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Main Paineframe posted:It even disadvantages them in the propaganda battle. For example, the Dems had a hard time responding to the "death panels" and "healthcare rationing" lines because the proper response is that insurance companies already do both those things - with the objective of raising their own profit margins and making themselves more money. But since the Dems restricted themselves to only telling people how good their plan was, and refused to criticize the insurance companies or say that private for-profit insurance was bad, they essentially surrendered their ability to effectively counter the attacks. Yeah it was a pretty huge problem that Democrats couldn't respond to a single attack because the only possible defense: "it's the insurance companies screwing you, not us" contradicted their position that a public option wasn't necessary now that regulations had made insurance companies nice. E: The other propaganda problem with defending a half-assed plan is that you can't exactly admit you half-assed it on purpose. While of course Lieberman is the go-to boogeyman* for polisci nerds cosplaying as Democratic wonks on forums like this, actual Democratic politicians couldn't say "well these bad things wouldn't be happening to you if Lieberman hadn't hosed it up and well the filibuster is an important tradition" because the obvious response is "wait you knew it was lovely when you passed it and you did it anyway instead of fixing that, wait I have to die because you care about tradition more than lives?" so instead they all had to claim all the problems didn't exist. Which is exactly what they'll have to do if they don't pass M4A next time because you can't very well tell the public "yeah we knew it was worse, we just didn't want to make it better, not our fault" now can you. *Even though in reality he was just the heel to take the blame for upholding the deal Obama had already made with insurance companies to kill the public option, because he was retiring and didn't have to run again VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Aug 24, 2018 |
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Aug 24, 2018 18:06
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Ytlaya posted:Another issue that comes to mind with Paracaidas's "hypothetical really great public option that is better than most private plans" is that it would presumably require people to actively switch to it. While in a perfect world everyone with inferior plans would shift to the public option, in reality you'd likely end up with millions of people who are "satisfied with their current plans" (because they haven't yet had a serious enough medical emergency to discover their plans actually suck) having inferior outcomes because they don't understand that the public option is actually better. So, in the real world, the actual direct outcomes from a public option - even an ideal, perfect one - are worse than those of something like MfA. Yeah even if a precog guaranteed that if you passed M4A Democrats would be blown the gently caress out the next election, passing it anyway would be the right thing to do because it could never be repealed and would save thousands of lives a year. And that's with a guarantee, in reality it's (1) people would like it once they're on it so it's doubtful you'd lose the next election and (2) Democrats got blown the gently caress out anyway for their lovely triangulated industry-penned plan, but who cares about some rinkydink careers anyway if you can save lives. People like Paracaides remind me of that John Oliver bit where he interviewed that Australian conservative who ended his career by voting for gun control and he said "well I believe a politician's goal should be to leave the world a better place, I didn't even consider hanging onto my career if I couldn't do that", and then Oliver asked a top congressional US Democrat the same question and he said a politician's goal is to get reelected above all else (and was like "whoops I didn't mean to be honest, can we rewind the tape so I can lie")
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Aug 24, 2018 18:41
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Ytlaya posted:Another issue that comes to mind with Paracaidas's "hypothetical really great public option that is better than most private plans" is that it would presumably require people to actively switch to it. While in a perfect world everyone with inferior plans would shift to the public option, in reality you'd likely end up with millions of people who are "satisfied with their current plans" (because they haven't yet had a serious enough medical emergency to discover their plans actually suck) having inferior outcomes because they don't understand that the public option is actually better. So, in the real world, the actual direct outcomes from a public option - even an ideal, perfect one - are worse than those of something like MfA. This, and also bc health insurance is offered and priced on a county-by-county basis and would be regulated by each state. The only sort of public-option buy-in that would be meaningful is something like Pritzker has proposed for IL: allowing anyone (in the individual market) to enroll in Medicaid and if they're over the expansion limit, make the subsidies currently offered for private insurance to be transferable to Medicaid plans. I'm not sure if such a plan would also be offered to employers/employees, though, and without the critical mass of the group-insurance market the Medicaid plans for individuals might suffer the same fate that the private plans have (ie, too few enrollees or sky-high pricing). But Medicaid costs far less to the feds than do the subsidies to private insurers, even when farmed out to private managed-care organizations, so if employers also had the option to buy into it that'd be a pretty good "public option" from all points of view.
