2020 presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders relaunches his Medicare-for-all health care

[Uncle Joe]

legislation

Sen.Bernie Sanders again introduced his signature health care legislation Wednesday, which if passed and signed into law, would provide government-run, Medicare-style health insurance for all Americans and outlaw most duplicative private insurance in the process.

“The Medicare for All Act will provide comprehensive health care to every man, woman and child in our country without out of pocket expenses. No more insurance premiums, deductibles or co-payments. Further, this bill improves Medicare coverage to include dental, hearing and vision care,” Sanders' team wrote in a summary of the bill distributed ahead of a press conference on Capitol Hill.

The bill calls for a four-year transition “phase-in” during, which time the government would incrementally lower the age in which Americans could buy-in to Medicare.

The Medicare for All legislation has gained significant popularity within the Democratic Party and across the country. According to Sanders' staff, the bill has been endorsed by 58 national organizations and unions, double the total from 2017, including the American Federation of Teachers, American Medical Student Association, American Sustainable Business Council, Americans for Democratic Action, Black Women's Health Imperative, and more.

(snip)


https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2020-presidential-candidate-sen-bernie-sanders-relaunches-medicare/story?id=62297738

Edit to add Bernie's options for paying for Medicare for All


https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/options-to-finance-medicare-for-all?inline=file

[brooklynite]

1. And he'll get this passed by.....?

[Uncle Joe]

2. Should Bernie win the Democratic Nomination and the G.E. that would signify a seismic shift

in regards to political reality.

There is no equivocation in regards to Bernie's policies so the political message would be crystal clear to the American Nation.

For Bernie to win the G.E. it would be nearly impossible for the Democratic Party to not also make major gains in the Congress.

[brooklynite]

4. Trump won the Republican nomination and the G.E....

How's the wall coming?

[Uncle Joe]

6. Trump was/is an oligarch masquerading as a populist, Bernie will rip him up.

[brooklynite]

8. We can debate Bernie's ability to win a Presidential Election seperately...

I'm still looking for evidence that he can implement a MFA program in the likely 2021 political setting. There will NOT be 60 Democrats in the Senate, and the House majority is still built on suburban moderates.

[Uncle Joe]

11. You can't separate the two, they're too intricately tied together. Bernie has beaten Trump

in virtually every poll over the past three and a half years.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html

I have no doubt many of the groups which I bolded in the OP live in the suburbs and it is more than ripe for change.

The Suburban Mystique

How the symbol of American prosperity became the new place of poverty.

(snip)

In Betty Friedan’s seminal 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, she describes the experience of the languishing American housewife. By staying at home to raise families and keep house in the suburbs, women had set aside their own happiness and potential for life in both the public and private spheres, and despair was the result. She called this the problem that had no name. Though she garnered legitimate criticism for its limited and privileged framing of women and their status, the book galvanized a generation. Decades after women entered the workforce en masse, in part due to Friedan’s inspiration, a new problem has emerged. Inconsistent and insufficient income, housing, transportation, and social supports have created immense and widespread work-life conflict, often among women who entered the workforce not for feminist self-actualization but to feed their families. And no where do we see this work-life conflict more intensely than in the places Friedan once described as serenely boring: the suburbs.

(snip)

Sociologist and poverty-expert Mark Rank suggests that the majority of Americans will experience poverty in their lifetimes: “We think of poverty as something that happens to someone else, and not ourselves. But actually, the longer you live, the more likely it is that you’ll lose a job, have your family split up, or experience an illness.” Suburbs—where most Americans, impoverished or otherwise, live—are increasingly the locus of work-life conflict and economic insecurity.

(snip)

Suburbs are not monolithic, nor are experiences of poverty or economic insecurity there. Elizabeth Kneebone, author of Confronting Suburban Poverty in America, suggests: “It’s not just that there are more poor people moving to suburbs, it’s also about the downward mobility of longtime suburban residents” due to wage stagnation, privatization of benefits like retirement, rise of contract and service work, and effects of the Great Recession. Wide variation between suburban experiences depends on the time when poverty developed and grew there. As in cities, there are differences between black, white, and hispanic suburbanite experiences—to name a few—and each suburb has its own history of who it was meant to serve and why.

