left my wallet at a store, at the checkout, but I just needed to know I left it not exact location. Then another time where a dealership picked it up and wasn't going to give it to me except, I kept wondering around because I knew it was in the area... Yeah, google tracking sucks...but I really like tracker functionality for my keys and wallet, at least. If there was just a non-google/apple affiliated one, that made a good (men's) wallet tracker. I only say men's, because without a protective outer purse/cover mine will get pressed and die from battery usage, unless it has an innie button like Tile's.

let me know, if there are solutions that work better, for my needs and or what you use, especially if you need the cold/hot indicator in close quarters ;P

Sue... that's the only thing these mega corps understand and it's the only thing that can be done. A single country can't (or won't as in the U.S.) enforce any laws, whether monopoly, fraud, compliance or whatever ... so lawsuit is the only thing left. Sue for enough to really impact their revenue. Personally, I would be okay if you put them in the red..but that's not likely.

Police in this country are poorly designed. They work for the Mayor, and he works for the largest campaign contributions (money is #1 factor in determining elections, from what I've read). So, they work for the wealthiest locals and corporations. The ideal of "protect and serve" only came out because of abuses and has never really been true. Police will tell you that. Of course, internal auditing/oversight (internal affairs) is never the best idea. (Boeing 737 is a great (or horrid) example, depending on how you see the phrase).

They exist with inherent conflict of interest because of the aforementioned. Civil Forfeiture, is one example of this but you will find loads of uncontested misdemeanor arrest that weren't within the law, but people don't have the money and/or time to fight the arrest; so most will just accept a guilty plea because it's faster, easier, and cheaper.

The routers found with the issues so far...drum-roll...."mainly Cisco and Netgear devices that had reached their end of life"....

Meanwhile Netgear was the first company to clear the ban?...... Netgear says: Welcome to your requested the backdoor NSA ... ;P

Thanks for responding. I shouldn't have posted that on this thread but I was in the middle of trying to deal with it and very frustrated. The truth is the internet is more and more locked down by companies every year. Also, I feel like I'm fighting on all fronts. I think that's just the U.S. now, at least were I am. Also, I don't do things like they want. Partly, just because I'm older, and another part is that I shouldn't have to. I don't use an app. I don't use windows and/or mac (linux). I do sometimes use a VPN. Very rarely on the computer I was trying to post on but it still blows things up. My VPN is probably too legit for them too, as they say you need a legitimate vpn, by they mean one that sells it's users, data in all likelyhood i.e. One that works with them, not me

Companies, have been outsourcing both to other countries, and importing foreign workers for U.S. jobs. Before 2016, there were bi-partisan attempts to fix H1-B because it has been used to replace American IT workers with workers at a lower pay/benefits for 20+ years. It was "specifically", never meant to do this. Minimum pay 60k was set in 1989 to prevent this but it was never raised. Fraudulent Indian companies took over H1-B for IT. (they commit lots of fraud). IT became effectively the first professional gig work, as contract with low benefits and short term, is more normal than not

Exorbitant executive pay, and short tenures are the norm, so executives don't care about long term anything, especially workers. Our government and both parties have failed American's in regard to job stability/benefits... Too little too late... Lastly, most companies that people think of as American, really are just more international/multinational, even if they originated in the U.S.; so the U.S. doesn't have the leverage it once had

America quit caring about American's...

.

This is where I post the most too. I never got into social media as a means for keeping/making friends.. I only use it as a replacement for old style forums, when I want to know more on subjects or try to ask about issues.