[RD] US Senate - 2018

[Bridog7]

Look, no one has disputed that single payer exists in other countries. That doesn't mean that a US President can wave a magic wand and the same thing will appear in the US. It's all well and good to say "those dastardly insurance companies own the politicians," but an elected president also faces the reality that there are tens of millions of people employed by those companies.

How do you make this transition without throwing millions of people out of their jobs?

There are states where the headquarters of those companies are concentrated, and this transition could have catastrophic impacts on state tax revenues in those states. If you can't make the transition without managing that somehow you will never get support from representatives in those states on either side of the aisle.

"Medicare for all" suddenly quadruples the throughput in every office in the vast administration of Medicare. Do you think they are prepared to handle that? How do you get them prepared?

This list of questions could be made endless if I had the time, but I believe you are smart enough to have gotten the point.

The ACA was a thousand pages of legislation and it still ran directly into places where the brain trust that crafted it said "oh, snap, didn't see that coming." "Medicare for all" is great...as a three word campaign slogan. But when it is being said by someone who doesn't have the political savvy or legislative chops to make it happen it is pie in the sky...no matter how many other countries it is working in.

Yes I’m smart enough to understand your Hillary logic. If you like the current healthcare system as it is and hold true to believe universal healthcare, free college tuition and a higher minimum wage are just pie in the sky, then I’ll respect that. But Oh my gosh catastrophic impacts of the transition, way to cite some Moderator Action: <snip> politician on like cnn, or some “expert” on like msnbc. Medicare for all is an alright slogan, atleast it relates to an issue at hand. While other 3 word slogans like “Yes We Can” and I’m with Her” mean absolutely nothing and you and your flunkies ate it up.

Moderator Action: Attempting to bypass the auto-censor is not permitted. --LM
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Perfection]

538's Nate Silver has a pretty good analysis on 2018 senate

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-democrats-senate-chances-overrated/amp/

 

[onejayhawk]

538's Nate Silver has a pretty good analysis on 2018 senate

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-democrats-senate-chances-overrated/amp/

A couple of excepts

I think most political observers had, until recently, been slow to recognize just how bad things had gotten for Republicans. But the Senate map is really tough for Democrats, with 26 Democratic seats in play next year (including a newly opened seat in Minnesota after Al Franken announced his intention to retire) as compared to just eight Republican ones. Moreover, five of the Democratic-held seats — the ones in West Virginia, North Dakota, Montana, Missouri and Indiana — are in states that President Trump won by 18 percentage points or more.

Just how bad is this map for Democrats? It’s bad enough that it may be the worst Senate map that any party has faced ever, or at least since direct election of senators began in 1913. It’s bad enough that Democrats could conceivably gain 35 or 40 seats in the House … and not pick up the two seats they need in the Senate.

...

[T]he outcomes in each race are correlated. (Failure to account for these sorts of correlations was a big reason that some models underrated Trump’s Electoral College chances in 2016.) If Trump’s approval rating declines even further by November, for instance, that could make the whole map bluer — so all of the races that currently look like toss-ups could be “lean Democrat” by then. Alternatively, strong economic growth later this year could make voters more inclined to keep Republicans in office — which could enable the GOP to win all the toss-up races. These correlations make a huge difference when forecasting the fate of the Senate.​

J

​

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yes I’m smart enough to understand your Hillary logic. If you like the current healthcare system as it is and hold true to believe universal healthcare, free college tuition and a higher minimum wage are just pie in the sky, then I’ll respect that. But Oh my gosh catastrophic impacts of the transition, way to cite some sh1tty politician on like cnn, or some “expert” on like msnbc. Medicare for all is an alright slogan, atleast it relates to an issue at hand. While other 3 word slogans like “Yes We Can” and I’m with Her” mean absolutely nothing and you and your flunkies ate it up.

If you really want to turn this into disrespectful antagonism, I'm certainly game, and able. So decide before hitting post on your next response if that's what you really want to do here.

If you don't like having the real world complexities pointed out, then you probably shouldn't try to discuss real issues. "Medicare for all" shouldn't be a slogan, because it is effectively a promise...and it is a promise that Bernie was in no position to keep.