(snip)

That’s because the depth and extremity of poverty nationwide has objectively worsened in the past several decades. Largely attributed to people being pushed off welfare in the 1990s, 3.2 million people now live on less than $2 per day in the United States, as documented by Philip Alston and sociologists Kathryn Edin and Luke Shaefer. Problems we associate with the efforts of USAID abroad—infant and maternal mortality rates, decreasing life expectancy stratified by class and race, access to clean water, and extremely low incomes—now lie at home.

(snip)

https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/03/the-suburbs-are-now-where-poverty-lives.html

You nor I can guarantee how large the Democratic victory margin would be in the Congress should Bernie win the G.E. but logically speaking it would be substantial.

[brooklynite]

14. I can make an extremely informed assessment of the Election outcome...

First, Sanders polling at under 25% (e.g. 75% of Demcrats want someone else) despite his huge name recognition, tells me that he's not the giant killer some people think he is.

Second, even if he wins, the dynamics of the Senate races in 2020 limit our prospects for a cloture-free majority. If we won every LEAN- and LIKELY-R seat AND held onto Doug Jones in AL, we still wouldn't have 60 seats. And the States that the SAFE-R Sentors are elected from won't have to worry about the fact that Sanders there as well.

You need to finish a very simple statement: Vote for my MFA policy, or else...,what?

[Uncle Joe]

17. 1. Bernie is running against teen number of candidates, it would be virtually impossible

for his polling to not be less than it was in 2016.

2. Bernie is not limiting his message to lean or likely-R seats but going for the whole enchilada, that's the primary reason that he will be going into the lion's den on the FOX town hall.

Bernie is totally committed to the movement and he's crystal clear in his messaging.

I see a Bernie G.E. win as being akin to Reagan's win 1980 only this would establish a long overdue progressive count-force to the latter's every person for them self, dog eat dog trickle down economics doctrine.

[Demsrule86]

46. So has Biden. But the difference is Biden can take the rustbelt and deny Trump

Last edited Fri Apr 12, 2019, 07:47 AM - Edit history (1)

any path for victory in the electoral college.While Sanders is more likely to win the popular vote and lose the electoral college.

[Demsrule86]

47. 31 house members elected in18 are self identified moderates.

[ehrnst]

15. You keep saying that, but I think you are getting cause and effect mixed up.

A seismic shift would get Sanders elected.

[Uncle Joe]

19. It's a circle, a seismic shift would get Bernie elected however Bernie being elected

would give seismic political momentum to the movement.

[ehrnst]

20. A circle begins somewhere. And I'm not sure the "circle" you describe applies to all

POTUS candidates.

The seismic shift that led to the 2008 election of Obama certainly didn't last through to the following midterms.

[Uncle Joe]

22. The circle began with Bernie, very small in the beginning perhaps just a dot spinning around but as

the message spread the dot pulled in more adherents transforming into a circle of believers which in turn grew larger and spun faster, as the mass; of the circle grew its' gravitational pull increased as well attracting even more people.

&t=5s


Candidate Sanders has been much more distinctive in regards to his messaging than Candidate Obama and Bernie has been doing it for far longer.

[ehrnst]

23. So Senator Sanders is a planet now?

Interesting metaphor.

Jacobin reader?

[Uncle Joe]

27. No ehrnst, Bernie is not a planet, it's called a metaphor

met·a·phor
/ˈmedəˌfôr,ˈmedəˌfər/
noun
a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
"her poetry depends on suggestion and metaphor"
synonyms: figure of speech, figurative expression, image, trope, allegory, parable, analogy, comparison, symbol, emblem, word painting, word picture; literaryconceit
a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract.
"the amounts of money being lost by the company were enough to make it a metaphor for an industry that was teetering"

https://www.google.com/search?q=metaphor+definition&oq=metaphor&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.6484j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[ehrnst]

52. You get rather unhappy when some other people use metaphors.

But there are some out there who really take these kinds of metaphors a bit more seriously....