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Aug 24, 2018 20:42
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https://twitter.com/ocasio2018/status/1033034684698124288?s=21
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Aug 24, 2018 20:43
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This is almost comically corrupt. Willa Rogers posted:The only sort of public-option buy-in that would be meaningful is something like Pritzker has proposed for IL: allowing anyone (in the individual market) to enroll in Medicaid and if they're over the expansion limit, make the subsidies currently offered for private insurance to be transferable to Medicaid plans. Yeah, it's not hard to conceive of a public option buy-in that's superior to the status quo; it's mostly just pointless given the viability of MfA. In Paracaidas's case it seemed that a big part of his argument hinged on the idea that a public option, done correctly/ideally, could be at least as good as single-payer (he either explicitly said or heavily implied that a good public option would let people who like their plans keep them, while still giving people with bad plans access to the government plan, which is the sort of thing that superficially sounds better). But that definitely isn't true; there's an inherent benefit to not making people make decisions like this, since people will inevitably make sub-optimal choices (something which is even more true than usual when it comes to insurance, where people often aren't going to fully understand the quality, or lack there-of, of their plans until they actually need to substantively use them). While it's true that he didn't outright say supporting a public option is better, he did that dishonest thing where you highlight how ~complex~ the issue is (which just happens to involve almost entirely highlighting problems/"problems" with MfA in this case), and how things just aren't as simple as the left implies.
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Aug 24, 2018 21:41
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Ytlaya posted:This is almost comically corrupt. That seems at least borderline illegal if not an outright violation of the law. I feel like I've read articles about similar conduct in the past being ruled illegal due to campaign finance violations.
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Aug 24, 2018 21:50
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That seems at least borderline illegal if not an outright violation of the law. I feel like I've read articles about similar conduct in the past being ruled illegal due to campaign finance violations. I wouldn't be surprised if the laws in New York were built exactly to allow this kind of corruption. But fighting them is what has to be done. AOC is such a good leader for the Democratic Party's left because she isn't just focused on primaries but also on full-throated entryism which owns.
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Aug 24, 2018 22:08
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That seems at least borderline illegal if not an outright violation of the law. I feel like I've read articles about similar conduct in the past being ruled illegal due to campaign finance violations. Is anything being done about it legally?
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Aug 24, 2018 22:52
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Trabisnikof posted:I wouldn't be surprised if the laws in New York were built exactly to allow this kind of corruption. But fighting them is what has to be done. AOC is such a good leader for the Democratic Party's left because she isn't just focused on primaries but also on full-throated entryism which owns. Good point. I looked up the law I was thinking of and it turned out to be that my state makes it illegal to pay someone else to run for office (due to various historical shenanigans where Republicans would pay black spoiler candidates to run for office and split tickets).
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Aug 24, 2018 23:22
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Weird how the people crying that AOC is spending too much time attacking Democrats don't seem to really care about actual for real corrupt attacks on Democrats, just ones on the left. At this point anyone that still thinks Crowley simply can't get off the ballot has head damage.
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Aug 25, 2018 00:43
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Radish posted:Weird how the people crying that AOC is spending too much time attacking Democrats don't seem to really care about actual for real corrupt attacks on Democrats, just ones on the left. no he really just cares a lot about election law, cause if one thing has been made clear recently, the NY Dem establishment cares a lot about following election law
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Aug 25, 2018 01:24
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I think my favorite dumbass Crowley excuse is it's too much to ask him to temporarily change his address to where he actually lives in Virginia since he won't be able to vote in that election which is totally not being offset by whatever idiots decide to vote for him out of spite.
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Aug 25, 2018 01:50
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No my favorite is definitely "I'm too honest to appear on the ballot for an office I'm not running for" says man appearing on the ballot for an office he's not running for.
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Aug 25, 2018 01:56
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VitalSigns posted:No my favorite is definitely "I'm too honest to appear on the ballot for an office I'm not running for" says man appearing on the ballot for an office he's not running for. Um his twitter said like twice he totally wasn't running. Yeah that one probably is the best.
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Aug 25, 2018 02:06
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Condiv posted:no he really just cares a lot about election law, cause if one thing has been made clear recently, the NY Dem establishment cares a lot about following election law Hey, it's not like NY has had one of biggest vote suppression machines for decades...
