Oregon, Washington, California form health care alliance to protect vaccine access
We live in a sad time when a stunningly ignorant imbecile who believes he can can see children with "mitochondrial challenges" is in charge of public health, and this news post about vaccines can just as accurately be posted in a political sub.
Because of Trump and his worshiping morons 180,000 American's needlessly died during the worst of COVID, but that's not enough. Trump and his ilk want more people to die from diseases that were previously nearly gone.
Polio, Whooping Cough, Measles, and even Small Pox are now welcome in Trump's America.
https://www.opb.org/article/2025/09/03/vaccines-oregon-washington-california-cdc/Open linkView original on sh.itjust.works588
Comments77
Maybe these states should leave the USA and become part of Canada. People in right-leaning states hate California, but the US would collapse without it.
They need to finally form the country of Cascadia
That only works for Washington and Oregon, if California is included a better name is the Pacific States of America or The Grand Republic of California.
Cascadia is named after the cascade mountains that cross all 3 states.
Sure if you're going to include California you'd want to go with a feature that more than a quarter of the state has.
Why? Seems perfectly reasonable to me. What's the "correct" cut off for inclusion in a mountain range for a state?
Seems like an arbitrary thing to say that California can't be in Cascadia because only 190 of a 760 mile state have the mountain range in it.
More importantly, Cascadia is a fine name, even if it wasn't attached to anything. A name that is pretty, distinct, and rolls off the tongue are all good features to have.
Wasn't "Jefferson" another proposed name? Or am I mixing it up with something else?
No those are the whackjobs up in the Cascadian mountains themselves, basically they want to sheer off Eastern Oregon, Eastern Washington, and Northern California and form what would be the single poorest state. Lots of fascists mixed in.
Gotcha
I'd say "they can have it" but that's actually important farmland and invaluable wild habitat.
California alone has almost twice the GDP of the entire country of Canada, and nearly as many people. They wouldn't just become part of it, they'd make up most of it.
Besides, even as left-leaning states I would be concerned about that many Americans joining my country. Canada would lose its identity.
Fair enough - maybe it could become its own country then.
Not of we join them and become a separate nation. We can form our own west coast identity. We are already different from most of Canada and have very little representation in our own politics. The East Coast gets all the love and all the funding, the west is left to fend for itself mostly, and we do alright.
West coast gets 6 senators.
The 4 least populous states on the east coast are Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, and New Hampshire. They get 8 senators with a fraction of the population.
These states have about 5 million people. California alone has nearly 40 million people
That's because California is so fucking massive. We could break it into 4+ states and it would probably benefit the Dems in Congress
It would not creat more seats though, maybe a couple. The East is over represented and the west is under represented. Period. We keep getting shafted by terrible policy that doesn't have a place in our environments. If we weren't doing things ourselves, shit wouldn't get done.
What we need is to repeal the Reapportionment Act of 1929 that limits the House of Representatives at 435 members.
That's what's really fucking states like California.
Each new state would get 2 senators added to the senate. You are right about the house of Representatives though
Maps change. It's the only real constant throughout history. May be sooner. May be later. But eventually, even the most resolute borders change as do nation-states. You don't have to go any further back that Yugoslavia, Serbia, etc... for example. It would be arrogance to presume that it won't happen here at some point.
I think we'll need a 1500-word essay from each state explaining why we should let them join. And no ChatGPT cheating. I also think Canada might be a little worried about California potentially getting the idea of "who's joining who" a bit backwards. We'll need them to at least sit a multiple choice test on that.
I wouldn't worry too much about California wanting to be in charge. That's not really our jam. We just want to be part of a constructive collective at this point. We've spent several decades in an abusive relationship at this point, with all the red states shitting on us whatever we do.
An essay explaining why each of the three states should going would be fun though. All three would have a lot to offer Canada.
But Canada doesn't want that offer.
I live in one of those states, and increasingly seems it's either that or we just all move to BC
I love BC, but they have winter. I don’t miss winter.
I wouldn’t blame Oregonian and Washingtonians for fleeing north, though. As much as I love California, BC is my escape plan if things deteriorate further.
This is one thing that keeps me in the Bay Area - great weather year-round. Summers aren't too hot, at least in the peninsula (although it did get pretty hot over the past week!), and winters aren't too cold.
To be fair if California were to join that would nearly double the Canadian population and that's not even counting the other west coast states.
Assuming equal representation rights those would be some huge changes
Yes, I don't think it's a realistic possibility. Canada has no desire to absorb that many Americans. I could see it being in these states' interest to form their own country though, and that country having good relations with Canada.
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(ETA: not because I want to see America collapse, but because I like Canada and the West Coast would be a good ideological fit to most of Canada)
Or, hear me out. The other states could start to respect democracy.
If only it were that easy. :(
If they want to, that's their prerogative.
Nope, just because they're to the left of much of the USA they're still right-wingier than of most of Canada.
I doubt they would fit in well with Canadian society.
Vancouver and Seattle are practically sisters.
No thanks. Canada has too many anti-vax nutters.
I don't think I've met any anti vaxxers in California, but I live in a well-educated area, so maybe it's different in more rural areas. California has some of the strictest vaccination laws for kids in school, with no exemptions allowed.
