Why I left the Democratic Party

@Cycloptichorn,

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Let's take a popular example, Universal Health Care / Medicare for all. I agree that it would be great to have it, but how do you think a plan that is going to literally put millions of people out of work is going to pass Congress?

What's the economic assumption here? That sounds a very republican argument.

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@Cycloptichorn,

You think of yourself as omniscient, and of your contradictors as stupid, huh? :-)

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@Cycloptichorn,

Well, maybe then you agree with us more than you dare to think, because Ian Haney-Lopez's words as quoted by Ed are eloquently stating Ed's and my position on this topic...

Enough with the patronizing "I know better than you because I studied these things". Yesterday's conventional wisdom is dead. It lost a presidential election to a total clown. Time to remove your ideological blinders and challenge your comfortable assumption that you know it all.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
Let's take a popular example, Universal Health Care / Medicare for all. I agree that it would be great to have it, but how do you think a plan that is going to literally put millions of people out of work is going to pass Congress?

What's the economic assumption here? That sounds a very republican argument.

Let us begin:

Assertion: transitioning to a medicare-for-all system, in which all citizens were eligibile for Medicare or some similar universal system, would lead to millions of lost jobs in the medical billing and insurance industry.

Fact: these jobs are spread out geographically due to the fact that so many people work on the 'user end' in doctor's offices in every state.

Fact: Congress-critters don't like voting for things that put their constituents out of a job, because it tends to put THEM out of a job.

Fact: voters are leery of supporting legislation that is a) transformative of sectors of society, and b) costs jobs of people they know

Conclusion: Congress-critters will be very reluctant to vote for such a bill.

This isn't a 'Republican' argument at all. I'd vote for this personally and support a Congress-critter who did. I just think the vast majority of voters wouldn't.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

You think of yourself as omniscient, and of your contradictors as stupid, huh? :-)

I'm not omniscient, and not all of those with different opinions than me are stupid. Some definitely are. Up to you which category you end up in, really, based on the quality of your argumentation.

Quote:

Well, maybe then you agree with us more than you dare to think, because Ian Haney-Lopez's words as quoted by Ed are eloquently stating Ed's and my position on this topic...

I already told you that I agree with the overall goals and thrust of the Progressive movement. I disagree with the complete lack of tactical and strategic thinking of the current Progressive movement, not to mention their rhetorical ability, which is severely lacking.

An example: the other night, Ted Cruz debated Bernie Sanders on CNN. Even though I personally agree with Sanders' points, he got pasted by Cruz because he's a bad debater and Cruz is a good one. I say this with confidence as I both debated personally and judged debate for several years. Sanders didn't do a good job making his case and he was unable to effectively attack the case Cruz was making. It was a bit sad to watch.

Quote:

Enough with the patronizing "I know better than you because I studied these things".

Studying things does, in fact, make one know a topic better than those who don't study things. You weren't aware of this?

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Yesterday's conventional wisdom is dead.

This is a rather vague declaratory statement

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It lost a presidential election to a total clown.

This is an unproveable assertion on your part.

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Time to remove your ideological blinders and challenge your comfortable assumption that you know it all.

Hahaha, what blinders? We share the same ideology! I also know for a fact that I don't know it all. It would be FAR more accurate to state that I know nearly nothing at all. This puts me in good company with every other person who has ever lived, though, given the difference between a finite mind and an infinite universe of information.

Cycloptichorn

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You can't agree with the progressive movement if you support suppression of same. It just can't happen. In my view the Republicans betrayed Lincoln and then the Democrats betrayed Roosevelt.

I am doing NaNoWriMo these days and don't have a great deal of time for this

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@edgarblythe,

Quote:

You can't agree with the progressive movement if you support suppression of same.

Haha, I don't even know what this means or how it applies to me. I WANT the progressive position to win the day, I'd love for the whole country to continue moving in that direction. I just don't think it will based on the quality and quantity of progressives we currently have both inside and outside of elected office.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

So that's why you argue for Hillary?

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@edgarblythe,

I believed that Hillary had more of a chance of getting her platform through Congress than Bernie ever did. It's not because her platform was superior, it was because the party was mostly united behind her and would have fought hard to make it happen. I've seen the result of what happens when the party doesn't support a president on issues, hell, you see it right now with the GOP and Trump.

The Dems in Congress (especially the Senate) wouldn't have gone to bat for any of Bernie's priorities, because they don't believe in them. They didn't run on them. Many of their core constituencies were skeptical of them.

I'll take incremental change over no change at all, or backsliding, anyday. Too many Bernie supporters sat on their motherfucking thumbs on Nov. 7th because they don't believe in incremental change and they wanted something that was never going to happen. I blame them directly for Trump being elected, it was an asinine display of childishness through and through and it was encouraged by Bernie himself. I'll never forgive him for it.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

it was encouraged by Bernie himself.

That's just not true and you know it.

I need to sleep now and have a long flight tomorrow. Will be back when I can. In the meantime, try to come up with an economic argument for your fearmongering "millions of jobs lost" as a result of a public option. An option which your hero Clinton apparently proposed in 2008.