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Aug 25, 2018 03:35
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Goodness, a lot of traffic over the last couple days. Apologies if I miss you, but I'll try to address the broader points.Radish posted:There's no point coming at this with a half asses compromise. Republicans are conditioned to hate whatever the Democrats offer so they will hate super full communist health care just as much as whatever last week was the Republican plan. Meeting them halfway just means you open yourself up to them attacking you on the bad parts of the plan which just so happen to be the parts added for their support. Just look at the ACA which had zero Republican votes for it in the Senate after all that reaching across the aisle.  ! That's not right. I couldn't give fewer fucks about how the GOP feels about the plan. There are reasons to consider multipayer UHC on the merits. Between a watered down compromise multipayer plan and MFA, MFA is unquestionably superior despite its flaws. VitalSigns proves that repeatedly, effectively shutting down whatever person, somewhere, is advocating for it. Seems as if discussing two similarly robust plans would be more interesting? A comparably strong MP-UHC solution would absolutely include all-payer rate setting alongside markedly tighter overhead/margin constraints, prescription drug (and related IP policy!) reform, autoenrollment of certain classes (the MFA under-18 process has merit, either done explicitly or by compelling employers to limit family plans), and other systematic reforms to a broken system. If anyone actually believes that Multipayer Universal Health Care is just the current American health system only the government offers a plan too, there's a wide world of fascinating reading you can find about the many extant robust systems currently in place around the world!Ytlaya posted:By consequences I mean "supporting this thing is literally likely to make your party lose control of the government through people not voting for politicians they'd normally support." Main Paineframe posted:Besides, fundamentally, it doesn't really matter if a bill polls badly when it goes before Congress. Public opinion doesn't come into play until the next election, so even if the propagandists convince everyone to hate a bill, it doesn't matter if the bill comes into effect within a reasonable timeframe so that people can experience the reality for themselves. Ytlaya posted:While it's true that he didn't outright say supporting a public option is better, he did that dishonest thing where you highlight how ~complex~ the issue is (which just happens to involve almost entirely highlighting problems/"problems" with MfA in this case), and how things just aren't as simple as the left implies.  given that a mere page ago I explicitly pointed out the biggest drawback of a multipayer setup, which VitalSigns helpfully emphasized through quoting separately a few posts later.Speaking of, VitalSigns posted:People like Paracaides remind me of that John Oliver bit where he interviewed that Australian conservative who ended his career by voting for gun control and he said "well I believe a politician's goal should be to leave the world a better place, I didn't even consider hanging onto my career if I couldn't do that", and then Oliver asked a top congressional US Democrat the same question and he said a politician's goal is to get reelected above all else (and was like "whoops I didn't mean to be honest, can we rewind the tape so I can lie") I promise that I have enough awful political takes you don't need to strawgraft new ones onto me. There's plenty of ammunition to go around from things I actually say. Ytlaya posted:edit: It's also worth mentioning that the people who would receive inferior coverage under MfA to their current plants are basically negligible, and a significant number of people who claim they're satisfied with their current plants are simply biased due to having never needed their insurance for anything major (and not knowing that something better is possible). Most of these people would just go from "being satisfied with their private plans" to "being satisfied with their government plans under MfA"; there is zero reason to assume that being satisfied with their current plants implies they would be less satisfied under MfA. The whole "people claiming to be happy with their current plans as a reason to be Concerned about a single-payer system" argument is frankly stupid and falls apart under any scrutiny. For instance, Bruenig has put together a 5 point takedown on concerns about what Zaid terms as 'Switching Pain'. I disagree with key portions of this analysis (His first point, that it doesn't matter because people switch at 65 anyway, borders on imbecilic when looking at a transition window. The second, that sometimes people are fired and therefore MFA actually reduces switching pain is, like the first, an accurate statement that egregiously misses the point. His fifth, that Succ Dems Succ, is unimpeachably accurate), but that doesn't mean it's wrong or worthless. He just comes at it from the perspective that the clear superiority of SP will make the temporary switching pain a nonissue, whereas I assume, from past behavior, that Americans put a greater priority on their own agency (and have repeatedly shown themselves more amenable to giving that agency to their employers than the federal government). Which, to square the circle, is what makes me more apt to consider COMPARABLY ROBUST multipayer UHC and SP UHC relative equals that have their own strengths and weaknesses. The specific weaknesses of SP (and MFA in particular)--switching pain, the need for fantastic transition management, rapidly spooling up colossal infrastructure in a necessarily short time, the enormous potential for abuse by future GOP Secretaries of Health and Human Services--leave me skeptical that it, as constituted, is the ideal path forward. There's no doubt that it's better than the status quo (and that it'll be better for the bulk of privately covered Americans), but I think it's extraordinarily dumb to handwave concerns about the transition and perceptions. Phrased differently: Anyone who thinks that transition concerns mean we shouldn't make dramatic changes to the healthcare system is, at best, a loving idiot (at worst, an industry shill). Anyone who writes off any conversation on those topics as concerntrolling is intellectually, if not ideologically, suited to be a delegate at the RNC.
