Also, when it comes to anything perceived as negatively affecting tribes in any way, it will not happen.

Tribes come first in leftistville. We worry about fish, but the tribes can net the river and block salmon spawning and no leftist say or dos anything about that, so good luck with a fireworks ban. Look at gambling and casinos.....thats illegal, but not for the tribes. Smoking indoors in a public space?....oh yah, that is ok at a tribal casino...Lol!

I also dislike fireworks and believe it should be done by professionals only at events.

However to call it entitlement is a bit of a stretch, its an American tradition as we all have experienced growing up and seen in movies throughout the last 70 years

I still dont understand this obsession with fiber internet, anyone with a smartphone in any city limit in whatcom county has internet access, there are many unlimited data plans for $25-30/month.

Get a grip, we are connected more than ever, faster than ever,  and cheaper than ever.

Its so hilarious to hear democrats complain about government not being totally honest and transparent, when everything Bellingham is democrat controlled and the complainers vote to reelect the very people they bitch about!!!.

Governments nowhere have ever admitted to doing anything wrong, its the very nature of government to do sub pare work, proclaim victory and success, raise taxes and crow how great all your failing programs are! In democrat run dumps like bellingham, the media will lie and cover for your failures in order to keep everyone voting democrat

Here's a first hand example of insurance companies power.

5 years ago I hurt my elbow, in typical man fashion I thought it would get better and ignored it, it became inflamed and I could not straighten my arm. I called the doctors office I had been going to for my whole life which was and still is family care network. They told me my insurance(Obama care NON molina apple health)was not accepted there to which i responded "no problem, I can pay cash to see the doctor", they said "no we cant see you even if you pay cash", I asked why and the receptionist said "thats insurance fraud". I argued at great length that they are 100% wrong. I went to 4 doctor offices around the county which sadly were all fcn and they all turned me away with cash in hand. I was irate. A smart nurse at the last one gave me a sticky note with fcn ceo name and home phone number, she said "talk to this guy", so I did. He also said that fcn could not see me if they dont take my insurance and I am willing to pay cash.  He said go to a walk in and lie and say you dont have insurance, so I did.

Later I called state insurance commision and they told me fcn was dead wrong to turn me away when I was willing to pay cash, I emailed the ceo with that info, he later got back to me and apologized for being wrong. You want to guess what his explanation was why they tell everyone they dont accept cash pay if your insurance is out of network for them?

He told me "we rely on molinas legal department for what we can and can't accept for payment, they were misinforming fcn on legality of cash pay for out of network insured patients".

Fcns vast majority of income is from Molina, therefore Molina is who they listen too.

That is POWER, a medical insurance provider corruptly preventing cash pay for basic medical services because it competes with their financial choke hold on fcn.

I could have sued, but im not like that.

Not much later the fcn ceo left fcn.

He was a good guy who heard me and looked into the citation and resolved it.

I learned alot about medical insurance and care providers and the choke hold insurance corps have on doctors and patients

 

Most of what you say is true, however we should be careful what we wish for, whatcom county council cant execute the justice project aftervoters approved amd have been paying for since Jan 2024.

Government has in no way helped Healthcare in the the last 20 years.

The affordable care act opened the door to medical insurance consolidation (remember the epi pen guy who bought all the epi pen manufacturerssand jacked the price to $600 per pen in 2011ish? Which was 100% legal after the affordable care act passed, 60 minutes did a story on that, super scary) and monopolization which is very harmful to patients and doctors.

Large medical insurance companies now have all power to control who gets care and when. They also control what doctors and hospitals get for compensation. This has led to less and service providers and closures of smaller rural facilities 

The loss of competition in the medical insurance industry has led to all the scary issues in the lengthy article.

Almost all the promises of the affordable care act have been broken, our medical system nation wide is more unaffordable than ever and tests/procedures are having very long wait times

D. Cook

Many stores offer close to entrance parking spots as well as across the board discounts for vets which need to be pointed out as tangible  honoring of veterans.

Im not sure i fully understand the act mentioned, would this act allow an injured vet to collect much more retirement pay than a non injured vet?, if so, would that offend vets who served without injury? 

When anything is funded by government it is very hard to call it "privatized".

Medicare in whatever form administered to patients will be government funded which will always come with rules and some government oversight.

It is not accurate for our executive to mention kings when he is the highest payed county employee and has approved new destructive policies known as land back. I hope Dick researches and writes about that, though I doubt that will happen.The only kings in our state are Our governor and executive who relentlessly raise taxes that further burden the working class