I had appendicitis and went to emergency room after suffering with it for about 3 or 4 days.  It mainly just hurt a lot at night trying to sleep the pain would happen then.  I basically diagnosed myself through the symptons considering it was severe right side pain moving to the center.  It could have been a kidney stone but anyways.

I pay out of pocket

~1,200 for surgeon cut a deal because mom worked for same hospital network and we paid in full

~500 for MRI after negotiating

~150 for pathologist to look at organ taken out to see I guess if cancer or whatever the fuck is there

~450 for anaesthesiologist after negotiating

2,300 I paid for services that saved my life

Hospital bill not including any of that previous stuff for one night stay, barely being checked up on, and pain drugs... $20,000.  They wanted 20K for one night, drugs, bed, and semi being checked on.  I was about to go into Coast Guard boot camp but that eventually fell through and never happened even though I went back one more physical but you had to wait a full 6 months).  So that sob story I guess was enough to convince them to write that 20k debt off I guess as tax deduction.  I'm pretty sure it was heavily inflated because they knew they might have to write it off as a tax deduction due to no insurance.  If I was forced to pay that bill I would have fought tooth and nail and demand to see every bullshit charge.

USA healthcare system is a fucking rip off.

Can you source your claim, I see 4-7 seats that might switch to democrat possibly and only one that is leaning towards switching to Republicans. Given Republican failures with incompetent president the likely situation is Donald will be lame duck more likely than not. This obviously my assumption it will work more favorable namely if Republicans fail on their budget bill promises, which seems more and more likely. 

I think a lot of people underestimate when the tide turns it turns. However one thing republicans do have is that mid elections demographically favor them, as a lot dems don't seem to care about mid election. 

http://www.270towin.com/2018-senate-election/

So you think republicans could lose all but 2 of their seats in this senate class? I mean democrats have always dreamed about winning Texas, but even being competitive in Texas is a dream during a midterm, let alone Alabama, Tenessee, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, or Missisippi.

2 GOP tossups, 8 democratic. But ignoring the tossup map, you tell me other GOP seats that could possibly flip democratic, because I don't see it.

Only one GOP senate seat is in a state Trump didn't win. Democrats have 10 seats in states Trump won. And unlike in 2012, it is a midterm year; so even though the incumbent party usually suffers, the democrats also have to deal with low turnout (the recent special house elections aren't going to give confidence to democrats who may now not bother voting at all).

Republicans aren't judged on how many legislation they can pass, their judged on how many they can stop or even repeal ...

I highly doubt Dems can win the senate in the 2018 midterm. At most what they can get is 2 seats, one from Arizona where Jeff Flake has low approval ratings and the other from Nevada where Dean Heller has relatively decent approval ratings ...

Dems are definitely going to be highly contested in Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota ... (Wisconsin, West Virginia, Montana and Florida are possibilities for republicans to gain too.)

Eh, won't Bernie be a bit old by 2020? Wouldn't it make more sense to get a young similar ver of him instead?

The only meaningful piece of legislation passed since 2008 was the ACA, and that was by a single vote via a technicality that allowed a posthumous vote from Ted Kennedy rather than his Republican replacement.

Which is to say, congress stopped actually doing these quite some time ago.

That mofo was sprinting through lobbies a few months ago. He'll be fine.

That's fine and all but does he even want to run for 2020 ? 

I like Bernie but it's a bad idea for him to run again. Candidates that lose their first primary bid lose the election too. Just look at Romney, or Clinton.

I agree we need a Bernie-type in 2020 though. Next Prez election will be interesting though. I see the Trump base swinging either 1 of 2 ways: 

1. Republicans doubling down on Trump and blaming everything on him by the end of his second term so they get a slim chance of winning another election. (which he won't complete, he's not healthy enough imo to last a second term). I alreay know Republicans have plenty of ammo to say the Presidency was "compromised" by Dems. They'd be dumb not to use it.

Or 

2. They get so tired of Trump running the GOP name in the mud that they pull a Trump and drag him through the mud. At this point, his loyalists will double down on protecting him though. For this to work though, I think we need a very moderate Democratic type. One that has not been demonizing the Republicans the past 4yrs (assuming Trump goes full term). 

Imo, the key is to make sure the Dems and Left-like networks stop attacking the Republicans and only attack Trump and his group. Because most Republicans I know very much dislike Trump. Only voted for him cause they hated Hillary that much more. But yeah, it'd be a bad idea to pick someone who attacks Reps vs Trump and his admin.