[Uncle Joe]

55. I'm not unhappy about your metaphor down-thread ehrnst, it was just poorly conceived. n/t

[ehrnst]

57. Poorly understood. (nt)

[Fresh_Start]

3. he can say that Mexico will pay for it..

it worked for the other guy

[Uncle Joe]

5. If you wish to be serious here are some options that Bernie is proposing to pay for it.

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/options-to-finance-medicare-for-all?inline=file

[billpolonsky]

9. Thanks for posting this Uncle Joe

Bernie is the one that continues to motivate the American imagination with his policy outlines.

And as you know he points out "that no president can do this alone."

He can motivate millions of citizens to get out and fight for progressive policies after the election is won

This is the magic sauce that other candidates fail to realize when they disparage Sanders.

"You got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow" Tom Waits

[Uncle Joe]

12. Thank you billpolonsky

I couldn't agree more.

[Fresh_Start]

10. so which of those options do you believe are achievable?

because I don't see any

[Uncle Joe]

13. Most or all of them depending on the political will of the American Nation and

should Bernie win, that will most definitely ratchet upwards.

[ehrnst]

26. But what if he doesn't win? Why is that necessary for the "political will of the American Nation"

Why does his popularity "ratcheting upwards" depend first on being popular enough to be elected?

If his ideas are worthy of the adulation of the majority, why does he need to be president to get the "political will" that you say will make them affordable and practical? As we've seen, becoming POTUS does not automatically instill adoration and popularity, nor automatic lockstep behind their policies from the masses.

Why would it be different with Bernie?

Al Gore didn't need to be POTUS to inspire a real movement to save the planet. His ideas stood on their own, and he ratcheted up political will of the American Nation for his policies without the Oval Office.

He just needed a screen and a slideshow.

[Uncle Joe]

28. Inspiring a movement is only the beginning.

Bernie has already inspired a movement and as he has stated numerous times, he can't do it alone even should he become President, no one person can, he will need them afterwards as well.

Al Gore did inspire a movement but think how much more he could've accomplished had he been President in 2000.

Unless one believes that Bush the Least furthered the cause of combating global warming climate change, do you believe that?

[ehrnst]

49. Al Gore would not have been able to focus on "An Inconvenient Truth" as POTUS.

Certainly Ralph Nader accomplished much after losing the presidency with the movement he started. Ddo you think being president is Bernie's ultimate goal, and that he can't keep his movement going without the Oval Office?

Unless one believes that Bush the Least furthered the cause of combating global warming climate change, do you believe that?

Combination attacking a straw man AND false dillema. That's a twofer in terms of fallacies.

[LongtimeAZDem]

56. Because, revolution!

[ehrnst]

24. A CBO score will be a bit more comprehensive, expert and objective. (nt)

[Uncle Joe]

29. In regards to progressive health care reform, the CBO has it shortcomings,

the picture they paint is incomplete.

(snip)

The CBO doesn’t follow the simple logic of only considering something part of the federal budget if it is directly paid for by the federal government. Nor does the CBO follow the basic logic of considering private activity part of the federal budget if it is required by federal law, like via an individual/employer mandate. Instead, the CBO considers health care reform an “essentially government program” if it crosses some arbitrary line of too much regulation.

According to a 2009 CBO paper on the topic, “insurance purchased through exchanges or in the private market—should be classified as federal revenues if there is an individual mandate and tight government control of the insurance market,” but not part of the federal budget if “there is an individual mandate and an active, loosely restricted private market, and if premiums are paid through nongovernmental exchanges or directly to insurers.”

In effect the CBO believes the government forcing you to pay premiums to insurance companies doesn’t make those premiums effectively a tax. But if the government also requires that private health insurance to actually be good, then it would be.

(snip)

CBO’s weird decision about what is or is not too much regulation was extremely detrimental to the ACA and is responsible for one of the changes made to the law during drafting. Senators initially wanted to require that 90 percent of premium dollars had to be spent on actual care — a medical loss ratio, which again, is well below international norms. The CBO wrote them a letter warning them that this regulation would push the ACA over their imaginary line. The CBO would have considered the entire insurance market part of the federal budget if that regulation was included. Thus legislators decided they would only use a medical loss ratio of 80-85 percent — a move that ended up actually costing the government significantly more.