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Aug 25, 2018 22:11
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For an entirely different topic: Succ Dem Incrementalism on Superdelegates quote:The new party rules undo decades-old reforms that empowered hundreds of party activists and elected officials, often referred to as “superdelegates,” whose presidential convention votes were not bound to the results of primaries or caucuses. They also affirm the decision of six states to move from caucuses, which have favored insurgent candidates, to primaries, which tend to have higher turnout.  as gently caress about dropping the caucuses though! The benefits of much quicker process, a secret ballot, and avoiding adversarial environments in nonanonymous situations outweigh the benefits of the caucus. Though I'd still like to see the party come up with a system that gives proper weight and advantage to the intensity of a candidate's support.
Paracaidas fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Aug 25, 2018 |
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Aug 25, 2018 22:19
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Paracaidas posted:MSDOS, Painframe, and Maj all discussed the opposition to the ACA, and while there are parallels to draw, it's worth noting that there are plenty of attack ads this time around that would be true which is a luxury they didn't have in 2010. Even if we accept your premise that some of the attacks on M4A would be valid, in what way would their truthfulness have any bearing politically whatsoever? The lack of truth in the attacks on the ACA didn't keep the right from rallying against it.
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Aug 25, 2018 22:27
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Paracaidas posted:This is one of the reasons that folks who aren't fully onboard with MFA(or other SP) usually cite transition planning as an area needing clarification and demonstration, as one of the many lessons from the ACA is neither a second crack nor the opportunity to fix flaws are guaranteed. Yes I know it works fine in Germany, that's because their conservative party isn't a death cult obsessed with breaking government. Paracaidas posted:the enormous potential for abuse by future GOP Secretaries of Health and Human Services Multipayer also has this enormous potential for abuse by a Republican HHS, except the potential is even greater because sabotaging it only hurts some voters instead of all voters, and as the public plan gets worse fewer people will choose it, making continued sabotage even more safe politically.
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Aug 25, 2018 22:30
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Paracaidas posted:For an entirely different topic: If I'm understanding things correctly, this outcome with the superdelegates is honestly about as good as we could have hoped for. It seems like it should effectively remove their influence in all but a negligible percent of situations (which does sorta beg the question of why to leave them at all, but I'm not going to complain as long as it accomplishes the intended goal). I feel like ranked choice voting (which I know is discussed a lot) somewhat accomplishes the reverse of giving weight to intensity of support. That is, rather than giving candidates more weight for more intense support, it allow the rejection of candidates through not choosing them as second/third choices. I'm not really sure how to weight intensity of support. Caucuses have the problems you describe (which as you mentioned outweigh the good), and I can't think of any way for people to express that on a ballot.