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Let us begin:

Assertion: transitioning to a medicare-for-all system, in which all citizens were eligibile for Medicare or some similar universal system, would lead to millions of lost jobs in the medical billing and insurance industry.

Fact: these jobs are spread out geographically due to the fact that so many people work on the 'user end' in doctor's offices in every state.

I've been in and around the Canadian insurance industry literally since the day I was born.

Government involvement in insurance has not reduced jobs - in fact, every time they change the legislation re auto insurance in my province, there are more jobs at many levels.

We have private insurance stacked on top of the provincial plans. Jobs in government and in the public sector. There has been growth in those job sectors for decades since public health care plans came in. Government claims administration is one of the most steady jobs in my hometown.

Clerks in hospitals , clinics and doctors' offices work on insurance billing all the livelong day.

___

This is changing because of automation - and that change is happening on the US side as well. Fewer jobs because less data-processing is required. At the appeals level there is starting to be job growth. Turns out you still need people who understand the claims , not just the numbers.

but ... the job loss is coming because of automation, not because of changes in where the claims are being submitted.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
it was encouraged by Bernie himself.

That's just not true and you know it.

On the contrary, I know for a fact he did encourage it. On Super Tuesday, in February, Bernie and his team KNEW they'd lost. They knew it. The odds of them catching up to Clinton at the point were less than 1 in a thousand. Bernie's campaign manager admitted after the DNC that they knew they weren't going to win at that point.

Bernie should have immediately quit the race and threw his support behind Clinton. He did the opposite and continued to attack her, even when it became perfectly clear that he had no chance of winning. This served to do two things:

1, it forced Clinton to defend two fronts (the right and the far left) simultaneously. That would be hard for anyone to do, let alone someone who wasn't a natural politician like her.

2, it radicalized his supporters and brought about the 'Bernie or Bust' movement. I personally believe that this is a point in which paid Russian trolls took advantage of the situation and served to further radicalize actual Dem voters by loudly and repeatedly claiming they'd NEVER vote for her, no matter what Bernie told them to do. There's nobody who spent more time in left-wing discussion boards, on Reddit, on DailyKos, and other left-wing sites than I did last election and I saw this happen personally: posters whose sole MO for months was to attack Clinton and subtly pump up Trump by saying, 'Clinton is the absolute worst, even Trump would be better.' I refuse to believe these all were actual American Democratic party members.

This was all 100% predictable and avoidable. The candidates in the GOP race had the good grace to give in and back Trump once he was the clear winner, but Bernie couldn't bring himself to do it. It was an asshole and ultimately self-defeating move on his part.

Quote:

I need to sleep now and have a long flight tomorrow. Will be back when I can. In the meantime, try to come up with an economic argument for your fearmongering "millions of jobs lost" as a result of a public option. An option which your hero Clinton apparently proposed in 2008.

I'll work on it for your return.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Hillary's platform was only another nail in the party's coffin. She is not much more progressive than Romney. Public pressure can cause a reluctant politician to be less reluctant.

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@ehBeth,

I have a hard time believing that a dr's office that bills a single client, with a single set of rules, would have more paperwork than one that billed literally hundreds of different clients

Much of this discussion depends on the end result we're talking about. 'Medicare for All,' in which that's THE health-care insurer for everyone, is very different than the Canadian or say German model.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

I proudly voted for Jill. It was not Hillary's vote to claim. It was mine to give. I will do it again next time if the Democrats don't nominate a real progressive.

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Bernie actually caved sooner than I would like to have seen.

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Incidentally, the "increments" you are so proud of have translated in one increment forward to two backward, which is why the right wing took virtually the entire nation away from your party.

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@edgarblythe,

Quote:

I proudly voted for Jill. It was not Hillary's vote to claim. It was mine to give. I will do it again next time if the Democrats don't nominate a real progressive.

Haha, you'll get exactly what you deserve for doing so, then: nothing at all.

Quote:

Incidentally, the "increments" you are so proud of have translated in one increment forward to two backward, which is why the right wing took virtually the entire nation away from your party.

Sorry to say it, because I like ya a lot, but this betrays a great ignorance of the history of our country, both far-back and in the near-term. The truth is that the Progressives have been STUNNINGLY successful in changing our society over the last 40-50 years. There's work yet to do, but you're cavalierly waving away major accomplishments because you're not getting more. I can't agree that this is a reality-based position.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Each patient results in a separate claim.

Some medical offices bill OHIP for hundreds of patients a week/thousands a month. Each bill can have multiple components that have to be processed differently - even though they're all going to one payor.

No such thing as a simple set of rules when it comes to government.

Look at no-fault auto insurance in states like Michigan and New York. They can't settle on anything. Non-stop tweaking, which means the adjuster/biller/processor/computer needs to know the policy date/incident date/location of treatment and incident/ and treatment date. It's an activity pit.

Automation is changing job availability in this sector faster than any legislation does/will.

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@Cycloptichorn,

After gaining so much they then lost it all - incrementally of course, so that makes it all right.

1 Reply

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