Are You Going to Watch the Debates?

[Lexicus]

It is unconstitutional to use any religious test, including one to disqualify Gabbard for her worship of Krishna.

Nah bro. It's not 'worship of Krisha,' she grew up in a cult started by a guy named Chris Butler and she still has all these unexplained ties to people in the same cult, and her campaign deflects questioning about this my implying anyone who asks is bigoted against Hindus. It's absolutely ridiculous.
https://culteducation.com/group/1298-science-of-identity.html
https://medium.com/@lalitamann/an-insiders-perspective-on-tulsi-gabbard-and-her-guru-e2650f0d09

 

[Broken_Erika]

That's 'cause you're bigoted against cultists! Cultist-ism! Cultist-ist!

 

[Socrates99]

Based on the thirsty comments I've come across, a lot of it is because she's hot. I don't think that's true for @MagisterCultuum but it's definitely true of a lot of her supporters.

That's the equivalent of calling Bernie supporters sexist for supporting him over Clinton. Dont do that. Its shallow and insulting.

Her antiwar stance hits home with a lot of people. She really rocketed out of obscurity for leaving the DNC and endorsing Bernie in 2016. She's disappointed me lately though when she backed off of M4All. A shame. I assume it's because there are antiwar conservatives supporting her so she thinks its politically expedient. I don't know.

 

[Naskra]

Gabbard's exotic origin story gives her more appeal to me than a superannuated socialist, or a gay Episcopalian, or a Harvard Law fraud. Her cult is at least honestly come by.

 

[Kyriakos]

Nah bro. It's not 'worship of Krisha,' she grew up in a cult started by a guy named Chris Butler and she still has all these unexplained ties to people in the same cult, and her campaign deflects questioning about this my implying anyone who asks is bigoted against Hindus. It's absolutely ridiculous.
https://culteducation.com/group/1298-science-of-identity.html
https://medium.com/@lalitamann/an-insiders-perspective-on-tulsi-gabbard-and-her-guru-e2650f0d09

Well, ok, as long as this isn't actually just another mainstream media attack angle
At any rate she isn't my choice for potus. I think she can find a place in a Bernie gov, though.

Btw, AOC and Omar endorsed the Bern.

 

[Berzerker]

Nah bro. It's not 'worship of Krisha,' she grew up in a cult started by a guy named Chris Butler and she still has all these unexplained ties to people in the same cult

is she supposed to dump childhood friends?

hey, Obama went to madrassas... I guess Republican critics were right to attack his religious upbringing

 

[Commodore]

Based on the thirsty comments I've come across, a lot of it is because she's hot

I will fully admit that she is the only Democrat I would vote for and it is solely for this reason.

 

[cardgame]

So policies don't matter? It's one thing for me to come up with the theory that conservatives don't have policies, it's another for one to confirm it of their own initiative.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Policies are for Commies!

 

[bernie14]

Here's you commie plan logic

 

[Zardnaar]

At least Sanders admitted taxes up 4% on middle class.

Seems cheaper than medical insurance though.

 

[Berzerker]

These word games being played seem disingenuous to me, 1 Democrat demands another admit taxes will go up for health care while ignoring premiums disappear. If I have to pay 5 grand in taxes I wont lose any ground because I no longer need to pay 5 grand in premiums, and I doubt my taxes will go up that much.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

These word games being played seem disingenuous to me, 1 Democrat demands another admit taxes will go up for health care while ignoring premiums disappear. If I have to pay 5 grand in taxes I wont lose any ground because I no longer need to pay 5 grand in premiums, and I doubt my taxes will go up that much.

It's not just other Dems who demand it, every debate moderator starts off on M4A by trying to corner its supporters into admitting it will raise taxes while completely omitting the savings of not having any medical expenses. It's a completely disingenuous way of framing the question to force a killer soundbite out of the politicians. I do like how Bernie outright says he will raise taxes and I don't really care for the way Warren frames it only as an overall cut to expenses without going into the details but it's pretty understandable that she goes that route given the way the questions are being framed to make her look like a tax-happy liberal.

 

[EgonSpengler]

And of course the insurance companies, the billing companies, and the "management" companies all stand to lose loads of money. I don't have anything handy, but I think if you dig into why healthcare costs so much more here, it's because of these layers of parasitic bureaucracies adding their fees and then keeping them secret. I've heard that sometimes even the hospital you go to in the US can't even tell you what a procedure will cost before you submit to it.

 

[Lexicus]

It's not just other Dems who demand it, every debate moderator starts off on M4A by trying to corner its supporters into admitting it will raise taxes while completely omitting the savings of not having any medical expenses. It's a completely disingenuous way of framing the question to force a killer soundbite out of the politicians. I do like how Bernie outright says he will raise taxes and I don't really care for the way Warren frames it only as an overall cut to expenses without going into the details but it's pretty understandable that she goes that route given the way the questions are being framed to make her look like a tax-happy liberal.

Oh and hey let's talk about the net worth of those moderators:

https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/flacks-and-figures-atad

Back in January, Anderson Cooper, scion of the Vanderbilt family, conducted a one-on-one 60 Minutes interview with the newly sworn-in congressional representative from New York’s 14th District, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The splashy interview generated its biggest moment when Cooper suggested that Ocasio-Cortez’s policy agenda of Medicare for All and the Green New Deal was “radical,” asking her, “Do you call yourself a radical?” “Yeah. You know, if that’s what radical means, call me a radical,” she responded, defiantly.