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Aug 25, 2018 22:50
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Majorian posted:Even if we accept your premise that some of the attacks on M4A would be valid, in what way would their truthfulness have any bearing politically whatsoever? The lack of truth in the attacks on the ACA didn't keep the right from rallying against it. I get that we live in a post-fact era, but majorities of Americans still believe the press is doing an acceptable-or-better job informing Americans about public affairs, holding politicians accountable, and providing objective news reports. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the bulk of those folks are Dems. Hearing from the GOP and insurance lobbyists and their trusted arbiters of Truth (and the omnipresent lovely blue dog Dems) seems like it'll have more impact than just the first two alone. I'd like to be  , though! As for why we haven't seen the dynamic already, it's the same reason that the February 2017 ACA repeal effort received more press, attention, and study than all the efforts that came before it combined. It's not real until it's feasible, and it's not feasible until Dems have a trifecta.VitalSigns posted:I agree, but this is an argument for MFA. If you don't get a multipayer+public option plan just right with your first crack at it, you won't be allowed another and your plan to gradually move the whole country to the public system will fail or even go backwards as the GOP and health insurers will obviously benefit from obstructing or sabotaging the public option. The only way to ensure you can fix the law later is by making it a single payer plan everyone is on which will be too toxic for the GOP to sabotage or refuse to fix. VitalSigns posted:Multipayer also has this enormous potential for abuse by a Republican HHS, except the potential is even greater because sabotaging it only hurts some voters instead of all voters, and as the public plan gets worse fewer people will choose it, making continued sabotage even more safe politically. Ytlaya posted:If I'm understanding things correctly, this outcome with the superdelegates is honestly about as good as we could have hoped for. It seems like it should effectively remove their influence in all but a negligible percent of situations (which does sorta beg the question of why to leave them at all, but I'm not going to complain as long as it accomplishes the intended goal). As for RCV/IRV, it heavily emphasizes within the party, as being 2nd or 3rd is hugely important. Which may have advantages when discussing a primary, but is kind of against the general ethos of this forum? I believe it actually helps establishment candidates more than insurgent ones (taking away the ability to win with a strong core of support while multiple establishment candidates split the vote), but there's no real way to prove it out. And while 2020 shouldn't matter in the broad sense, IRV would drag those primaries on exponentially, limiting the time and ability to coalesce behind the winner. YMMV on if that's advantageous or not.Intensity of support is an almost intractable problem, because if it's not handled on the ballot then it involves the party thumbing the scales in some manner. The best option I've come up with is the party providing (for all candidates who hit the ballot threshold) volunteer management training and resources, to make it easier for campaigns to leverage that intensity. It still thumbs the scales a bit by limiting the advantages of better funded/more experienced candidates, but then, that's not typically the objectionable sort of interference.
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Aug 25, 2018 23:20
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Probably the biggest benefit of the superdelegates change is the perception of the primaries: in 2016 the media included superdelegate support in Clinton's numbers which probably depressed the vote by giving one candidate the appearance of a runaway lead but also was a serious image problem for the Democratic Party as despite some impressive wins prior to Super Tuesday her challenger trailed far behind anyway. It made the whole thing look rigged* from the beginning, and that only got worse when the final superdelegates endorsed her right before the California primary, prompting the media to declare her the candidate-elect right before the biggest state voted which looked really bad to the average person (even though informed people knew that since the primaries were proportional she was bound to pick up some delegates in California and therefore her victory was a foregone conclusion by that point). Really they should just get rid of them though, if they're going to make their one theoretical function: overturning democracy when the bosses decide the people voted wrong, completely useless then they just look bad and don't even have a theoretical upside**. *Well more rigged than it already was **Provided that you think canceling the will of the people and rigging the outcome to suit the agenda of party bosses is an ""upside"" at all, of course VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Aug 25, 2018 |
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Aug 25, 2018 23:25
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Paracaidas posted:That's not "my premise". "[Dem President]'s Medicare for All proposal will take away your current healthcare and isn't even actually Medicare" is plainly factual. Death Panels and such were as effective as they were despite being constrained to campaign ads, Fox, and the RWM feverswamps and being pushed back against by the centrist corporate media. You're much more optimistic than I am if you don't think WaPo and NYT will continually hammer the differences or CNN and even MSNBC won't start every panel with "So, it's not actually Medicare, is it?" The mainstream media endlessly criticized the ACA too - sometimes fairly, oftentimes unfairly. The notion that they're going to go after M4A any more than they did in the case of Obama doesn't hold water, IMO. Democrats can be pretty tribal, too. I don't buy the notion that MSM critiques of Medicare for All are going to sink it among most Democratic voters, particularly once they have a 2020 nominee who runs hard on it. Majorian fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Aug 25, 2018 |
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Aug 25, 2018 23:39
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Truth and good faith in criticism hasn’t matter in American politics since at least Reagan, if not Nixon, so who cares what Republicans say? They’ll call you communazi whores of Babylon if you offered free oral sex to all Republicans.
