The General US Politics Thread

single payer or not, you do need a limit like this one way or another because otherwise the tax payer will pay the price. That is actually the main problem in a single payer system, there is little desire for improvement and it is easily corruptible. Think how much money is moving under the table every time a government contract is up for grabs. It won't be different in the health care section.

That doesn't really bother me, healthcare and medicine prices are already so high that the (admittedly real) risk of waste isn't really concerning.

Theoretical problem. Empirically, single payer and outright entirely socialized medical systems work fine. Rather a lot better than the US system. The main hazard appears to be not bloat, or lacking innovation, but political sabotage from on high.

edited 9th Sep '17 4:34:23 PM by Izeinsummer

I find it kind of sad that a lot of people are poo-pooing the idea of universal healthcare when there are thousands of people in our country suffering under huge debts since they can't afford insurance. Then of course there are those who avoid going to the doctor because they can't afford it and wind up with horrible diseases that could have been caught early and prevented.

But no, who cares about helping needy people, we need to make sure some middle-class tax-payer can afford another 4k TV.

Who exactly are you talking about? Because Universal Healthcare is generally supported. Sure the Right disparages it but that's to be expected, the Republican Party is a defacto supporter of Plutocracy.

I'm talking to people like Swanpride who argue that single-payer healthcare is too expensive and that we should just be happy with Obamacare.

The thing is, the middle class tax payer could afford more tvs with a proper single payer system. The US spends 15 odd percent of gdp on healthcare. That is half-again the standard burn rate. Institute single payer, fire and retrain 70 % of the administrative staff, negotiate down pharma, and everyone will end up paying less in additional taxes than they currently are paying in insurance premiums because the system is overall just that much cheaper. What the US is doing currently is not even the well off being selfish, it is simply ideologically motivated stupidity. And also, I suppose insurance company executives being genuinely self-interested about this .

Single payer is not the only form of Universal Healthcare, it's possible to be skeptical of it and still support UH. Frankly it's rather uncharitable to act as if they're in favor of shafting the poor for the wealthy.

Very true

edited 9th Sep '17 4:57:47 PM by Fourthspartan56

We are arguing against Single payer, not against universal healthcare. As was pointed out, most countries with universal healthcare don't have a single payer system, instead they have insurance companies which operate under certain restrictions. In Germany for example the provider of health care are the state, the church, various non-profit organisations and naturally health care companies who offer different services. The ones who pay are the insurance companies, the level of coverage is based on the kind of insurance you have (there are all kind of extra insurances if you want the luxury treatment), but everyone has the basic. If you are out of a job, the state jumps in and covers your insurance. If you are in a low paying job the state jumps in and cover part of your insurance.

This is naturally only one variant, but most countries with universal healthcare have a similar system in which the insurance companies operate under strict rules and in return the state jumps in to cover for people who can't afford insurance.

Also, I didn't say that you should just be happy with Obamacare, I pointed out how difficult it was to even install Obamacare and that it is certainly better to built on Obamacare so that it eventually will be the basis for an universal coverage instead of wrecking what is already there and start anew.

edited 9th Sep '17 5:10:39 PM by Swanpride

So, in the grips of Hurricane Irma now...quite the situation outside.

Be safe.

Seconded.

Trump says that tax reform needs to be rushed....because hurricanes or something.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/09/politics/trump-irma/index.html

Because deregulating everything and drastically cutting government income will do wonders for disaster response efforts.

Given that FEMA's out of money, he might actually be right on this one. Republicans want to institute tax reforms that almost certainly amount to cutting their own taxes while f*cking everyone else as part of the budgetary measure. So the tax reform discussion needs to end one way or another - preferably in the GOP kindly f*cking off with that nonsense like they've been made to do on so many things already - so we can pass a budget and FEMA can get more funding.

So apparently former Fox News host Eric Bolling's 19-year-old son was found dead. Not exactly Politics related, but I saw his name pop up a few pages ago over the sexual harassment claims - been a very rough week for the guy.

Heard about that, sucks for them.

That sucks. Hope it wasn't related.

What a horrific turn of events.

Bolling's Twitter says it wasn't self-inflicted, but other than that any concrete details are probably a week off.

With healthcare doesn't the German system rely on private companies pitching in, cooperating and having a sense of civil responsibility to their employees?

That's going to be a problem in the US, US business culture is not the same as Germany, I'm pretty sure that sense of civil responsibility isn't there, there's only a desire for profit and more profit.

And short term profit at that. Their business practices are terrible for the long term health of the economy and thus their profit margins.

Opposing single payer =/= opposing universal health care. If we're going to have this discussion, we need to respond to what people are actually saying.

Perhaps the NHC (the hurricane monitoring agency) needs a mite more funding as well. Their forecasts of Irma's path have been rather inaccurate seems like, and some people are blaming poor software.

Kind of, yeah, but it is not like companies actually have a choice in the matter. In the past there were actually different insurance providers for different group of employees, but we have gotten rid of that 20 years ago for obvious reasons (people changing their job more often and more competition on the insurance market).

Thing is the Republicans aren't necessarily wrong when they say that competition has a number of advantages, but that only works if the parameters are set in a way which levels the playing field and doesn't allow monopolies.

@TobiasDrake: The only problem with that is, from what I've read one of the things Trump wants cut in his budget is...FEMA. So unless the budget he wants passed quickly ends up scrapping that aspect (which it would have to, since the Republicans can't pass it without votes from the Democrats and they'd never support that), doing it quickly won't solve that issue, let alone any other Trump is screwing up.

edited 10th Sep '17 12:42:56 AM by Ingonyama