Rising fascism in the US

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

This was all known about the ACA as well as early as 2010. There were a whole LIST of things that could have been done to improve it under Obama, let alone now. But the Dems were never able to do so, because the GOP chose a strategy of blocking ALL revisions and improvements to the ACA as they hoped to run on a platform of killing it and then do so when they got into office. Well, that ******* failed because they were lying all along about having a plan, and because elements of the ACA are pretty damn popular.

So what? The Republican plan failed. They didn't repeal the ACA.

I know why it wasn't fixed before. How about the moderates get on with fixing it now?

1 Reply

@oralloy,

I'm quite sure the Dems would trip over themselves to do so now. Like I posted earlier - they've been TRYING to do so for years, including this year. You perhaps ought to be looking towards the GOP when you ask that question.

Quote:

So the position of the Democrats is that I should have poor health care. I'll have to remember that come election day.

No, the position of the Democrats is that you DO have poor health care. We'd like to fix that. The position of the Republicans is that it's your own fault that you do, and they have no intention of fixing it.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

I have never seen any "improvements" from the Dems that didn't include getting rid of the ACA and replacing it with some form of socialized system.

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

Baldimo wrote:

I have never seen any "improvements" from the Dems that didn't include getting rid of the ACA and replacing it with some form of socialized system.

I can say with confidence then that you literally never paid attention to or read a single one of their proposals to do so over the last six years. Not only that, but Hillary had a whole ton of fixes in her platform for presidency, which you also apparently didn't even bother looking at.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I'm quite sure the Dems would trip over themselves to do so now.

Good. I hope they succeed.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

You perhaps ought to be looking towards the GOP when you ask that question.

I think I'm going to write my senators (both Democrats, Michigan), and my congressman (Republican safe seat), tell them all about the price levels I'm being offered for 2018, and encourage all of them to work together on a bipartisan solution to fix the ACA before 2018 strikes.

0 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

I can say with confidence then that you literally never paid attention to or read a single one of their proposals to do so over the last six years. Not only that, but Hillary had a whole ton of fixes in her platform for presidency, which you also apparently didn't even bother looking at.

Cycloptichorn

Unless there was going to a repeal of the mandate or a change of "basic coverage" terms then I don't think the Dems had any intentions of fixing anything. Those were some of my biggest problems with the ACA and if the DNC wasn't going to address those, then why bother? As for Clinton, I had ZERO intention of voting for her and I also had zero intention of voting for anyone on the GOP side of things either, my vote from the get go was for Gary Johnson and it will continue to be for a Libertarian candidate for the foreseeable future.

Why don't you actually provide me with some the changes the Dems were looking to offer.

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

The fact that you didn't intend to vote for Clinton doesn't mean that she wasn't offering suggestions on how to fix the system. You just didn't look at them.

In short, Clinton was proposing to (and had detailed plans on the costs of doing):

- Allow states to offer a Public Option on the State level
- More generously fund the Medicaid expansion, to get hold-out states to opt on. The biggest problem states for the ACA by a mile are in those GOP-ran states that rejected the Medicaid expansion.
- Allow people 55+ to buy their way into Medicare, even if they haven't retired yet
- Increase funding for rural and other health-care 'clinics' which are a lot lower-price option for consumers than most hospitals and emergency rooms
- Negotiate for prescription drug prices. It's a ******* shame this wasn't included in the ACA to begin with.
- End the ability for companies to re-patent long-standing, cheap drugs by making minor cosmetic changes and jack the prices up. Anyone with Asthma knows exactly what I'm talking about here

There's a lot of other technical ****, but you get the idea.

What is the GOP proposing, to fix the ACA? Nothing. They have no ideas at all to bring prices down, literally. You saw the result of that when they couldn't present a workable bill of their own.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

It seems like every answer to the ACA is more and more govt programs that will cost tax payers more and more, I didn't see one free market example in the list you offered. Why is the answer always higher taxes and more govt control?

2 Replies

@Baldimo,

Negotiating drug prices paid by the gov't directly (who is by far the largest consumer in America of said products) with Pharma companies is the height of free-market economics. Preventing such negotiations is the opposite.

As for the rest, are you really surprised that a group of people who believes in collective solutions to shared social problems suggests a government solution for said problems? I can't imagine so. We suggest these things because there's a ton of evidence that health-care is best ran that way. Not only that, but in countries with higher-regulated health care systems than ours, the average consumer pays FAR less than here in America. So when you say these things 'cost taxpayers more and more,' you're ignoring the fact that actual taxpayers under these actual programs pay... less than you do.

And, let's look at the opposing argument. Where is the example of free-market health-care that works? Anywhere in the world? What more, where are the suggestions from the GOP for some sort of free-market healthcare that would work? I sure haven't seen any. None of the things proposed this last cycle by the Republicans would have brought costs down at all - and that was a major knock on their plans.

You may want to consider admitting that there are no 'free-market' examples and proposals here, because people who actually study this stuff can't envision a free-market proposal that is superior to what exists today.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

And, let's look at the opposing argument. Where is the example of free-market health-care that works? Anywhere in the world?

Germany and the countries that emulate them, like Switzerland and The Netherlands. These countries have something similar to the Obamacare exchanges (although sometimes the insurers are required to be not-for-profit) where all the insurers compete against each other in a public marketplace.

Republicans also like something about Singapore even more than they like the German model, but I haven't taken the time to figure out just what Singapore does for their health system.

0 Replies

@Baldimo,

Quote:

I didn't see one free market example in the list you offered. Why is the answer always higher taxes and more govt control?

One free market idea would be a public option but being there are people like you and many democrats included too, who vote for the corporatist establishment candidates we will always be exploited.

2 Replies

http://themindunleashed.com/2017/10/10-things-youre-not-supposed-know.html

“The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.” ~Noam Chomsky

1 Reply

@Lash,

Chomsky is full of **** and you shouldn't quote him.

2 Replies

@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

One free market idea would be a public option but being there are people like you and many democrats included too, who vote for the corporatist establishment candidates we will always be exploited.

We actually had a public option up until 2018. The multi-state plans were the public option.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

We actually had a public option up until 2018. The multi-state plans were the public option.

What I consider to be a public option is a plan that is not a corporate plan and is non profit.

1 Reply

@McGentrix,

Made me laugh.

I’m not surprised by your opinion, but I think he’s brilliant. I’ll stick with him.

0 Replies

@McGentrix,

Quote:

Chomsky is full of ****

Let me guess you think you are more informed than he? Laughing

3 Replies

@reasoning logic,

He puts all his money on Alex Jones......

0 Replies

@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

What I consider to be a public option is a plan that is not a corporate plan and is non profit.

Well the multi-state plans were not quite that. But they were a hybrid.

The government worked with the private company (usually Blue Cross, but I think they had some not-for-profit co-ops too) to develop the plans.

The government provided additional oversight over the plans.

And (most important of all in my view) if the private company declined to provide coverage for a procedure, people with multi-state plans could appeal to the government, who would then have a panel of independent doctors decide whether the denial was appropriate and overrule the denial if they decided that the procedure was justified.

Note:
http://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/multi-state-plan-program/external-review/

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@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
Chomsky is full of **** and you shouldn't quote him.

Let me guess you think you are more informed than he?

Isn't Chomsky that clown who spouted all those falsehoods about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? If so, most people are more informed than he is. I know I certainly am.

0 Replies

Rising fascism in the US

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