I might agree with you if we're just analyzing the second half...but did you watch the first half? He was awful. Every single website agrees and either has him as the sole loser or the biggest loser in a group of losers. He was the only candidate who was actually booed onstage after replying that women didn't like his jokes (explaining why he got sued). he was smug, blank, barely put up a fight. Second half he attacked a little more, sure, but that first half was a nightmare.
No, it's not a 1-to-1 transfer or an immediate impact. But those are extra funds that they can give to employees. The market will decide if they do or not. e.g. A major company uses a portion of that extra funds to increase wages and other matches to compete. Of course, that might not happen if they are taxed to a point where it take away all of those extra funds to pay for public health care (Warren's plan does some of this).
Why do you think unions exist? Americans don't live in giant bubble. They know now in this hypothetical that their employer isn't covering healthcare anymore. They are going to demand for more.
One of the primary argument for single payer and gov option is cost. Single payer is much more efficient. About 1/4 of US health care costs is overhead related to paperwork, billing, complexity of insurance, administrative cost and so on. Beside efficiency, a single (gov) voice in price negotiation is much more powerful and effective. Private ins pay 200-300% more than what medicare pay to hospitals in 2019. A single payer would have even more powerful negotiation voice. There are certainly costs due to laws - Congress denying Medicare the right to negotiate drug price is an example of a gift to drug company. And some of the things you already mentioned above.
Are you just posting **** just to reply now? Unions? The percentage of workers in unions is small, how about the rest of the workers. Just because you demand something does not make it so. You really are just flailing now.
Absolutely. Union has a bad rap, but they are important. Remember the Cadillac health plans union bargain for? You know what was the trade off for that? Wages. The union and the employee decided that health care is so important, they were willing to give up wages for it. They have already demanded that any M4A plan compensate them appropriately (Warren address some of this also). In general, I think American is willing to pay. They need to know what the trade offs are. I'm pretty certain American is wiling to be taxed more if they can have health security and that the taxes are fair.
Yes, we probably can. Yet none of the proposed 'solutions' actually do do better. Again, they don't even address the right problem. Simply wanting to do better doesn't mean we should adopt solutions that aren't any better. Classic flaw in liberal thought process...having a desired end in mind doesn't magically create a solution that is actually better. We CAN do better at almost everything. Can and Will are two different things. The proposed solutions need to be evaluated to see if they actually are better. It's hard for them to BE better if they aren't even working on solving the right problem.
Yes...and no. It all depends on what the benefits are that we are paying for. We can't know if its fair if it isn't described accurately and objectively to us. Keep in mind that they had to lie to us about Obamacare to get it to pass...and once the lies were uncovered, many of its former supporters were against it. In general, I don't really think I, or the majority of people like me, will necessarily get a benefit. But even if we don't, and our costs go up, and we are told accurately and objectively what that is for, we might still support it. I get the problems that are thrown out there. But that doesn't mean the solutions put out there are good. I don't even particularly care if its a public or a private solution. The one caveat to that being that I also know that a public solution is nearly impossible to get rid of...so its benefits and feasibility need to be clearly laid out ahead of time. The private solutions are more flexible, and can adapt if not working as desired. I certainly do NOT want public just to have it. We may end up having something we don't like...and won't be able to get rid of it.
I hate Trump. Do your Trump supporting friends really say that they would vote for Bloomberg? You've actually heard a real life person say that out loud? I feel like Trump is capable of pumping up his base with any of the non-bloomberg candidates. But how can he do that with someone like mini-mike? Going to be hard for him to do his whole hate mongering routine, Biden is old senile Obama lover, Bernie is a crazy commie, Warren is pochahontas teacher, Buttigieg is a gay mayor with a town on fire and funny last name, Klobuchar has a case of shakes and forgets world leaders (we don't know if the latter two can gather up the minorities support to win primaries anyway). Bloomberg's cold snappy cut offs did project him to be in control and thus most capable to stand up to stupid Trump attacks (which I suspect will be many). He is a true New Yorker and thus would be able to get under Trump's skin, right? Or am I being biased? Hillary didn't have that and couldn't really come off angry due to an angry woman optics handicap.
