2020 US Election (Part One)

[rah]

I think most weren't thinking that far in advance and voted for it to survive their next re-election. Which is what almost all politicians do.
But that's just an opinion since I am not them.

 

[Lexicus]

If you want to include McCain in that category, why am I obliged to agree?

You don't seem to understand that your attitude toward McCain has totally undermined your argument about Hillary. You used a dubious chain of logic to show that Hilary voted for the war because she wanted to run for President. It was pointed out that the same logic applies to McCain. Your response was basically that you don't think badly of McCain. This suggests that what is driving your opinions here is not logic but just whether you like the candidates or not. Basically, you've collapsed your argument to "I just don't like Hillary Clinton" by refusing to "include McCain in that category."

 

[rah]

Threads like this have made me question my self. I also dislike Hillary and wondered if it was just because she's a woman. But after much soul searching I have come up with enough reasons for me to dislike her with a clear conscience. Her voting for the war was not on the list.

 

[Lexicus]

I wasn't trying to imply that the reason for the dislike is necessarily sexist. There are obviously plenty of non-sexist reasons not to like Hillary Clinton.

 

[rah]

But that perceived implication was good since it led to additional introspection. Something I probably don't do enough of.

 

[Berzerker]

I wasn't trying to imply that the reason for the dislike is necessarily sexist. There are obviously plenty of non-sexist reasons not to like Hillary Clinton.

You accused me of disliking her because she's a woman. Are one of the reasons for disliking her because she voted to invade Iraq?

You don't seem to understand that your attitude toward McCain has totally undermined your argument about Hillary. You used a dubious chain of logic to show that Hilary voted for the war because she wanted to run for President. It was pointed out that the same logic applies to McCain. Your response was basically that you don't think badly of McCain. This suggests that what is driving your opinions here is not logic but just whether you like the candidates or not. Basically, you've collapsed your argument to "I just don't like Hillary Clinton" by refusing to "include McCain in that category."

I already said I didn't like McCain either, I just dont know if he voted to invade Iraq so he could run for President. Its about honor, she lacks it and he doesn't. She's a weather vane, he was a 'maverick'. She calls her opponents 'deplorables' and McCain called his opponent a good Christian who cares for the country. Your entire analysis depends on equating the two, I dont.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

He also sang a song about bombing Iran during a campaign stop, but calling Obama Christian clearly overrules that and therefore Hillary was easily worse lmao

 

[Lexicus]

You accused me of disliking her because she's a woman. Are one of the reasons for disliking her because she voted to invade Iraq?

More like I speculated that you don't like her because she's a woman. For the record I still consider that a strong possibility.

Its about honor, she lacks it and he doesn't. She's a weather vane, he was a 'maverick'. She calls her opponents 'deplorables' and McCain called his opponent a good Christian who cares for the country. Your entire analysis depends on equating the two, I dont.

Yawn. Your entire analysis of Hillary's actions rested on a chain of logic that applied to McCain just as well as it applied to Hillary. Which is why, ultimately, your argument is just this:

Its about honor, she lacks it and he doesn't.

You like McCain, and you don't like Hillary. It's really that simple.

Incidentally, I'm curious, was McCain being an honorable maverick when he was a member of the Keating Five?

 

[Camikaze]

Prohibit private insurers from offering coverage of anything included in Medicare coverage

Thanks for the explanation.

But why this? What's the purpose of prohibiting private health insurers, and what's it trying to emulate?

It just strikes me as being like saying "there are no guns in foreign countries; we should ban guns completely", when that's not really how anywhere works.

The upshot is that I've seen the 'moderate' Democrats criticised for saying they wouldn't ban private insurers, but I'm not sure what the actual substantive criticism is. It reads more like criticism for daring to depart from the gospel of Sanders.

 

[Lexicus]

The substantive issue with it is, as I see things anyway, similar to the issue with education investment. You don't want to create a situation where rich people can disinvest from public services because they can afford their own boutique alternatives.

 

[rah]

While I generally agree, is it the governments obligation to provide a Harvard educations to everyone? A University of Illinois education is probably sufficient. So why not let the rich pay extra for Harvard? I think the same could apply to health care but I'm open to dissent.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The substantive issue with it is, as I see things anyway, similar to the issue with education investment. You don't want to create a situation where rich people can disinvest from public services because they can afford their own boutique alternatives.

Agreed. However, the question is whether such disinvestment is actually allowed as a component of just having the alternative available. Sending your kid to private school because you can, as long as it doesn't reduce the tax you pay that supports public education isn't a problem in itself.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm not saying that simply having an alternative necessarily produces that outcome, I'm just saying you need to be careful in how you set the rules to avoid that outcome. In the case of education I actually do favor banning private schools entirely. I take a hard line on that question because in the US private education has a history of being the method white people used to avoid legally-mandated racial integration of the public school system.

 

[sophie]

But why this? What's the purpose of prohibiting private health insurers, and what's it trying to emulate

As I said earlier in-thread: What's the point of having them? Where is the circumstance in which having "a choice of options" would be preferable to "everything is covered and you don't have to worry about paying for it."