Single payer healthcare, truth be told, I don't give a crap about. The only medical treatment I look for is damage repairs, and I pay cash on the 'you broke it you bought it' plan. However, I do acknowledge it as a worthy objective. Not worthy of "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, and if every employee of Kaiser Permanente hits the unemployment line it's no skin off my butt," but worthy.

Free college tuition I also don't give a crap about. The next step is to just say "well, we expect everyone to attend college and now adult life shouldn't even occur to anyone as starting before 22. I was pissed off that people wanted to delay my adulthood over finishing high school, so to me that's anathema. I've hired lot's of people, and never once hired a college graduate. So, in truth I'm not even interested in this particular pie and it can stay in the sky.

I favor higher minimum wage. I put a lot of effort into studying ways to apply it that won't just raise everyone's wage, and prices, and everything else right along with it. If a politician promises raising minimum wages, or any other improvement in working conditions at the lower end, they get my attention...but they have to be able to demonstrate that they have given the issue genuine thought.

Now, I'm cutting out because I already regret saying I'd wait until after your next post before responding in kind and if I continue I'll get snotty.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'm 100% with Tim on this. My biggest gripe with Bernie was his pie in the sky aspirations that were backed up with nothing. He promised anything and everything his fans wanted but seemed to have zero inclination or ability to put workable plans behind his campaign slogans. I voted for him in the primary only to send a message to Hillary that she needed to tack to the left. I had no allusions that he was going to win but there were parts of his platform I was behind. In the end though I did not think he was capable of making any of his platform workable.

In the end, Bernie did a lot of damage though I don't fault him for it. I personally knew a ton of people in college who were too young to have voted for Obama and wanted their own transformational candidate. Hillary wasn't it for them and they latched onto Bernie and never let go. They voted for 3rd party candidates, wrote in Bernies name or sat it out.

They got their first lesson in how two party systems work in the worst possible way on election day. It was a wake up call to say the least. Obviously these last two paragraphs are totally anecdotal and may be dismissed as such.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

My biggest gripe with Bernie was his pie in the sky aspirations that were backed up with nothing. He promised anything and everything his fans wanted but seemed to have zero inclination or ability to put workable plans behind his campaign slogans.

It's interesting that if you substituted "Trump" for "Bernie" and punched this into a search engine I'd bet you would get a million hits.

 

[danjuno]

I'm glad you guys have the inside track on what really would have happened if Bernie won in an alternative universe.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm glad you guys have the inside track on what really would have happened if Bernie won in an alternative universe.

I don't claim that. I just go by this universe. Bernie never put forth anything like plans for making the things he was talking about happen. I don't blame him for that. He never had the kind of staff to do that kind of preparation, probably because he never expected to have to deal with it. He ran a 'steering' race, designed to pull the eventual candidate leftwards, from start to finish.

Unfortunately, a lot of youthfully enthusiastic supporters took it as a race to win and got so butthurt that even he couldn't perk them back up and make them deal with reality. I do blame him for that, as he should have seen it coming and managed the end of his run better. Instead of pushing a potentially good candidate leftwards on their way into office, he created a path for a GOP demagogue to yank the country backwards a decade or two.

 

[Bridog7]

If you really want to turn this into disrespectful antagonism, I'm certainly game, and able. So decide before hitting post on your next response if that's what you really want to do here.

If you don't like having the real world complexities pointed out, then you probably shouldn't try to discuss real issues. "Medicare for all" shouldn't be a slogan, because it is effectively a promise...and it is a promise that Bernie was in no position to keep.

Single payer healthcare, truth be told, I don't give a crap about. The only medical treatment I look for is damage repairs, and I pay cash on the 'you broke it you bought it' plan. However, I do acknowledge it as a worthy objective. Not worthy of "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, and if every employee of Kaiser Permanente hits the unemployment line it's no skin off my butt," but worthy.

I don't claim that. I just go by this universe. Bernie never put forth anything like plans for making the things he was talking about happen. I don't blame him for that. He never had the kind of staff to do that kind of preparation, probably because he never expected to have to deal with it. He ran a 'steering' race, designed to pull the eventual candidate leftwards, from start to finish.

Unfortunately, a lot of youthfully enthusiastic supporters took it as a race to win and got so butthurt that even he couldn't perk them back up and make them deal with reality. I do blame him for that, as he should have seen it coming and managed the end of his run better. Instead of pushing a potentially good candidate leftwards on their way into office, he created a path for a GOP demagogue to yank the country backwards a decade or two.