Less viral but more telling was the exchange leading up to that moment, with Cooper pressing Ocasio-Cortez about the revenue needed to pay for her programs. “This would require, though, raising taxes,” he said, as though the very notion were absurd. When Ocasio-Cortez agreed that “people are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes,” Cooper pressed her again, almost annoyed: “Do you have a specific on the tax rate?” This gave the first-year congresswoman space to explain top marginal tax rates because Cooper and the 60 Minutes producers evidently had no interest in doing so themselves. Which gets to what was so clarifying about the back-and-forth: not Cooper’s questions about how a politician intended to pay for her agenda, but his disbelief verging on indignation at the prospect of a tax increase for the wealthiest Americans. It’s an idea with broad popular support, though perhaps not among the Vanderbilts.

Imagine, for a moment, if, at the top of the segment, Cooper had told his audience—reminded them—that he is a multimillionaire.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I've heard that sometimes even the hospital you go to in the US can't even tell you what a procedure will cost before you submit to it.

This is absolutely true. Trump actually passed an executive order or some new regulation that was meant to force healthcare providers to list their prices for all their services online and it was immediately attacked by the healthcare lobby and effectively shut down.

I have asked multiple times in the past how much various procedures will cost and they literally have no clue.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Yeah, Biden's "where will the money come from" talking point is ridiculous.

This one:

Spoiler :

Where do the other 8 months come from? Yes your paycheck. But currently 3.5 trillion dollars are being taken from everybody's paychecks to pay for current healthcare plans. Even if we take Biden's claim that M4A will cost 35 trillion over 10 years at face value (and note 35T represents the upper bounds of the projections we've gotten so far; even Charles Blahous, writing on behalf of the Koch-funded Mercatus Center is projecting 27-32T over ten years), then we're looking at a situation in which if everybody who is paying into health insurance plans now pays the exact same amount in taxes, then M4A is fully funded. In that case (and again, this is really a worst-case scenario: upper-bound cost projection i.e. no savings from better negotiating drug prices, no savings from dramatically expanding the risk pool, no savings from reducing administrative costs) we're still effectively getting a win-win situation: everybody pays exactly what they were before, but now everyone inside of 4 years gets dental, vision, OB/GYN, pediatrician, and mental healthcare coverage and nobody has to: haggle with insurance reps, stress about copays and deductibles, or make complicated at-the-margin calculations about coverage minutiae that are all going to get fobbed off the instant you get sick anyway. In other words, Biden's hemming and hawing amount to precisely what Bernie (and Warren, albeit more evasively) have been saying all along: the rich will pay more in taxes than they were previously paying in premiums, and everybody else will see a price cut on their premiums, an expansion of covered services, and the only difference is the check will be made payable to the US National Health Service instead of to Aetna or whatever.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Biden also made it sound like 35T is what we'd pay in a single year. I do not remember him ever clarifying that was a ten-year sum.

I'm also really fed up with 'but people want to keep their doctors or healthcare plans that they like'.

What a load of crap. It's not like M4A would round up all the doctors and shoot them. They'd still be there and if they're your local doctor, you're almost certainly going to keep them. And as Warren pointed out, people tend to like their healthcare until they actually need it, at which point it becomes a crap shoot if they're going to actually pay out what they agreed to or find a way out of paying. And further, if you lose your job, too bad!, you loose your healthcare and doctor anyways.

It's just such a stupid, fearmongering, GOP-esque argument to make, all so they can win some debate points in hopes of grabbing the nomination at the cost of potentially poisoning the well for whoever does come out on top. That said, it's not the case that a Bernie or Warren can make M4A happen with a snap of the fingers if they get elected and a lot of Congress and the electorate are very sensitive to the cost/choice arguments, so there's a lot of work ahead of whoever gets elected on a M4A platform. But it doesn't help that the media is twisting the argument to get a soundbite and other democrats are helping them in that.

I think Congress and the electorate do get overlooked on this issue here on CFC; it's not going to be easy to pass M4A and it may be dead on arrival, particularly if the Dems don't retake the Senate with a healthy majority.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Biden also made it sound like 35T is what we'd pay in a single year. I do not remember him ever clarifying that was a ten-year sum.

I'm also really fed up with 'but people want to keep their doctors or healthcare plans that they like'.

What a load of crap. First of all, it's not like M4A would round up all the doctors and shoot them. They'd still be there and if they're your local doctor, you're almost certainly going to keep them. And as Warren pointed out, people tend to like their healthcare until they actually need it, at which point it becomes a crap shoot if they're going to actually pay out what they agreed to or find a way out of paying. And further, if you lose your job, too bad!, you loose your healthcare and doctor anyways.

Naw, he said "over ten years." But the intent was obviously to generate sticker shock in the audience. Frankly the best answer given to this question so far was Bernie's in iirc the 2nd debate, in which he said (paraphrasing): sure the projection for M4A may be 35 trillion over ten years, but the projection per the CMS is that our current healthcare system will cost Americans 48 TRILLION dollars in the ten years between 2018-2028. So you tell me 'we can't afford to do M4A,' but I say we can't afford NOT to do it."

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Thanks for the clarification. Biden making the argument that we could only afford 4 months of M4A does muddy the waters though.