Thanks for the discussion. My concern however is once it becomes government controlled even the costs related to many different insurance company plans, complexity etc will grow into the costs inherent in most governmental organizations. The SEIU will get in there and now healthcare are on the hook for lifetime pensions, mandatory days off and the inability to fire anyone. When the NIH took over post war in England over the next 25 years no new hospitals were built, the same number of beds were serviced but administrative non-patient care employees skyrocketed. Similar to schools a whole crop of highly administrators will come in and create boards and committees and these will suck away of the projected cost savings. Healthcare is one of the most overregulated industries in the country. The regulations help the large profiteers like the drug companies, the doctors cartel, the med device companies, hospitals and insurers but the customer is left with an overpriced, low quality product. Liberalism used to mean the power of the individual, economic freedom and civil liberties. LET THE CONSUMER decide. Think about the greatest advancements in the world or the industries where prices have come due to competition? Most have been in areas with little to no government regulation. Having invested in companies in healthcare I will tell you that the licensing boards, self-regulatory bodies that effectively have governmental control and regulators make it impossible to innovate.
There are many RATs (Republicans Against Trump) and many that hold their nose and vote for him. Many would vote against him if it wasn't the extreme messages coming out of the democratic party about banning whole industries and taking extreme government control of enormous industries. Many rational republicans would vote for Trump. If you really hate Trump you should want Bloomberg on that stage. He rattles Trump because he exposes him and will take much of his support.
It's crazy that these rational Republicans are willing to undermine the whole government by letting a convicted (by opinion of 100% of senators) crook be in charge in order to save a an industry or two. All the while running huge deficits. Also, the crook in chief has single handedly made it acceptable to call a news article one doesn't like a fake news and completely dismiss it thereby undermining a huge tenet of our democracy. He undermines integrity of our democracy in everything he touches. Imperceptibly so - "Rational Republicans" can ignore it and Russians are gleeful. Everyone else is held hostage. Trumpocrats (and you if you are part of them) is what makes capitalism have a bad smell - selfish to such degree as to be corrupt/unlawful. No integrity whatsoever. 2 cents from a Trump hater.
I thought Last was a bit off-base thinking Klobuchar "won" that exchange, although he was right that Pete didn't need to go there and probably shouldn't have. She isn't going to win this race, not in my opinion. I loved his take on Pete versus Bernie, however. You left out one of my favorite quotes from the piece. The one below. But the fight was finished when Pete Buttigieg came in and tied Bloomberg to Bernie. “Let’s put forth someone who’s actually a Democrat,” he said. And then came the killer line: “We shouldn’t have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party out.” Bernie's followers keep ignoring his towering ego. It was a big part, in my opinion, of Bernie waiting a month to endorse Hillary in 2016, which contributed, in my opinion, to something like 12% of his supporters, several hundred thousand of them, inexplicably voting for trump, which could have made the difference. Bernie convinced them that he had been "cheated" somehow by Clinton. He said as much during the primaries, and the long wait and then reluctant endorsement made his true believers convinced that he had been wronged by the party and Hillary. Somehow the fact that Hillary received 3,000,000 more votes than Bernie did during the primary campaign got lost in the noise. In other words, he was more interested in "burning down the Democratic Party" than he was in defeating trump. That's how I saw it at the time, and the passage of time hasn't changed my opinion. I'm not a fan of Senator Sanders.
She won't win, but she is playing a spoiler for moderate candidates. Pete's team has to believe that without Klobuchar in the picture, New Hampshire was right there for the taking. He lost by 1.3% and Amy pulled so many last minute undecided voters. For Pete to have any chance moving forward, he needs moderates to drop out, and fast. That's why he needed to drive the knife in Amy's campaign, and man did he do it. It's like Pete is the only person on the damn stage that realized Sanders is the front-runner here. Go after him! Love the way that Pete framed himself as a foil to both Bernie and Bloomberg. He's carving out his lane in this muddled race. Warren, despite her zingers during the debate, still hasn't done this. May all be for nought after Super Tuesday, with moderates still splintered and Bernie looking like the presumptive favorite, but worth a try.
And yet the post that started this said that most Americans don't know what their employers contribute to their health care. So...which is it? No giant bubble or don't know? Demand...how much more? And have you actually tried 'demanding' from your employer? Let us know how that goes. You'll have plenty of time to report back, as you won't be working much.
Dems are almost certainly headed to a contested convention. The only question is what will happen when they get there. Bernie doesn't like how that might work...been burned by it already.
And yet Dems have been willing to do that for year. So, not sure what your point is? Dems have done everything they accused Trump of, in spades, for years...yet their support doesn't waver. Look in the mirror before casting aspersions. Clinton was actually found to have committed 9 separate crimes. Not perceived crimes. Not potential abuse of power. 9 actual crimes. I'm sure you can point to your many posts where you shouted 'kick him out!', right? And no, Trump was not convicted. That's just a fact. Was Clinton convicted?
just as false as can be. Hate on Dems all you like, but give this era and Trump his due. He has eroded norms nobody has ever dared touch. come on now.