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Aug 26, 2018 00:02
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VitalSigns posted:Probably the biggest benefit of the superdelegates change is the perception of the primaries: in 2016 the media included superdelegate support in Clinton's numbers which probably depressed the vote by giving one candidate the appearance of a runaway lead but also was a serious image problem for the Democratic Party as despite some impressive wins prior to Super Tuesday her challenger trailed far behind anyway. Leading into Super Tuesday on March 1st, Clinton had won 3 states and won a total of 91 delegates. Her challenger, by contrast, had won 1 state and won a total of 65 delegates. That margin grew 7x after Super Tuesday and never shrank below 150 after. It was within a delegate prior to South Carolina, the 4th contest. But that result looks to have been driven by preference rather than perception. Just to make sure w're all on the same page for the discussion. And again, I'd rather drop the superdelegates all together.
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Aug 26, 2018 00:02
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Paracaidas posted:I'd argue that the superdelegates already have no influence in all but a negligible percent of situations ("Superdelegates depressed Bernie's won delegate total" remains the Lincoln Chafee of Dem Primary takes. It's not the Jim Webb, because his answer about enemies he's most proud of was amazing), but yeah, further reducing their potential applicability is better than keeping the status quo. Probably the biggest issue with superdelegates, that may remain an issue after these changes actually (didn't think of this before making my last post), is the media reporting them early, creating a bandwagon effect due to the perception that one candidate (which is generally going to be the one preferred by the Democratic establishment) has a huge lead. Removing superdelegates entirely would eliminate this issue, since as things stand it's still largely left in media organizations' courts whether to report on superdelegates even if they're unlikely to matter. Paracaidas posted:As for RCV/IRV, it heavily emphasizes Hm, I guess it depends upon the circumstances of the election. From what I understand, I think it's true that it wouldn't usually make a difference. (As a side thing, the idea that MfA actually taking away existing healthcare might be a greater problem than Republicans just lying about the same thing for the ACA or a public option or whatever is plainly nonsense. I guess it might make some random internet discussions more obnoxious, but it is very doubtful it'll actually matter on a broader scale.)
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Aug 26, 2018 00:10
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Paracaidas posted:Leading into Super Tuesday on March 1st, Clinton had won 3 states and won a total of 91 delegates. Her challenger, by contrast, had won 1 state and won a total of 65 delegates. Iowa was an upset tie and after New Hampshire Bernie was ahead by one pledged delegate but the media reported her with a huge lead delegate thanks to superdelegates. YMMV on whether that perception affected voter turnout or not (there's probably no way to know), but it was definitely an image problem that the candidate who had been losing was so far ahead anyway because party bosses each count as hundreds of thousands of ordinary people. You and I are informed and engaged enough that we read up on the process, said "ah her lead looks huge but that's only because so few pledged delegates have been won but a lot of the relatively small number of superdelegates have endorsed her, if Bernie keeps winning primaries her lead will vanish as their aren't many more superdelegates to get but lots of pledged delegates out there." To the average person though, they just saw Bernie tie or win primaries yet Hillary got way more delegates, and the party never really did shake that image problem, in fact it only got worse when the media called the winner on a day no one voted and right before the biggest state weighed in. A ton of people were pissed about that, even though you and I already knew the race was over no matter what because she was guaranteed some California delegates thanks to the proportional system. Ytlaya posted:Probably the biggest issue with superdelegates, that may remain an issue after these changes actually (didn't think of this before making my last post), is the media reporting them early, creating a bandwagon effect due to the perception that one candidate (which is generally going to be the one preferred by the Democratic establishment) has a huge lead. Removing superdelegates entirely would eliminate this issue, since as things stand it's still largely left in media organizations' courts whether to report on superdelegates even if they're unlikely to matter. I doubt they'll include the superdelegates this time around. They stopped doing it in 2016, finally, though too late to correct the DNC's image problem, but if they can't even vote on the first ballot now it would make no sense at all to include them, which is a huge benefit from this rule change.
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Aug 26, 2018 00:31
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VitalSigns posted:I doubt they'll include the superdelegates this time around. They stopped doing it in 2016, finally, though too late to correct the DNC's image problem, but if they can't even vote on the first ballot now it would make no sense at all to include them, which is a huge benefit from this rule change. Yeah, this is what I'm assuming/hoping will happen.
