There are a LOT of things that I want but right now, there is one priority with a bullet for what I want if Biden wants my vote
Medicare for All
I'd feel dirty but I would vote for Biden if he gave that one concession. Lots of other concessions I want as well but as someone going through the medical meat grinder right now, this is non-negotiable for me. Our Health Care system is so absolutely fucked right now and someone wanting to do some half-assed patch work job like making Medicare eligibility to 55 or 65 or whatever age he tossed out there is not nearly good enough and I'm sick of being told every election that THIS one is too important to let "Insert Republican Opponent Here" win but NEXT time we'll totally work on the issues that you want to work on!
If Biden is going to insist that he would veto M4A if it came across his desk, then I will still go out and vote Progressives down the ballot but I'll throw my vote to a third for presidency if he won't even consider M4A or some kind of complete health care overhaul
I have been pushing for M4A harder than probably anyone on this forum, however, It would not matter if we elected Bernie or Warren as president, it still would not happen in the next 4 years due to the conservative gains in congress and the current makeup of the supreme court. The best we can hope for is to keep expanding medicare until we can push it all the way there due to republicans blocking it, and Biden has already agreed to not only expand medicare and is pushing to lower the age but he is also expanding the ACA and medicaid. Which is exactly what we need to have happen in the meantime to get us closer. If we can keep expanding medicare, and medicaid and then combine them together, we will meet our eventual goal of M4A. As long as people keep voting against their own best interests though, as they continue to do in Republican districts, we will not be able to pass anything at all and people will die in the meantime unless we can keep working in "loopholes" into our current system to be able to keep providing the poor with medication and treatment.
Currently, the ACA still has loopholes that are allowing the poor to access Obamacare without paying any monthly premiums. The way my brother does this is he signed up for Blue Cross/ Blue shield on the Healthcare exchange. Because he is currently unemployed, he has his monthly payments deferred to his taxes to be able to take them out of his income tax return at the end of the year Due to his income being too low, he qualifies for the subsidies, so he makes Zero Payments, has been able to see his doctor and have his prescriptions covered under his insurance to where he pays $7 and $10 copays for his medication a month, instead of the hundred's it would have cost him out of pocket without insurance. He is actually paying less than my Mom is for her medicare copays right now. If Trump wins in the fall, the poor will lose this option as he has a case on hold until after the election that is trying to rule the subsidies unconstitutional. Due to having a conservative supreme court, they already ruled forcing states to approve the medicaid expansion in the ACA was unconstitutional so some states were able to reject it and thus why their poor's only option right now in some states is this ACA subsidy loophole that my brother, and millions of others are using right now to have access to the medication they need to stay alive. What people have to understand is if Trump wins a second term, all of the people depending on this will lose their access to their medication and will have no other means and will literally die from this. We need to expand these subsidies to be able to meet full coverage for everyone, rather than remove them as the current GOP senate and white house have promised to do.
To even be able to do the ACA, Medicare, and Medicaid expansion Biden wants to do is going to be one hell of a fight as it is due to Republicans still control the Senate, and the only means the democrats have to gain a majority in either the house or Senate requires having conservative democrats being elected in republican districts. Republicans are doing everything they can to make medicare and medicaid cuts, not expand it and are will fight tooth and nail to block any expansion so it is going to be rough getting enough votes as it is. M4A being popular among the general population does not mean the people in those districts will vote for a M4A candidate due to their "priorities" being skewed. They are more worried about a democrat taking their guns than they are about M4A, they are more worried about making abortion illegal than they are about M4A. They are more worried about some stupid conspiracy they heard than about M4A. That is what it winds up boiling down to in the end in order to take those districts, we have to field candidates that those voters in that district will vote for, and sadly some of these necessary regions are more worried about other issues even if they support M4A. As I listed in the Congressional seats thread, you are not going to get "socialist" candidates elected in the districts we have to win to get a majority, so that still means we will have to take baby steps. Of course I would love to have the luxury to not settle for anything less than exactly what I want, but I will take saving more lives than we are now rather than ensure we lose many more than we are now. The people who are depending on this will not wait another 4 years, they will die before then when Trump removes the subsidies they have now and there are no longer any options available for them to be able to regain access before they run out of the medication they need to survive in the meantime.
In addition, before we can expand medicare, we need to fix it. There is plenty wrong with it that needs to be resolved before we put more people into that system. The lifetime benefits cut off, the monthly premiums, what medicare covers and does not cover, medicare estate recovery programs are all serious issues that are not going to work in a M4A system and should not be there in the first place. We cannot have M4A taking people's homes to recoup costs as it currently does. Those recoup costs issues not being there, however, will necessarily increase costs, and it is still going to be a fight just to fix each part of the problem. We still have to keep people alive WHILE we wait for all of this to happen, as they will not survive the wait, as they literally have no other options to be able to have access to the medications they need today to stay alive and yanking that out from under them means they will not survive while we argue about how to solve the larger issues for years, could be decades at this point because the GOP is still the stronger party right now due to Democrats being many different factions agreeing to band together to get things done, but no single faction int eh democratic party has enough support to beat republicans on their own.
Progressives are not big enough to beat republicans on their own, conservative democrats are not big enough to beat republicans on their own, and the middle of the road democrats are not big enough to beat republicans on their own, so the only option all 3 factions have is to work together and compromise or lose it all and never get anything done ever. If each faction takes the stance, "this way or I'm out", all you accomplish for the foreseeable future is republicans winning and losing the medicare and medicaid we currently have rather than expand it. While democrats cannot agree on what needs to be done and how we do it, Republicans are in agreement that they want to cut medicare, medicare and welfare and would prefer to do away with it all together:
"The parties don’t have the same kinds of differences. Democrats have deep divides over policy. In contrast, Republicans, at both the state and federal levels, are largely unified around an agenda of cutting spending for programs such as Medicaid that are targeted at low income people, defending Americans’ ability to own and Purchase guns ,limiting abortion , and reducing regulations and taxes on businesses. "
When President Trump entered office, it wasn’t clear if he would consolidate control of the Republican Party — or even his own administration. We used to write…
fivethirtyeight.com
So the only options we have at all here is either take the expansions where we can get them or risk losing it all and not being able to get it any of it back because the different factions on the left refuse to compromise and work together to create a united front like Republicans do because each democratic faction wants an " all or nothing" approach to issues. Pushing conservative democrats out of the party just means we lose those conservative district seats to republicans, and give the republicans complete control over both houses and the white house. We do not actually gain anything from it than less numbers in the districts we need them in to be able to obtain a majority. We have a ton of progressives, but unless they move to these conservative districts to flip the seats, they are not doing us much good all piled up in the same areas we already have plenty of them in already. We need enough of them in republican districts to flip them. People have to remember not everyone's vote in the US is equal.
Its elections no longer convert the popular will into control of government
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