Sure you have your Tims rallying the banners around elective non-medically necessary cosmetic surgeries and your braces and the like. But those sorts of services aren't explicitly prohibited in the ban. In fact that's precisely at the heart of the bill. If there's something that M4A doesn't cover that you want to do, then that is something not covered by M4A and therefore can be covered by private supplemental insurance.

As for "the purpose" other than what I above elaborated:

a) For-profit healthcare is quite clearly immoral. In a capitalist system the sole driving motive is the pursuit of profit, and therefore, a for-profit Healthcare provider's interests can never be aligned with the interests of the client, because providing healthcare is something which cuts into profits, so the incentive will always be to mitigate the times in which healthcare is provided.

b) Leaving aside the self-evident point of morality, the power of UHC from an economic standpoint is in the collective bargaining. UHC drives down costs because the single-payer is negotiating costs on behalf of a big tent. "Give us this service at y cost or you will not give this service at all." Part of the reason health care is so fudged in the US is because the tent is split up among a number of providers making it difficult to negotiate for lower prices. The consequence of Pfizer selling their Alzheimer's drug at $700 a pill isn't that Pfizer doesn't get to sell their pill, it's that (maybe) Blue Shield doesn't cover the pill, but Kaiser et al will. Also another big economic argument for single-payer is that much of a Hospital's cost comes down to administrative/billing costs associated with having to have departments to deal with every healthcare provider a given hospital covers. Not eliminating or at least significantly reducing the position of the Private Healthcare Industry undermines this advantage. It instead turns into the xkcd comic about Standards

c) Consider schools. The presence of private schools and charters actively prevent our educational system from improving broadly. We have created a divided system whereby those with money and power can direct that money and power towards the maintenance of high quality schools for themselves and their children, and away from the public school system, to the detriment of everybody else. Why should the wealthy care when they have no "skin in the game" as it were? The result would be the same here. It's a lot easier for the government to debate kneecapping Medicare funding when they and their wealthy donors are already insured by their premium plans and don't have to worry about the consequences to their own well-being. In a single-payer system, everybody is invested in the system being good because its not-goodness would directly impact their own quality-of-life and outcomes.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm not saying that simply having an alternative necessarily produces that outcome, I'm just saying you need to be careful in how you set the rules to avoid that outcome. In the case of education I actually do favor banning private schools entirely. I take a hard line on that question because in the US private education has a history of being the method white people used to avoid legally-mandated racial integration of the public school system.

Agreed on the first point...you do have to be careful about how it gets managed. The 'perfectly reasonable' idea of school vouchers being a great case in point.

On the second I don't really agree, though I understand the reasoning. Yes, private schools were used that way and I would guess there is no one on this forum who knows that better than me. However, they were used that way in violation of law. The best solution there isn't eliminating private education. The solution is better enforcement of law. I know that probably sounds strange coming from me since I am often portrayed as the total anti-law anarchist, but it is the truth.

 

[Lexicus]

While I generally agree, is it the governments obligation to provide a Harvard educations to everyone? A University of Illinois education is probably sufficient. So why not let the rich pay extra for Harvard? I think the same could apply to health care but I'm open to dissent.

I think this is an interesting question. I don't know firsthand about U of Illinois, but I went to Rutgers, the state school of New Jersey, and I'll tell you that the quality of the actual education you get at a school like that is not markedly less than it's going to be at Harvard for most subjects. A Harvard education is mostly a status symbol. This is not to say that there aren't substantive differences between schools, but those differences are far less important than is often assumed. The big important difference between Harvard and [insert random decent school here] is that Harvard is a status symbol, an elite signifier.

 

[metalhead]

a) For-profit healthcare is quite clearly immoral. In a capitalist system the sole driving motive is the pursuit of profit, and therefore, a for-profit Healthcare provider's interests can never be aligned with the interests of the client, because providing healthcare is something which cuts into profits, so the incentive will always be to mitigate the times in which healthcare is provided.

You can always legislate away this problem. I'm indifferent on the question, but as long as there is an easily accessible public option available to all, the private pay options are pretty strictly constrained to the same price and care structure. And can be explicitly constrained by law to eliminate the immoral pursuit of profit.

The private sector insists it can provide services more cheaply and efficiently than government. I say there is little harm in setting the terms of the service and letting them try. If they fail, which they absolutely will, they go away on their own. Because what they don't want us to know is that they beat the public sector by providing fewer services, not by being any better equipped at providing a given level of service.

 

[sophie]

The private sector insists it can provide services more cheaply and efficiently than government. I say there is little harm in setting the terms of the service and letting them try. If they fail, which they absolutely will, they go away on their own. Because what they don't want us to know is that they beat the public sector by providing fewer services, not by being any better equipped at providing a given level of service.

But what's the point of all these extra steps? If the objective is to get everybody on the public option, why not just put everybody on the public option?

See also: points b and c, which your objection doesn't address.

 

[Takhisis]

If they fail

which wouldn't really™ be free enterprise

 

[Timsup2nothin]

But what's the point of all these extra steps? If the objective is to get everybody on the public option, why not just put everybody on the public option?

See also: points b and c, which your objection doesn't address.

The point in the "extra steps" is that they sidestep resistance, which otherwise needs to be just browbeaten into submission.