(snip)


http://healthoverprofit.org/2019/01/09/cbo-will-score-all-health-reform-plans-as-nationalization/

[ehrnst]

33. Your source of choice doesn't surprise me. It's one with a political agenda, for a specific bill...

Our mission is to use all of the tools of activism available, from online actions to lobbying to nonviolent civil resistance, to create a political environment in which National Improved Medicare for All is the only politically feasible solution.

Their mission is not to present accurate data concerning health care policy and health care proposals, it's creating a political climate for one and only one piece of legislation. Their mission disqualifies them as a source for objective, reliable, factual data.

It appears that they are anticipating a poor CBO score, and want to give their activists ammuntion against it ahead of time. Confirmation bias works very well, doesn't it?

One might as well go to National Right to Life for "information" on the "shortcomings" of CDC statistics of the % of deaths from legal abortions.



We're supposed to be the party of facts and science.

On edit... Since you did decide to cite this author as an authority on financing health policy proposals, I'd be interested in what you think of his comments Link to tweet
" target="_blank">yesterday on Bernie's recent position changes concerning budget reconciliation in relationship to MFA?

[Uncle Joe]

36. Their mission is irrelevant to the point. If you have information to actually dispute their argument

regarding the CBO's of grading progressive health care reform, please present it.

[ehrnst]

39. Yes, their *mission* is relevant to their analysis. Why do you think they publish it on their site?

Certainly you could defend a piece by National Right to Life that uses The Guttmacher Institute's data to make a point, but their point will always be suspect because of their political agenda, which subordinates all other goals, and excludes any data that doesn't support the agenda.

If you have information to actually dispute their argument regarding the CBO's of grading progressive health care reform, please present it.

The burden is on you to defend why the analysis is dependable, when the source has an agenda to exclude any information or data that would contradict your confirmation bias, and has a stated mission to confirm it.

I challenged your source, with their own mission statement. Your job is to defend why they would violate their mission statement by presenting analysis or data that doesn't support their mission statement.

Why don't you tell us why all of the sudden you think that the source is irrelevant to the point the source is making, or might lead them to omit relevant data...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016213850

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016213850#post82

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/128751852

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/1016215555#post34



What did you think of the author's tweet on Sander's recent back and forth on funding?

[Uncle Joe]

43. Are their facts correct or do you have facts to the contrary regarding the CBO's scoring

in regards to any progressive health care reform?

(snip)

The CBO doesn’t follow the simple logic of only considering something part of the federal budget if it is directly paid for by the federal government. Nor does the CBO follow the basic logic of considering private activity part of the federal budget if it is required by federal law, like via an individual/employer mandate. Instead, the CBO considers health care reform an “essentially government program” if it crosses some arbitrary line of too much regulation.

According to a 2009 CBO paper on the topic, “insurance purchased through exchanges or in the private market—should be classified as federal revenues if there is an individual mandate and tight government control of the insurance market,” but not part of the federal budget if “there is an individual mandate and an active, loosely restricted private market, and if premiums are paid through nongovernmental exchanges or directly to insurers.”

In effect the CBO believes the government forcing you to pay premiums to insurance companies doesn’t make those premiums effectively a tax. But if the government also requires that private health insurance to actually be good, then it would be.

(snip)

CBO’s weird decision about what is or is not too much regulation was extremely detrimental to the ACA and is responsible for one of the changes made to the law during drafting. Senators initially wanted to require that 90 percent of premium dollars had to be spent on actual care — a medical loss ratio, which again, is well below international norms. The CBO wrote them a letter warning them that this regulation would push the ACA over their imaginary line. The CBO would have considered the entire insurance market part of the federal budget if that regulation was included. Thus legislators decided they would only use a medical loss ratio of 80-85 percent — a move that ended up actually costing the government significantly more.