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Aug 26, 2018 00:36
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Radish posted:There's no point coming at this with a half asses compromise. Republicans are conditioned to hate whatever the Democrats offer so they will hate super full communist health care just as much as whatever last week was the Republican plan. Meeting them halfway just means you open yourself up to them attacking you on the bad parts of the plan which just so happen to be the parts added for their support. Just look at the ACA which had zero Republican votes for it in the Senate after all that reaching across the aisle. Well, one thing to remember is that there is always going to be some level of disagreement about how to deliver healthcare, even if one starts from the idea that every single person in the US deserves complete healthcare coverage that they can afford. How is it funded? Would private healthcare providers still be allowed to exist? Would the government own actual healthcare infrastructure? But we can only move onto that debate, which is a necessary one, once it is agreed upon that universal healthcare must and shall exist in some form, and it boggles the mind that there is any significant fraction of people, much less democrats, who cannot agree on that -- the least of the issues.
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Aug 26, 2018 01:44
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PT6A posted:Well, one thing to remember is that there is always going to be some level of disagreement about how to deliver healthcare, even if one starts from the idea that every single person in the US deserves complete healthcare coverage that they can afford. How is it funded? Would private healthcare providers still be allowed to exist? Would the government own actual healthcare infrastructure? I feel like it's a mistake to talk about it in terms of "that people can afford" rather than just "people should have healthcare" (it also leaves a lot of wiggle room for bad policy, since "affordable" is very vague). Since many people are poor, literally any cost associated with use (in the sense of "choosing to use healthcare costs more than not choosing to use it") is a problem. The only remotely ethical way to deal with things is to have everything just paid for by the government (and some amount offset by taxes to the extent necessary), with no increased costs for use (with possible exceptions for certain things, but generally speaking there should be no cost to choosing to receive healthcare).
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Aug 26, 2018 02:13
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Ytlaya posted:I feel like it's a mistake to talk about it in terms of "that people can afford" rather than just "people should have healthcare" (it also leaves a lot of wiggle room for bad policy, since "affordable" is very vague). Since many people are poor, literally any cost associated with use (in the sense of "choosing to use healthcare costs more than not choosing to use it") is a problem. The only remotely ethical way to deal with things is to have everything just paid for by the government (and some amount offset by taxes to the extent necessary), with no increased costs for use (with possible exceptions for certain things, but generally speaking there should be no cost to choosing to receive healthcare). I agree, but ultimately if there were a system where poor people paid nothing and people who could afford it paid some form of user fee for some things or all things, it would still be acceptable if not optimal, which is why I think "that people can afford" is a perfectly fine way to word a reasonable starting point that everyone should be able to agree on. A system where no one is ever forced to pay for anything is a better idea, and that should be the opening offer in a negotiation. Additionally, any system which would fund healthcare by increasing taxes on the poor by any amount is unethical, that's the other side of the coin when it comes to making sure this is affordable.
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Aug 26, 2018 02:29
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PT6A posted:I agree, but ultimately if there were a system where poor people paid nothing and people who could afford it paid some form of user fee for some things or all things, it would still be acceptable if not optimal, which is why I think "that people can afford" is a perfectly fine way to word a reasonable starting point that everyone should be able to agree on. This means-tested bullshit is exactly the wedge Republicans exploit to destroy the system. "Why do you go to work everyday to earn your healthcare while others sit at home and get it for free", that's how you get work requirements and fees for the poor that push them out of the system and make health care more expensive for everybody overall. Just make it free at point-of-service for everyone, then get the money to pay for it with a progressive income tax. There's no need to means-test everything twice, the income tax already charges "people who can afford it"
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Aug 26, 2018 03:08
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"Multi-payer UHC can be nearly as good as single-payer if you ignore all the multiple pain points the GOP and their media empire would be able to use to turn public opinion against it" is a pretty... interesting argument against single-payer. Yes, it turns out that a lot of lame ideas can be made to work if you've got a group of competent and pragmatic people united around a common goal with some differences of opinion in how to achieve that. The thing is, in US politics right now you can just assume anyone to the right of Elizabeth Warren (inclusive or exclusive - you be the judge) is not doing anything in good faith, ever. You could fit the public servants in D.C. who actually, really, on a personal level, give an actual poo poo about getting people health care, in a third-grade classroom. The rest of them are getting paid either to keep the status quo, or make it worse, or if nothing else then make sure some third party can turn whatever solution into a grift for themselves. The only path forward is allying with the handful of people who actually want to get this done, and make it clear to just enough of the rest that their careers and lives are going to be ruined if they don't quit loving around. And that means you go big or you go home. As soon as you start hemming and hawing about patching what we already have into a workable system, even if there is a theoretical path to achieving that, policy-wise, people are going to pick up that it's just more of the same bullshit. And they'll be right. And all that will get amplified by the media, too, of course. So anything short of "this all loving sucks and we're going to tear it completely apart and start over, and anyone who gets in our way is getting run over" is a non-starter. It won't work. And you can apply this to just about any other sensible policy you can name, by the way. VitalSigns posted:Just make it free at point-of-service for everyone, then get the money to pay for it with a progressive income tax. There's no need to means-test everything twice, the income tax already charges "people who can afford it"  is a loving boring stupid discussion because of course the answer is "loving yes, duh."