Cascadia at last
Providing access to something the federal government won't is one thing. Doing so in spite of a federal ban is another. I wonder how this alliance would plan to deal with the latter, as it seems more and more likely.
If they tried to ban a vaccine, you just do what we do with marijuana. Marijuana is illegal federally, but without states enforcing marijuana laws, the feds simply don't have the resources to enforce federal marijuana laws. They can only enforce those laws with the cooperation of local and state law enforcement.
Tell that to ICE
Hey guys! BC is pretty cool, and we have lots of natural resources. Wanna form a team where we say fuck the East Coast and block access to crucial trade routes through the Pacific?! Maybe Alaska can come along?! They are pretty cool for the most part and boy do they have resources galore! Cascadia! Cascadia! Cascadia!
I'm here for Cascadia!
Great name. You can be in charge of tourism & naming things.
As long as I get to call it the ministry of doom.
Sure.. but I get to choose your title, Doom-namer
Edit: it is within your power to change the name of your title.
I guess I'm okay with that title for now. Deal!
Alaska is mostly red I think
That's just the stranglehold America has with oil extraction. Even conservative alaskans are pretty cool and into the environment and shit. That's their livelihood. It's not perfect, but we could sort it out pretty quick by kicking them to the curb as we incorporate into a new country.
Yeah, but there's like 20 of em. Not that difficult to cryofreeze them until we can restore sanity to the regions bordering Cascadia.
It's a weird kind of red. Alaska has a lot of classic Libertarian thought that has fallen prey to right-wing propaganda so there's certainly some of the MAGA crowd there but divorced from the US Lib/Repub discourse I think they'd settle pretty quickly.
BC, begin acquisition protocol. I'll deal with the red hats.
Sorry, but BC is not cool. If it wants to join the cool states club, then it needs to implement proper vaccine mandates. Currently, kids do not need to be vaccinated to attend BC public schools.
We don't need mandates, the large majority of our population is vaccinated and vaccines are offered free through school, but you can opt out, yes. Most aren't crazy nutbars, but we let the crazies have their crazy because we have achieved herd immunity with most thing.
Also, hilarious! You are mostly cool, but you don't do this one thing I'm a stickler about, so no deal. Like you guys don't have problems (eye roll)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/northeast-bc-measles-vaccinations-back-to-school-1.7621231
I did say most things. We have a conservative north, yes. Most rural parts of any country does. The north is like 10% of the population of BC of I am being generous.
Do you think rural eastern Washington is anything like the coast? Your gonna have a bad time. Oregon has some nefarious areas as well. I seem to remember a crazy guy that took over a government office because he didn't think he should have to pay to have his cattle graze government lands. Let's not even talk about the center right democratic governor of California.
Yeah Newsome is funny talking back to Trump at his level, but dude has serious policy issues. No one is perfect, point being said. Stop nitpicking the ways we are different and look at the ways we are the same.
Bring the East Coast too. We'll be Canadas sideburns with the West.
As much as I like you East coasters, I don't see the logistics working unless we somehow take all the territories with us? But fuck it, we're having fun, let's own the Arctic gateway too!
It's happening...
The wheels of secession have begun to turn...
Good. Here's hoping that New York and other blue states on the east coast join in.
Massachusetts on its way! https://archive.is/l7cYq
All three states should secede. I am biased, but I would be overjoyed to become a new Canadian province.
Maybe we could make a deal with the US. They take Alberta, and Canada gets the west coast.
We live in a sad time when a stunningly ignorant imbecile who believes he can can spot children with “mitochondrial challenges” while walking through an airport is in charge of public health, and this news post about vaccines can just as accurately be posted in a political sub.
Because Trump and his worshiping morons politicized a pandemic, 180,000 American’s needlessly died during the worst of COVID, but that’s not enough. Trump and his ilk want more people to die from diseases that are preventable and were previously nearly gone.
COVID, Polio, Whooping Cough, Measles, and even Small Pox are now welcome in Trump’s America.
States Rights
We've had North vs. the South. Guess it's time for East vs. West.
I think Outsides vs Insides is more likely, or a West+East alliance vs the interior
This is much more accurate. Coasts vs the middle. Although you also have the likes of Colorado and New Mexico as honorary coastal states. And the likes of the Gulf Coast and Florida not being in that Coastal State group.
The US doesn't split neatly into 2. But it would split neatly into 5.
New England minus New Hampshire is doing something similar
MA response: https://archive.ph/geWzS
The sooner we get to Rich vs Everybody Else, the better off we'll all be.
Good now if Newsom can explain why he vetoed bill keeping private equity out of our primary care that would be great https://www.kqed.org/news/12007157/newsom-vetoes-california-bill-against-private-equity-firms-health-care-takeovers
Oh, that’s easy to answer! It’s because he and his friends directly profit from this corrupt decision.
I too, wish to join this alliance.
Fuck yeah! 🤘
Surprise not to see Maine in that group. Maine has been pretty vocal in its dissent of the clown show at the federal level.
We can't expect moves like this to solve all problems, because MAGA will inflict as much pain as they can, if the scam artists can make a buck, but it's still a great thing to see. If Washington is worthless, then state and regional solutions are a solid move.
MAGA intends to inflict pain anyways. Might as well withstand that punishment and return it twice over.