So politicians (whose literal jobs are to pass policies) shouldn't campaign on pushing for policies? Particularly those supported by the majority of the populace in a democracy? You state as an axiomatic assumption that the US is uniquely cursed to never have medicare for all, even when the rest of the developed world has achieved such decades ago. So much for the "real-worldness" of your views.

Tell me again what's stopping the US from passing medicare for all? It's not public disapproval, seeing that the majority of the population supports it, and thus passing it would do much to help a politician get re-elected. It's not the cost, seeing that the US already pays twice as much per capita on healthcare compared to developed countries with universal healthcare while also achieving worse outcomes, and the increased taxes to fund universal healthcare would be more than offset by the elimination of private premiums. The elimination of private premiums would also be a great cost savings to employers if you're concerned about overall job loss.

What's stopping it from being passed is the corporate lobbyist grip on the politicians in charge of both parties. Private health and big pharma make giant profits from ripping off the American populace, and unsurprisingly they are willing to buy off politicians to keep the gravy train running. The supposed pragmatists in the Democratic parties lost 1000 seats over Obama's eight years for failing to live up to his supposed progressive image, and Hillary's willingness to compromise with Republicans and corporate donors while ignoring the base failed to inspire anyone to come out last election. That Hillary lost the most beatable election in history falls entirely on her complete failure as a candidate and her hubris in snubbing her base by offering no policies worth coming out for. It's up to the candidate to earn people's votes, and by openly and brazenly taking the side of corporations over the people as Obama did and as Hillary would have, you reap the losses that you sow.

Tell me again how Cory Booker sets an inspiring example by shooting down the proposal which allows importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada while brazenly taking money from the pharmaceutical companies who stand to profit from the system as it is. Or how Anthony Rendon sets such a great example shelving single-payer healthcare in California.

Whenever corporate Democrats state that universal healthcare can never come to pass in the US (such as Hillary did in the last primary), they never finish the sentence with "because I'm bought by the people who profit from the system as it is". You cannot expect policitians who get rich off a system to repeal the system that makes them rich, and that is where the main obstacle is.

lt will never come to pass until people organize and push for politicians who do not take corporate cash, and this will require either the complete elimination of the Obama/Hillary wing of the Democratic party via an analogous left-wing Tea party takeover of the Democrats, or a successful 3rd party run now that the Democrats are even less popular than Trump, Democratic corporate donors are furious about wasting their money in the last election, and Independents are the largest voting bloc.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So politicians (whose literal jobs are to pass policies) shouldn't campaign on pushing for policies?

The job of elected officials is to pass laws, not policies. Despite their claims, Republicans repeated passage of "we don' like dat Obamacare thing" was not 'doing their jobs.' They found that out when they got the majority and were confronted by 'If you repeal this law then what are you going to have? Lawlessness?' We are a nation governed by the rule of law. It is fine for a pundit to 'push for policies,' but a candidate should be required to demonstrate that they have the capacity to make enforceable laws that will turn policies into results.

No one demanded that of Bernie, and no one demanded that of D'ump. In one, we can clearly examine the results as they play out before us.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The job of elected officials is to pass laws, not policies. Despite their claims, Republicans repeated passage of "we don' like dat Obamacare thing" was not 'doing their jobs.' They found that out when they got the majority and were confronted by 'If you repeal this law then what are you going to have? Lawlessness?' We are a nation governed by the rule of law. It is fine for a pundit to 'push for policies,' but a candidate should be required to demonstrate that they have the capacity to make enforceable laws that will turn policies into results.

No one demanded that of Bernie, and no one demanded that of D'ump. In one, we can clearly examine the results as they play out before us.

And it doesn't help that the policies Bernie pushed were vague and unrealistic to begin with. He had no serious plans and was all self-serving bluster and bluff.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

And it doesn't help that the policies Bernie pushed were vague and unrealistic to begin with. He had no serious plans and was all self-serving bluster and bluff.

I wouldn't say they were vague as policies. It's just that it was clear to a lot of people that policies is all they were. He laid out no path to making them into working systems of laws that would achieve the objectives.

