The Democratic Primary is Upon Us! - Biden is the Presumptive Nominee

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The Medicare/medicaid bureaucracy already exists, and single-payer, though applicable to more people, is much simpler than a means-tested program.

I mean, yes but also no. A bureaucracy already exists, but it is largely structured so that privately owned caregivers can get money from semi-public insurance firms. Very little of that would survive the transition to publicly owned caregivers paid by federal or state programs.

As someone who works in a healthcare bureaucracy that's nominally single payer I can tell you that there are a ton of hurdles you need to clear and the US would face the same problem that Sweden does now if it transitioned: Who pays? Is it the federal government and if so, do they pass the money to the states or do they operate federal hospitals in the states? If the states pay, how do you ensure that the poorer states aren't shafted by much higher healthcare costs? These aren't trivial issues and none of the existing bureaucracy can be transitioned to work them out, because the current bureaucracy is designed to keep the state and federal government out of healthcare as much as possible, by letting private caregivers do their thing irregardless of if it gives consistent healthcare coverage.

Just because the system is single payer it is not much simpler, because it isn't just as easy as handing a hospital a bag of tax-payer money and telling them to treat everyone. You need some way to decide which level of government is paying, for what they are paying and how to ensure that individual hospitals aren't getting shafted or enriching themselves. I could go on about this if you'd like, seeing as how it is one of my pet peeves in healthcare, but I feel it is only slightly tangential to the actual discussion about Sanders. If you want to continue though, let me know.

The United States was close to passing national health insurance in 1948. It's a popular idea now. What obscures your perception of American politics is that we absolutely do not have in any sense a political system that could accurately be called democratic. Your country, I'm sure, comes much closer to a democratic ideal. We are utterly dominated by money. It is easy to assign policy outcomes to voters if you think they're the ones calling the shots but in this country they just are not.

I know and I'm not really sure it disproves anything I wrote. Whether the voters themselves hold power or are merely pawns moved around by lobbyists with deep pockets is sort of inconsequential to the idea that the "powers that be" (be it voters or lobbyists) are quite averse to sweeping, drastic progressive change and will resist it.

 

[Seanchaidh]

The Medicare/medicaid bureaucracy already exists, and single-payer, though applicable to more people, is much simpler than a means-tested program.

I mean, yes but also no. A bureaucracy already exists, but it is largely structured so that privately owned caregivers can get money from semi-public insurance firms. Very little of that would survive the transition to publicly owned caregivers paid by federal or state programs.

M4A has privately owned caregivers getting money from the government, as in Medicare or Medicaid. In the United States a transition to single-payer is almost purely a matter of expanding the coverage provided and eligibility for existing programs-- which is no more administratively demanding than having a public option insurance plan, and quite a bit less complicated overall.

As someone who works in a healthcare bureaucracy that's nominally single payer I can tell you that there are a ton of hurdles you need to clear and the US would face the same problem that Sweden does now if it transitioned: Who pays? Is it the federal government and if so, do they pass the money to the states or do they operate federal hospitals in the states? If the states pay, how do you ensure that the poorer states aren't shafted by much higher healthcare costs? These aren't trivial issues and none of the existing bureaucracy can be transitioned to work them out, because the current bureaucracy is designed to keep the state and federal government out of healthcare as much as possible, by letting private caregivers do their thing irregardless of if it gives consistent healthcare coverage.

Just because the system is single payer it is not much simpler, because it isn't just as easy as handing a hospital a bag of tax-payer money and telling them to treat everyone. You need some way to decide which level of government is paying, for what they are paying and how to ensure that individual hospitals aren't getting shafted or enriching themselves. I could go on about this if you'd like, seeing as how it is one of my pet peeves in healthcare, but I feel it is only slightly tangential to the actual discussion about Sanders. If you want to continue though, let me know.

OK, but these are all problems which have already been solved by existing federal programs. Not only do Medicare and Medicaid exist, we also have community health centers and the Veteran's Health Administration to look at (or even use) if and when private providers fall short.

The United States was close to passing national health insurance in 1948. It's a popular idea now. What obscures your perception of American politics is that we absolutely do not have in any sense a political system that could accurately be called democratic. Your country, I'm sure, comes much closer to a democratic ideal. We are utterly dominated by money. It is easy to assign policy outcomes to voters if you think they're the ones calling the shots but in this country they just are not.

I know and I'm not really sure it disproves anything I wrote. Whether the voters themselves hold power or are merely pawns moved around by lobbyists with deep pockets is sort of inconsequential to the idea that the "powers that be" (be it voters or lobbyists) are quite averse to sweeping, drastic progressive change and will resist it.