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Aug 26, 2018 06:56
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PT6A posted:people who could afford it Are you indigent? Ok, you qualify for reliable access to basic medical care. Well, the new governor is a Republican, so, sure you maybe a self-supporting full-time student or sole caregiver for a family, but if you want that insulin or thyroid medication, you better sign up for work-fare class to be pimped out to the Purdue chicken plant in bed with the local chamber of commerce for a cool 39 hours a week with no benefits that will pay just enough to be defined as a person who can afford the medical services that might even be treating issues preventing you from having steady work in the first place. Any other obligations you can suck up and quit being a slacker, access to basic medicine is for That's not hyperbole, that's how means testing works in every loving state. At the state and county level there's always some new rear end in a top hat who's either ideologically opposed to people using public services, or trying to find a way to monetize the desperate via exploiting them with threats of loss of access based on complying with dodgy programs based on kickbacks to coral them into low paying unstable mcjobs jobs at companies in bed with the state. Plus the constant reminders that if the couch you're crashing on provides a value that's arbitrarily determined to constitute a form of income, then you're a criminal and going to jail.
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Aug 26, 2018 16:14
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Paracaidas posted:That's not "my premise". "[Dem President]'s Medicare for All proposal will take away your current healthcare and isn't even actually Medicare" is plainly factual. No, it won't. It'll take away people's current health insurance. But the entire reason we're talking reform in the first place is because current health insurance sucks!
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Aug 26, 2018 22:01
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Main Paineframe posted:No, it won't. It'll take away people's current health insurance. But the entire reason we're talking reform in the first place is because current health insurance sucks! He would likely respond to this by pointing out that most people are currently satisfied with their health insurance, though that's a bad argument for reasons I mentioned before (namely that they're only satisfied in most cases due to not needing to use it much, and there's no reason to think they'd be less satisfied after the change).
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Aug 27, 2018 00:50
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Ytlaya posted:He would likely respond to this by pointing out that most people are currently satisfied with their health insurance, though that's a bad argument for reasons I mentioned before (namely that they're only satisfied in most cases due to not needing to use it much, and there's no reason to think they'd be less satisfied after the change). Nobody actively likes their health insurance. Even among the rich people who get the premium insurance, it's not like they're dedicated insurance enthusiasts who can excitedly recite their co-pays by heart just for fun. "If you like your insurance, you can keep it" is a line that's designed to appeal to insurance company CEOs, not the average person.
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Aug 27, 2018 04:30
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Main Paineframe posted:"If you like your insurance, you can keep it" is a line that's designed to appeal to insurance company CEOs, not the average person. I disagree about that. I think the line was designed to placate those people who have insurance they think is better than average and have this very common American assumption that if "the poor people are allowed, it must suck." Since employers use health insurance both as a stick and a carrot, many people have been convinced they get some special deal on insurance from their generous employer and since healthcare is such a disaster in this country they get very defensive about what they perceive as a hard fought advantage.
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Aug 27, 2018 04:37
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Trabisnikof posted:I disagree about that. I think the line was designed to placate those people who have insurance they think is better than average and have this very common American assumption that if "the poor people are allowed, it must suck." That doesn't mean they actually like their health insurance, though. That just means they think that other people have even worse health insurance.
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Aug 27, 2018 04:49
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Main Paineframe posted:Nobody actively likes their health insurance. Even among the rich people who get the premium insurance, it's not like they're dedicated insurance enthusiasts who can excitedly recite their co-pays by heart just for fun. "If you like your insurance, you can keep it" is a line that's designed to appeal to insurance company CEOs, not the average person. Have you have to use your insurance for a serious (100k+) condition? You learn to love those numbers really fast.
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Aug 27, 2018 14:44
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