Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
LSBK: I know debates are about getting the audience on your side and not about changing the person's mind. Fact is, a good chuck of America finds insults a better way to do that. So if that is what we have to do that is what we have to do. Goes beyond "catharsis" if we can get the viewers at home catharsis against the person being debated against than we win.
edited 21st May '17 11:17:12 AM by Wildcard
I'd prefer the Stealth Insult if you're going to HAVE to do name calling.
New Survey coming this weekend!![]()
That may be true but popping a bubble is pretty damn hard. Just look at how many Trump supporters flat out refuse to accept that they elected a trainwreck of a president that's probably guilty of treason. At a certain point you have to just write them off as a lost cause and worry about shoring up your own support and converting people that are on the fence.
At what point did I talk about converting die-hard Trump supporters? You guys are talking as if "calling out" these people will make people on the fence more in tune, but from what I've seen that usually just makes a lot of people go "now you're just as bad as them" or whatever.
When I referenced a bubble, I wasn't talking about the Trumposphere.
edited 21st May '17 11:22:11 AM by LSBK
Why? As the number of constituents rises so does the number of activists you can get out knocking on doors. I'm not talking about the candidate visiting every household, but it's entirely possibly for a large enough campaign team to have someone knock on every door, you just need enough volunteers.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranA single-payer health care system would pay for itself.
You would get a tax hike, yes, but it would be less than what you are currently paying in health insurance, so your disposable income would go up. (No. Your employer is not paying for your health insurance. It is part of your compensation. Any single-payer bill not written by an economic illiterate would compel your employer to convert it to cash pay)
This money would not be coming out of thin air, however, it would be coming from the firing of nearly a million people currently working in medical billing and related fields in the US.
Some of the excess cost of US health care is corporate profits.. but not very much of it. Most of it is unneeded paperwork at hospitals and insurance providers that a single payer system would simply not need to do. Thus the mass firings. Pretty dire firings, too, since the skills these people have would simply no longer be in demand at all. The private sector would not just magically find jobs for people with the primary job skills of "I am dead inside from spending the last decade looking for ways to deny coverage / hounding insurance companies to pay up".
So, you would have to retrain the lot of them.
edited 21st May '17 11:47:37 AM by Izeinsummer
You can't enact a Single-Payer system without buying out the entire Health Insurance Industry. That's nearly a $1 Trillion extra right there. The insurance companies would absolutely have a perfectly valid case in the Supreme Court against the Government.
Not worth it.
France and/or German system would be the best approach.
New Survey coming this weekend!..Sure you can. You just announce that you are now providing health insurance. Then the health insurance companies go bankrupt the next day. This is not your problem. This is not even your *political* problem, because companies that are bankrupt do not donate to your opponents. You did not size any of their assets, because they do not own their customer base.
But even short of that, converting to the french system still gets that million billing experts fired, because France is more cost effective via standardization of the entire process.
edited 21st May '17 11:58:55 AM by Izeinsummer
These companies employ thousands of people. Entire jobs exist solely to benefit these companies. You don't just tell them that they're all out of work, tough shit. Any kind of transition would have to be to a public option with insurance as a bonus or a gradual transition over several decades.
edited 21st May '17 11:57:51 AM by Kostya
The only thing a company could obtain in such cases is "just compensation". The US constitution gives surprisingly little restriction to taking one's property, per Kelo vs. City of New London.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman![]()
![]()
does not work. You literally cannot improve the economic efficiency of US health care without firing them.
Their jobs are the problem. They are doing soul-killing make-work and the entire reason other countries are more efficient at health care provision is that most of these jobs flat out do not exist there, so they do not need to be paid for.
edited 21st May '17 12:05:13 PM by Izeinsummer
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
It will not be anywhere close to the end of private insurance in the US, especially not if we go the route of "Medicare for All" and Medicare is not radically changed in some fashion (or simply replaced with Medicaid, which would not be a good idea).
Medicare currently only pays for 80% of the cost of a medical procedure that they cover, the other 20% must be picked up by the patient. Also, there are plenty of things that Medicare doesn't cover at all like dentistry, optometry, some perscirption drugs etc. There will be a large market for supplemental insurance like in many other states with Universal Healthcare (there are even already government programs in place for them).
Then there is also the fact that the government does not administer Medicare directly. Instead it contracts out to dozens of private insurance companies to do it for them. You can bet that there will be plenty of companies around that will vie for a piece of that pie.
Now whether a US Universal Healthcare system should be like this is another question entirely, but it's also the least likely scenario given how things have progressed to this point.
edited 21st May '17 12:07:36 PM by Mio
It does but who says those people want to work for the government? It's also absolutely true that the government wouldn't need every single person in the insurance industry. A good 70% or more are probably going to be jobless even if the government hires every additional person it needs from the industry.
I'm reasonably sure that there are a sizable number of Americans who would continue buying private insurance if it was an option. Some for extra benefits, some out of "screw the government" principle. It wouldn't become a government monopoly overnight.
There probably would still be layoffs though and they wouldn't be hitting the executives. If you're committed to having government coverage you want grants for retraining insurance industry workers too.
The problem comes in is with the Takings Clause in the Fifth Amendment. You destroy the Private Health Insurance Market, under the clause it's the "government" essentially "taking" the people that own these businesses (as shady and cutthroat as they can be), and therefore compensation would need to be paid to where the government, legally, wouldn't be liable for any extra financial burdens they encounter.
Then there's also the issue of constitutionality of potentially improperly compelling states to participate in a federal program. Every state operates Federal Programs differently, some drastically so, Kentucky being a prime example. South Dakota v Dole ruled that the Federal Government cannot conditionally use the spending power (or the power of the purse rather) to make states do something unconstitutional. If this Single Payer bill has a single drafting error it's pretty much going to FUBAR'd by conservative lawyers.
What about religious objections to certain kinds of care?
The Commerce Clause? Does the Bill address Congress' authority to regulate interstate commerce in which its the only competition, and legally speaking, no other competition CAN exist?
This is nowhere near as simple as, we just need the votes and everything will be fine.
New Survey coming this weekend!One can't even say "But look, it works well in other countries!" since 1) they are probably ignoring the problems with said countries' healthcare and 2) as
points out, the USA is a different beast from other nations. Trying to get single payer to work in the USA wouldn't be like getting it to work in other countries. This is uncharted territory.
And I say this as someone who thinks single-payer is ultimately what needs to happen in the USA. But it has to be done carefully.
edited 21st May '17 12:21:14 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprisedI still think it makes more sense to just transition medicare to being a program that applies to everyone. Anyone that wants additional or more comprehensive coverage is welcome to use private plans instead. This will force private plans to be more competitive and, hopefully, cheaper without removing them entirely.

Canada, along with very limited citizen donations (unions and companies can't do it at all), assigns election money via reimbursements (up to 50%). Parties need a 2% share in the last national election, or 5% in a given riding, to qualify. Parties that spend more, and get more donations, get larger rebates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in_Canada#Electoral_expense_reimbursement
Now, US elections are more multifaceted and the local parties more integrated with the federal ones, so I'm not sure if this would work. Definitely wouldn't work out with the 18 month election period.
edited 21st May '17 10:56:05 AM by Rationalinsanity
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.