(snip)


http://healthoverprofit.org/2019/01/09/cbo-will-score-all-health-reform-plans-as-nationalization/

[ehrnst]

45. You sure don't apply that metric to a statement or analysis from WAPO or the Mercatus Institute

or any other source that doesn't support your opinions, yet you demand that others apply it to an analysis of any source you choose?

Think about that for a minute.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_standard

And you still haven't answered my direct question to you of what YOU think of the author of YOUR source's tweet on Sanders recent position changes and MFA Link to tweet
" target="_blank">funding.

I can understand why it would be frustrating, and you would avoid acknowledging it after quoting him as someone who gets the facts straight, yes?

Here's more on that...

https://slate.com/business/2019/04/bernie-sanders-single-payer-kill-the-filibuster-medicare-for-all.html

[TCJ70]

21. How will Warren get her childcare stuff passed? How will [Candidate X] get their [Policy Proposal]..

...passed? Go down the line and the question can be applied to all of our candidates. This is NOT a valid criticism. It wasn't in 2016, it's not in 2020.

[ehrnst]

50. Actually, no, it's not equally invalid criticism for every candidate's proposals.

False equivalence.

Different candidates have different proposals with differing levels of detail on how they will fund them.

Sanders has been at this for years, and asking for details are always met with the same response, as has anyone who crunches his numbers and comes up with a different conclusion...

The CBO score will be the final word if it actually gets that far.

[WeekiWater]

7. Good on Sanders.

It's important to have people like Sanders out there talking about this. It builds support over the long-term. While medicare for all won't be what we finally land on it will plant the idea in peoples mind and make them more comfortable with government taking a larger role. Now that Sanders is on his way out the door we have a whole new group of politicians who will make universal healthcare happen.

[Nanjeanne]

16. Thank you Sen. Sanders & Sens Baldwin, Blumenthal, Booker, Gillibrand, Harris, Hirono, Heinrich,

Leahy, Markey, Merkley, Schatz, Udall, Warren and Whitehouse!

The bill has been endorsed by 63 national organizations and unions including:350.org, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Amalgamated Transit Union, American Federation of Teachers, American Medical Student Association, American Sustainable Business Council, Americans for Democratic Action, Black Women's Health Imperative, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Business Initiative for Health Policy, Center for Popular Democracy, Center for Popular Democracy Action, Coalition of Labor Union Women, CREDO, DailyKos, Demand Progress, Democracy for America, Democratic Socialists of America, Demos, Faith in Healthcare, Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Health Care Now, Health GAP (Global Access Project), Indivisible, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Just Care USA, Justice Democrats, Labor Campaign for Single Payer, Latinos for a Secure Retirement, Latinos for Healthcare Equity, League of United Latin American Citizens, MoveOn, MPower Change, National Center for Lesbian Rights,National Collaborative for Health Equity, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, National Education Association, National Health Care for the Homeless Council, National Immigration Law Center, National Nurses United, National Organization for Women, New York Nurses Association, Opioid Network, Our Revolution, People’s Action, People Demanding Action, Progressive Campaign Change Committee, Progressive Democrats of America, Public Citizen, Service Employees International Union, Social Security Works, Student Global AIDS Campaign, Sunrise Movement, Ultraviolet Action, United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers, United Mine Workers of America, Utility Workers Union of America, Women’s March, Inc., Working Hero and Working Families Party.

[Uncle Joe]

18. 63 that's five more than the OP article listed.

Thanks for the addition Nanjeanne.

[BlueFlorida]

25. Another bill that would die in the senate

A vast majority (some 87%) of Americans like the plan they have and don't want it tampered with.

So it may be good politicking to the faithful, it will have a net negative effect on the electorate in general. Remember 2010 when the Democrats were slaughtered over ACA? We even lost Massachusetts and NJ then.

This plan is far far worse than the ACA.

[Uncle Joe]

30. People may like their doctors, nurses and hospitals but why would anyone like their

private for profit "health" insurance as this has nothing to do with actual health care?

[BlueFlorida]

31. lol

This is America - profit is not a dirty word.

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/428958-poll-voters-want-the-government-to-provide-healthcare-for

[Uncle Joe]

32. To begin with, this doesn't answer my question as to why people would want to keep private

for profit "health" insurance?