 

[FriendlyFire]

And it doesn't help that the policies Bernie pushed were vague and unrealistic to begin with. He had no serious plans and was all self-serving bluster and bluff.

Tax and spend
Pretty much what Bernie would have managed, as opposed to tax cuts and spend.

 

[Bridog7]

I like our little discussion here but since you aren’t reading or answering anything then I assume you have no response to my argument so there’s no point because I can’t figure out what you’re arguing besides semantics. And I mean I don’t recall the last time a politician campaigned on how they’re going to pass something instead of what they want to pass. “I’m a democrat who can get things done!” Ok what are you going to get done?

The only thing I can decipher is that you like the democrats the way they are; completely owned by corporations and offering no real solutions to problems.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I like our little discussion here but since you aren’t reading or answering anything then I assume you have no response to my argument so there’s no point because I can’t figure out what you’re arguing

I already had, but I will reiterate.

What is stopping the US from passing "medicare for all" is that congress cannot write "medicare for all" on a napkin, vote on it, and say "yay, a new law."

I't's all well and good to say, "well, it can all be worked out," but someone actually has to do the work. How does it get funded? How are the necessary people hired by the Medicare administration? Do we give preference to the millions of people who are out of work because an entire massive industry just imploded? What about granny in Iowa who is living off dividends from a mutual fund that was heavy into health insurance stocks and is now worth pennies on the dollar?

Every one of those questions has to have an answer. Since granny in Iowa is going to be really demanding at least two senators and one congressman are going to need to have really good answers to at least one of them. And every question is going to have congresscritters that have constituents (not donors, not corporations, hot-headed jerks like Steve Knight will tell you that I am) deep up their butt wanting to know, for sure, that they didn't do something half baked and wildly stupid.

And there is no indication that anyone, ever, has sat down and tried to work through even the most glaringly obvious of those questions. If Bernie, or anyone on his staff, ever did, they sure kept it to themselves, and as far as I can tell no one else in the congress has even considered doing so. No one in congress even seems interested in funding a study by a think tank to work through those details. To the best of my knowledge no private citizen has volunteered to pay for such an abstract, probably because they think that if they did it may well be money down a rathole because there's no indication that congress would then act on it.

The work has to be done to convert this policy concept into about a thousand pages of very dense text that could pass as the law of the land to make it happen, and no one has done the work.

So, I apologize for "not answering," but I genuinely thought that I already had. Well asked.

 

[danjuno]

What is stopping the US from passing "medicare for all" is that congress cannot write "medicare for all" on a napkin, vote on it, and say "yay, a new law."

The work has to be done to convert this policy concept into about a thousand pages of very dense text that could pass as the law of the land to make it happen, and no one has done the work.

In the words of the current President: Wrong.

And this is only what's currently public. There is undoubtedly more going on behind closed doors that will ready by the next time the Democrats have Congress and the White House.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

In the words of the current President: Wrong.

And this is only what's currently public. There is undoubtedly more going on behind closed doors that will ready by the next time the Democrats have Congress and the White House.

That's a report. While slightly better than a three word slogan it isn't much. Without having to go past the first page, presenting "just make the income tax more progressive" as a possible solution to 'how to make the wealthy pay their fair share' makes my point quite handily. Did you notice that making the income tax less progressive is a GOP wetdream, and even with majorities in both houses they barely could agree among themselves how to go about it? Writing off a nearly impassable complexity with a paragraph of "hey, just completely restructure income taxes" is pretty much the definition of 'pie in the sky.'

I hate to keep raining on you guys' parade, so maybe this would be best dropped. But I hope you are willing to consider that it isn't all about me being resistant...maybe, just maybe, you sound more optimistic than convincing.

 

[metalhead]

In the words of the current President: Wrong.

And this is only what's currently public. There is undoubtedly more going on behind closed doors that will ready by the next time the Democrats have Congress and the White House.

Coming up with funding for it is just the tip of the iceberg. Very basic questions about how this proposed system was going to function were never answered. Including whether it was going to be a true, legally mandated single payer system, or a hybrid public/private system. "Medicare for all" sort of presumes the latter, but then calling it "single payer" explicitly says the former. Hence it's hard to conclude anything but that the idea was (and still is) very half-baked.