Who holds the power would be contested by a Sanders presidency in a way which it simply wouldn't with any of the other choices that ran in the Democratic Party. Lobbyists would be contending with a President that is (without US precedent in living memory) not financially beholden to their employers and who has a large grassroots army pressuring legislators in the other direction. The effect of this would be much more potent than whatever benefits could come from having a less ambitious approach.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Biden releases xenophobic anti-China ad trying to outflank Trump from the right. "Trump is a ____ puppet" is all the establishment of the Democratic Party has, as they are not willing to do anything remotely adequate to help ordinary people.

 

[Agema]

Biden releases xenophobic anti-China ad trying to outflank Trump from the right. "Trump is a ____ puppet" is all the establishment of the Democratic Party has, as they are not willing to do anything remotely adequate to help ordinary people.

Arguably, if key swing voters buy that message, not a bad idea. The pragmatism (or selling-out, if you prefer) involved in elections, eh?

Although it bears a risk of giving Trump more credibility when he's trying to shift attention away from himself and onto China when he's trying to fob off blame for a poor response to covid-19. Trump's re-election hinges on perception of how he's handled it, and the Democratic Party needs to hammer him over it for all its worth.

Let's face it, Trump's hammering away all he can. Holding all those cheques of government money going out so they can have his name written on it (even though Congress authorised the money), which seems to me abusing theoretically neutral government for political advertising. Or his coronvirus update briefings, where he increasingly seems to be using taxpayer-funded resources and time to air campaign videos in potential breach of electoral law. No-one's ever going to do anything about it because it's clear the laws on such abuses are feeble to the point of useless, and even if they weren't by now Trump knows he can get away with just about anything.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Biden releases xenophobic anti-China ad trying to outflank Trump from the right. "Trump is a ____ puppet" is all the establishment of the Democratic Party has, as they are not willing to do anything remotely adequate to help ordinary people.

Arguably, if key swing voters buy that message, not a bad idea. The pragmatism (or selling-out, if you prefer) involved in elections, eh?

Although it bears a risk of giving Trump more credibility when he's trying to shift attention away from himself and onto China when he's trying to fob off blame for a poor response to covid-19. Trump's re-election hinges on perception of how he's handled it, and the Democratic Party needs to hammer him over it for all its worth.

Let's face it, Trump's hammering away all he can. Holding all those cheques of government money going out so they can have his name written on it (even though Congress authorised the money), which seems to me abusing theoretically neutral government for political advertising. Or his coronvirus update briefings, where he increasingly seems to be using taxpayer-funded resources and time to air campaign videos in potential breach of electoral law. No-one's ever going to do anything about it because it's clear the laws on such abuses are feeble to the point of useless, and even if they weren't by now Trump knows he can get away with just about anything.

It's an especially poor tactic because Trump has already been pointing out that Obama and Biden funded the lab in Wuhan next to where this all started. If Biden makes it look more authentic that the government had something to do with this, it's just going to boomerang back on his face because he's not paying attention.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Biden releases xenophobic anti-China ad trying to outflank Trump from the right. "Trump is a ____ puppet" is all the establishment of the Democratic Party has, as they are not willing to do anything remotely adequate to help ordinary people.

Arguably, if key swing voters buy that message, not a bad idea. The pragmatism (or selling-out, if you prefer) involved in elections, eh?

Although it bears a risk of giving Trump more credibility when he's trying to shift attention away from himself and onto China when he's trying to fob off blame for a poor response to covid-19. Trump's re-election hinges on perception of how he's handled it, and the Democratic Party needs to hammer him over it for all its worth.

Let's face it, Trump's hammering away all he can. Holding all those cheques of government money going out so they can have his name written on it (even though Congress authorised the money), which seems to me abusing theoretically neutral government for political advertising. Or his coronvirus update briefings, where he increasingly seems to be using taxpayer-funded resources and time to air campaign videos in potential breach of electoral law. No-one's ever going to do anything about it because it's clear the laws on such abuses are feeble to the point of useless, and even if they weren't by now Trump knows he can get away with just about anything.

It's not so much selling out as never having had principles to begin with. Joe Biden's been a Republican wearing the Democratic label his whole career.

I don't think this nationalistic crap is half as pragmatic as the Biden campaign thinks it will be.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Apparently the mother of the chick Biden fingered called Larry King back in 1993 and spoke about this issue and people have found the footage. She didn't name him by name but her story matches what we've been told.


Welp, I hope they don't replace him with anyone but Bernie if they do at the convention.

 

[djinns]

It's kind of funny that many people here always seem to give the Cons a pass or play down what they did, but when Democrats do something similar everyone becomes overly critical and attacks like hungry dogs smelling steak.