I suspect it's in part due to polls like this combined with conflict of interest laden corporate media conglomerate scare propaganda.

Require most Americans to pay more in taxes is also unrepresentative or misleading of Medicare for All as most Americans would save more money in the elimination of premiums, deductibles and co-pays than any increase in taxes unless your income is in excess of $250,000.00 under the options that Bernie lists.

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/options-to-finance-medicare-for-all?inline=file

"Threaten the current Medicare program" is also misleading as Medicare for All would strengthen and improve Medicare with younger and healthier users added to the pool.

"Lead to delays in people getting some medical tests and treatments" is a highly ambiguous question, are we speaking of minor medical tests or treatments that can be scheduled weeks in advance or something major?

Finally lucre made by for profit "health" insurance corporations is not "profit," so much as blood money.

P.S. Can you name anything that industry contributes to actual health care?

[ehrnst]

34. Many people like their private insurance. That needs to be acknowledged in any realistic

proposal to get rid of it. Or is a wave of people suddenly disliking their current insurance something included the purported "seismic shift" that you keep saying would occur upon Sanders entering the Oval Office?

I suspect it's in part due to polls like this combined with conflict of interest laden corporate media conglomerate scare propaganda.

Will this "seismic shift" also suddenly rid us of the media?

Finally lucre made by for profit "health" insurance corporations is not "profit," so much as blood money.

I think you may be forgetting that the actual goal is to get affordable, accessible health care to as many people as possible, as soon as possible. The goal of any serious health care reform legislation is "health care," not raining down punitive wrath upon private insurance companies. You seem to be opposed to anything that doesn't put insurance CEOs on hooks in the town square. I feel the same way about the NFL that you do about health insurance companies. I don't expect anyone to take me seriously if I stood up at my son's high school and said "Filthy lucre made by the NFL is not "profit," so much as blood money. We need to banish football from our team sports, because it feeds their fandom, and their BLOOD MONEY!!!!!!!" I would say, "Here are the stats on repetitive head injuries sustained in sports such as Football on future brain function, from non-partisan medical studies."

The difference between you and me, is that if there was a helmet developed that could actually prevent that damage, and it was put into use in the NFL and in high schools, that would be the end of my objection to the NFL on head injury neglect. YES, they should be held accountable financially and otherwise for the years that they knew about head injury and purposefully hid it from public. But if they reform, there isn't any reason to keep penalizing them, or make football illegal on the basis that it contributes to traumatic brain injury by for profit.

BTW - where do you get your information, if not from responsible consumption of journalists in the free press? Or articles from non-profit, self funded, non partisan, science driven, evidenced based think tanks and other such sources?

Thus far, I've seen far left, and very politicized sources cited as "data."

[Uncle Joe]

37. You never answered my question as to WHY they like it?

What service to health care does that industry actually provide?

Do their profits and bureaucratic processes actually take away from health care?

If the goal is to get affordable, accessible health care to as many people as possible as soon as possible then nothing beats Medicare for All.

I think you may be forgetting that the actual goal is to get affordable, accessible health care to as many people as possible, as soon as possible. The goal of any serious health care reform legislation is "health care," not raining down punitive wrath upon private insurance companies. You seem to be opposed to anything that doesn't put insurance CEOs on hooks in the town square. I feel the same way about the NFL that you do about health insurance companies. I don't expect anyone to take me seriously if I stood up at my son's high school and said "Filthy lucre made by the NFL is not "profit," so much as blood money. We need to banish football from our team sports, because it feeds their fandom, and their BLOOD MONEY!!!!!!!" I would say, "Here are the stats on repetitive head injuries sustained in sports such as Football on future brain function, from non-partisan medical studies."

People have choices whether they play or view football, the same can't be said for health care when their lives depend on it.

The for profit "health" insurance industry is dysfunctional at its' core because it has no redeeming value in regards to health care and actually takes away from it.

[ehrnst]

38. Why do you think I can answer for the people in the poll?

Go ask them.

People have choices whether they play or view football, the same can't be said for health care when their lives depend on it.

Evading the point of the metaphor.... must have really hit a nerve.

