2nd Dem Debate - Jul 30-31, 2019

So why again is a system where people who want to have healthcare have to pay into the profit motive of two entities efficient to you? You love being double dipped?

 

Right, but they already think they pay too much (employers.) They wouldn't just turn around and bump everyone's pay.

Many employers provide those super rich benefits because they have to in order to attract their upper echelon employees. If they don't have to provide those benefits anymore they'd probably funnel some of that money to some of those employees, but the rest would just lose that benefit and see their taxes go up.

There have been surveys done on this by various reputable firms.

Additionally, the expectation is that any "universal" health care plan would end up taxing employers as well, probably in a FICA match style situation. And because Democrats want corporations and rich people to pay for everything on this, they'd probably have a good excuse not to increase any salaries because they'd be eating a lot of the cost of universal coverage.

 

This is why I think employer would be fine with M4A, even if they are forced to shift the expense to salary. Separate from tax, even the force shift is still an overall reduction in employer's expense (they no longer need to maintain a work force for handling health plans - that keep on increasing).

 

I fall into group B, and even I have hesitation about going to M4A even though I know that in the end its not really reality & wouldn't keep me from voting for Bernie or Warren.

The issue really comes down to voters not being educated in the governing process. Supporting M4A shouldn't keep you from voting for a candidate. It's aspiration, and voters should rewards that... not punish it. Unfortunately the way our media treats this debate is to really push fear that a Dem president has imperial power to wave a magic wand, and make the Democratic process go away like Trump has tried to do (and has some success in some ways such as National Emergency Act for Border Wall funding). The way the media covers the debate around healthcare misleads the public, and unfortunately rules out more aspiration policy debates, and you really have to have clear reality staked out in your policies.

On Warren & Healthcare....

I'm really interested to see what she does here. She has a real chance to win the primary but in the general election will she pivot to her own healthcare plan that includes private plans & the ability for Unions to not lose their plans???.... It would be seen as a pivot from M4A, and the Bernie crowd would annihilate her, and might cost alot of them to stay home and protest non-vote. Bernie hard core folks have proven to be delicate in this way.

BUT...does a pivot to a Kamala type plan help her in the general election if she wins the primary???... I absolutely think so as long as she's able to sell that she was just a co-sponsor and THIS new plan is hers so its not a wishy washy back-peddle.

As with everything else this election.....we'll see....

 

Your logic doesn't make sense. Are you telling me that an employer's motivation to attract employees won't exist anymore because they don't have to submit health covert anymore? He logically consistent. If employers have a motivation to attract employees and then don't have to subsidize health coverage then that would logically imply they would find something else to intice prospective employees... Such as increased wages.

So you your premise doesn't even make sense here. You can't say that employers have a motivation to intice prospective employees and then turn around and claim that shifting health insurance burden away from employers is going to magically eliminate that motivation.

Not only will it free up their expenses, insurance will shift from private entities that are far less efficient with significantly higher overhead costs and profit motives with smaller segmented pools(larger pool to distribute risk lowers insurance costs for the consumer) to one giant pool funded by tax revenue with no profit motive.

 

Also, employers are subsidizing coverage with significantly higher overhead costs than the public sector insurance. They are subsidizing something TERRIBLY INEFFICIENT.

 

This is why I favor Warren over Bernie, always did, wanted her to run in 2016.

I think she will pivot, I don't think there is any chance that Bernie will. He's set in his ways so to speak. Bernie is of the mind that every other country does it, so we should be able to, and I don't disagree with Bernie...but the moderates were right that there should be a slower process to getting there. You are right here too that there is no magic wand. Even if Democrats kept the house, won the senate, and win the presidency I still don't think they would get all these plans they want but it is important to be aspirational and introduce big plans. No one wins the presidency on "I'm offering nothing, I'll just keep the ship floating and going." Even Trump won on massive change...change back to the 1950s social America yeah...but it was change that excited his base.

I think Warren is open to pivoting and changing her rhetoric for the general election, I think too if she were to choose a VP like Buttigieg, I feel that's a winning ticket personally.

 

They have to offer those benefits to the entire company when in reality they only care about a small handful (percentage wise.) Eliminating the benefit would hurt those larger portion of the employees.

 

I don't see her pivoting much personally, but we'll see (maybe)

 

Of course she doesn't want to directly say because then it becomes a sound byte, as I said. I didn't say anyone knows it's a good deal, I said anyone with critical thinking skills should know the concept and how it works. This is another issue in which candidates and pundits can't believe it can work when in reality it works that way all over the world. What actually doesn't work and is unsustainable is what we have now.

When the 35 year old oil and gas guy's daughter gets leukemia and his insurance isn't enough to cover it because he exceeds some cap and then he racks up a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt he's going to wish he had Medicare for all. Yay.

Health care is complicated and I'm not sure what I support at this point but people who have these great jobs with great benefits are an increasing minority in this country and they'll continue to become a smaller and smaller minority.

 

This is obviously an extreme example you are creating, but it's also something that's already been eliminated under ACA.

 

Buttigieg presents himself well. He's situated himself right in the middle of moderates-progressives and he's never rattled. I think he should be VP for almost every candidate except maybe Biden. Biden is going to need a progressive VP, I always think Clinton's (one of) big mistake was picking that washboard as VP, don't even remember the guys name now. But even if Biden went with Buttigieg I wouldn't be mad at all.

But Buttigieg vs Pence would be great theater, especially when you consider that Buttigieg is gay and Pence has always been an enemy of the LGBTQ community.

I think she's already pivoted to present herself as more progressive to win this primary. I think all of the candidates have and are forced to because thats just where the base is right now. But Warren's thing was always going after big business, it wasn't so much policies like M4A or all these other 'socialist' policies. At least for me she seems to have just jumped on to the wave but everyone considers it a natural progression of where she's been at as a senator.

 

Unions benefits are also an extreme example however. I fully support unionization but if the trade is great union benefits vs the number of uninsured and under insured plus the number of medical bankruptcies then I'd have to go with the latter. Trump is suing to reverse these ACA protections.

 

That was a great line.

Warren is turning into a great candidate

 

Here is that MSNBC clip with Warren. He fully admits he understands the concept but still wants to get that sound byte. It's crappy journalism. He should have fully framed the issue and then asked her to say yes or no.

 

Anyway, my three debates faves were Warren, Buttigieg, and Williamson. Warren is a tough broad and Buttigieg understands the issue quite a bit more than most on that stage. I had begun to wonder why Williamson was even on the stage but she rocked it pretty good with some of her answers tonight.

 

The progressive base of the Democrat party is what's going to get Trump re-elected.

 

Very good unbiased critical look at what Medicare for all would mean to everybody.

It is something that needs to be honestly discussed.

 

How does that put tens of thousands of people out of work?