ER employee here, multi-hour wait times aren’t caused by people without insurance seeking care, they’re caused by admitted patients taking up all the ER rooms. The ER would function great even with pretty substantial patient volumes because many of the primary-care tier complaints can be seen and discharged relatively quickly, many not needing anything more than a closet to speak in private for 10 minutes and imaging or prescription. In the hospital I work at, and every hospital in the city, and probably every hospital in your city, the floor that holds the most non-ER patients is the ER.

The reason for this is because shit runs downhill, and there’s not enough inpatient infrastructure because it’s expensive during the summer to have excess beds not in use just to have a reserve for flu season. This matters because even nonprofit hospitals are run to make money to pay our CEO ~50x more than the lowest paid employee, which- while a respectable ratio compared to most- is wholly unnecessary. nobody needs a multimillion a year paycheck except perhaps pediatric surgeons with a good bedside manner.

Selfishly?

Golden Sun 2: One of my favorite game series’s growing up, and the first time I experienced a “good” plot twist.

Knights of the Old Republic: Talk about good plot twists, I rented this game from blockbuster once and spent years thinking it was a fever dream.

Pokemon Emerald: Pokemon Crystal is the first game that let me play as a girl, but ruby/sapphire is really my generation.

Baldur’s Gate 3: Met my gf playing this, 1000 hours in, all coop with her.

Monster Hunter World: Met my best friend here, 2000 hours in, and basically infinitely replayable in a way that Elden Ring isn’t

government by the people, right?

visually impaired (not blind(yet)) from keratoconus, the number of people who say “oh im blind without my glasses too” drives me up the wall. nothing to do but pretend to commiserate.

muted

yes! it’s wild getting it from guys who are already taller than me. I’m lucky enough to have not had the experience of looking for a partner on dating apps(unless discord counts?), but i hear all the time about how absurdly superficial they are

I’m 5’8, plenty of men aren’t interested in women as tall as they are.

ive been off social media except reddit, discord, and lemmy for a decade, and i was genuinely confused at labeling that girl “fat”. (and the guy, too).

i think im healing. i needed that hope today

one of my (very shy) discord friends posted an accidental face reveal from a photo of their dog, reflected in the pupil.

New phones have absurdly good cameras

i think this metaphor is close, but not quite. being honest, nice, friendly is like the bread of the sandwich, not the pickles. you can’t have a sandwich without the bread- but very occasionally, sometimes, you wanna just reach in and just grab some meat and cheese