The for profit "health" insurance industry is dysfunctional at its' core because it has no redeeming value in regards to health care and actually takes away from it.

And? What does this have to do with anything I said? Did anything I say dispute that? Have you run out of rebuttals, and are now just challenging me to disagree with you on something else?

[Uncle Joe]

41. I'm just asking for your opinion, sorry for the discomfort.

I didn't evade your metaphor, I shot it down.

People have choices whether they play or view football, the same can't be said for health care when their lives depend on it.

[ehrnst]

44. "You never answered my question as to WHY *they* like it?"

You didn't ask why I "think" they like it. You want me to speculate something about the opinions of people who were polled, so you can jump on it as "justifying and defending their liking of the blood money hungry insurance companies..."

And I shot it down.

I didn't evade your metaphor, I shot it down.

Good one. But here's the metaphor with the point emphasized. It was not comparing the NFL to football at all. Stay with me - It was comparing two ways of convincing people of the existence of a problem they don't see, that one also happens to think is a moral problem, non-confrontationally with FACTS, instead of strident pontificating about how they are cluelessly participating in something that is deeply immoral. Let's take this slowly.

I feel the same way about the NFL that you do about health insurance companies.

I didn't say that the NFL is like health insurance at all. I'm saying that you and I have a similar moral beef with an entity that has profit motives to promote their product to high school parents to create future consumers. This profit motive also leads them to hide the hazards to their employees that could also affect high school participants. I think that this is a moral hazard. Like you, this moral hazard make me angry and leads me to act to address the potential damage to the kids at the high school.

You still with me?

There are a few ways that I could do this.

I don't expect anyone to take me seriously if I stood up at my son's high school and said "Filthy lucre made by the NFL is not "profit," so much as blood money. We need to banish football from our team sports, because it feeds their fandom, and their BLOOD MONEY!!!!!!!"
OR
I would say, "Here are the stats on repetitive head injuries sustained in sports such as Football on future brain function, from non-partisan medical studies."

Now, get ready for it - the FIRST POINT of the metaphor......

Now, it would certainly be satisfying if they all got up behind me in scenario #1 like soldiers behind William Wallace and screamed that they hated the NFL, and they would not participate in the NFL marketing by continuing to have a football team. However, that's not a likely occurance. You may think that anyone who doesn't hate the NFL after someone pointificated on how immoral they were to have not thought of it as harmful is just not "getting it." I, on the other hand, would be surprised if many were actually converted after being yelled at. You see universal health as being = to punishing private health insurance companies, because your hate for them is tied in with your anger at so many not having health care. It seems to be a case of, "my rage at the health care situation in this country is validated by the numbers, so my moral outrage at the very existence of private insurance is equally validated.

The difference between you and me, is that if there was a helmet developed that could actually prevent that damage, and it was put into use in the NFL and in high schools, that would be the end of my objection to the NFL on head injury neglect. YES, they should be held accountable financially and otherwise for the years that they knew about head injury and purposefully hid it from public. But if they reform, there isn't any reason to keep penalizing them, or make football illegal on the basis that it contributes to traumatic brain injury by for profit.

I may think that the entity is immoral for the harm that is being done. However, if my primary goal is to eliminate the traumatic brain injury in both the players in the NFL, and the players in high school who idolize NFL players, and there is a solution (such as a helmet, or changing the game) that would do that, but didn't end the NFL and validate my anger towards them, that would be acceptable to me.

The second point in the metaphor is - you seem to require vengance to an entity in addition to a solution to the problem, and no solution that would actually fix the problem faster, and for more people, that doesn't impose that vengance is unacceptable to you.

[Uncle Joe]

53. When football; kills tens of thousands of Americans every single year

then you might have a decent analogy but it doesn't even come close to close.

The current for profit "health" insurance system is corrupt, inefficient and mortally (for the American People) dysfunctional, it has no redeeming value.

(single)

Various studies have looked at whether uninsured people have a higher risk of death. The most cited was published by the American Journal of Public Health in 2009 and found that nearly 45,000 Americans die each year as a direct result of being uninsured.

Dr Andrew Wilper and a team at Harvard Medical School used two main datasets: they took a nationwide US survey of more than 30,000 people conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and checked it against the National Death Index, another national database collected by the CDC.

(snip)

For one thing, the numbers do not necessarily match up. A 2002 study published by the Institute of Medicine found that 18,000 people died each year due to lack of health insurance. A study published by the Urban Institute put the figure at 22,000 deaths in 2006.

But while estimates disagree, the researchers who produce them often do not. In a 2013 Politifact interview, the author of the Urban Institute study, Stan Dorn, said: “It makes sense that as time goes by … health insurance coverage has greater impact on health outcomes.”

(snip)


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/24/us-healthcare-republican-bill-no-coverage-death

[redstateblues]

51. They'd keep it because they like it

They don’t care if it’s for profit

[ehrnst]

35. Whatever the "why," the reality is that they "do", and any reality-based legislation will

take that into account, because they "do."

"Seismic shift" or no, the case for changing health care coverage will have to be made to the large number of those who have health care coverage that they like. Telling them that they have no reason to like what they like isn't really going to get the response you want...

Why do you think so many Medicare patients were against the ACA? They thought it would take away from what they had, and like it or not, there are plenty of ways that they can be convinced of that again.

One reason that California didn't go forward with their own single payer is because they would have to use funds from Medicare and Medicaid, and Medicare patients in particular were not going to accept that.

[Uncle Joe]

40. Not knowing the "why" makes it much easier for our current dysfunctional

"health" insurance industry to exist while we pay twice what every other industrialized nation pays for their health care and tens of thousands of Americans die every year for it.

If you don't the "why" to our broken system, then every single year almost as many Americans will die as those killed in the entire war with Vietnam.

[ehrnst]

48. Then why don't you request that someone do a poll?

You can bellyache all day that they "shouldn't," and that by liking it they are "perpetuating the problem," but the fact is that those people in the poll said that they liked their current coverage.

More than actually finding out "why," you seem to want to pick a fight with anyone who might speculate on the "why" they like it as "defending" the bloodthirsty insurance companies, then take that as an opening to equate anyone who doesn't agree with you on MFA in every way as the only UHC mechanism with being clueless or complicit in private insurance blood money industry.

No one is taking the bait. Sorry to disappoint you.

[Uncle Joe]

54. I'm asking questions as to the motivation, if you don't have any answers, even just your opinion

why are you posting here?

How else would describe the for profit "health" insurance industry but blood thirsty?

Can you name any redeeming value for the industry and a logical reason for its' existence?

What purpose does that industry serve other than winnowing out the weakest among us while increasing the cost of health care for everyone else?

[ehrnst]

58. I'm posting because I have things to say.

Last edited Fri Apr 12, 2019, 08:54 AM - Edit history (4)

I just don't take the bait to give someone an opening to equate anyone who has an opinion (or access to facts) that doesn't match theirs lockstep with "defending the undefendable." I don't think that's asking for an opinion as much as setting up someone as a punching bag on which to blow off steam and "validate" one's view that one is a lone voice of morality on a given topic to oneself. Not a request for information as much as an opportunity to demonstrate yet again why one's own opinions are far more informed and moral.

I saw enough of that with anti-Hillary bros swarming any discussion of her on social media in 2016, and it's just tiresome now.

If you had any real interest in the "why" you might have googled and found other surveys. Clearly you did not.

Go rant at a brick wall if you need to rant or 'splain. This is a discussion board.



But if you are really about answering questions, especially about MFA, why is Bernie suddenly changing gears, promoting keeping the filibuster and passing bills through reconciliation, when his new MFA bill is not designed for reconciliation? What do you think of Jon Walker, the author of your source on the CBO scoring concerning health care policy saying on twitter, that this is "bizarre" and "Link to tweet
" target="_blank">truly incoherent?"

Can you provide evidence where Jon Walker is wrong on this, if you think that he is?

https://slate.com/business/2019/04/bernie-sanders-single-payer-kill-the-filibuster-medicare-for-all.html

[themaguffin]

42. Yeah, it's probably a good time to do that.