Progressives (Liberals)

The biggest knock on Pete is he backpedaled on Medicare 4 All like Beto and some others have.

@Brand X,

Brand X wrote:

The biggest knock on Pete is he backpedaled on Medicare 4 All like Beto and some others have.

I think his realistic take on Medicare 4 All (who want it) is a refreshing breath of air. It's also the policy position that I prefer (I think even over single payer).

Much of Europe has similar plans. Insurance for those who want it; government plans for those who don't.

Even current medicare recipients ALSO have insurance.

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@blatham,

Right. I used to wonder what the Lashes of this world would do with their lives after the death of both Clintons. Now I know: they'll just keep whining about the Clintons, dead or alive...

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@maporsche,

Things I learned about medicare today (from the government source):
https://www.medicare.gov/your-medicare-costs/medicare-costs-at-a-glance

1) buying into Medicare Part A before age 65 (for those that can) costs $437/month

2] All enrollees pay a monthly premium of $134.00 for Medicare Part B

3] Medicare Part D [drug coverage] also cost extra and is between $80 and $180 per month depending on the level of coverage you need.

4] CoPays? Deductibles? Yup they still apply. You have to pay 20% of your medical costs on Medicare.

So, while I think people generally like Medicare, it isn't the free coverage that I had thought it was.

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@maporsche,

Hardcore progressives are writing off anyone not Medicare 4 All only.

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@hightor,

Quote:

One major obstacle to simple, effective public policy is people like me — the expert class. Many of us are in denial, seeing complexity as a necessary evil, an unavoidable feature of answers to hard problems, even a technocratic badge of honor. We criticize conservatives for relying on simplistic slogans like “cut taxes” and “drill, baby, drill” instead of nuanced, empirically informed assessments of economic growth and environmental management.

Very true.

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@Brand X,

Brand X wrote:

Hardcore progressives are writing off anyone not Medicare 4 All only.

Yeah, I understand that.
It's a problem that I hope they can get over. They might need to.

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@maporsche,

As a practical matter I wonder if someone has done the math (don't ask me, I failed math unless I had extensive help)to see if we got out of all the wars (I hope so, except perhaps leaving a small group in various friendly spots) if it would be enough to pay for Medicare 4 All even if congress passed it and a leftist president signed off on it?

Also, it would be a big transition in some many ways. I am not organized enough but just thinking of all the people employed by the health insurance companies and the owners and wondering about pharmacies and doctors getting less money. Not to mention thinking of the transition to Medicare 4 all and how messy Obamacare was getting started and all the lawsuits which effected how it ran...

However, once all that is got through (probably take a good while) it would be great.

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@revelette1,

Just cutting out wars doesn’t come close enough.

The cost of all the wars since 9/11 (17+ years) comes up to 5.6 trillion.

The lowest estimate of the Sanders M4A proposal comes in at $32-$35 trillion after just 10 years (and many think this number is very very low). Current health payments would have to go to the government, and taxes on everyone would have to go up.

You’re also correct about the difficulties in the transition. The cost of healthcare is one factor; the impact to every single person in contact with any medical profession is another big hurdle (among many hurdles).

Source for cost of wars
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2017/USBudgetaryCostsFY2018

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@revelette1,

revelette1 wrote:

As a practical matter I wonder if someone has done the math (don't ask me, I failed math unless I had extensive help)to see if we got out of all the wars (I hope so, except perhaps leaving a small group in various friendly spots) if it would be enough to pay for Medicare 4 All even if congress passed it and a leftist president signed off on it?

If we stop defending ourselves from the bad guys, we'll all be killed and then we won't need anymore health care.

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https://desultoryheroics.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/boot-stamping-on-a-human-face.jpg?w=640

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@hightor,

I'm re-reading a brilliant essay by Martin Kaplan in the anthology What Orwell Didn't Know titled "Welcome to the Infotainment Freak Show". I'm afraid I can't find it online but the book is available at Amazon for $2.99 new.

What really solidified for me was the notion or observation that when people speak about "electability" they are more than anything else speaking about degree to which a candidate can master the realm and tricks of show business.

This is not an agreeable truth for many of us but I think it is an unavoidable conclusion and one which leads us right to the election of Donald Trump and the rejection of Clinton. It also leads us to the best explanation for why Fox and Limbaugh etc are concentrating their fire on AOC and Beto. In retrospect, it also present us with the best explanation, I think, for why Ailes was so successful in bringing Fox to it's level of influence in US politics.

And of course, electability, understood this way, tells us very little regarding how an excellent media manipulator will perform in the duties of the office he/she is elected to. ehBeth suggested a while ago that choosing Warren would be a fine way of losing the election. I'm not sure that's the guaranteed result but I acknowledge her point.

I think perhaps that Dem strategists maybe ought to do what I've never wanted them to do - put damn near anyone into the WH and then do whatever possible to surround that person with truly good people. This:
1) keeps the conservatives from ******* up the country even more, and they will **** it up even more and
2) would encourage voter turnout which will have positive effects at the state and local levels as well

All the above is exactly what the GOP have done. Few imagined Trump would win (even they presumed a greater level of rationalism in elections) but once he was in, they gained and used their advantage as much as they could.

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@snood,

Quote:

What do you think about Pete Buttigieg?

I'm a solid fan.

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@Olivier5,

Quote:

Right. I used to wonder what the Lashes of this world would do with their lives after the death of both Clintons.

Hillary's greatest deficit, by far, was three decades of sustained propaganda attacks against Bill and her. Remove that from the equation and she would have been widely acknowledged as an exceptional choice for the Presidency.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
Right. I used to wonder what the Lashes of this world would do with their lives after the death of both Clintons.
Hillary's greatest deficit, by far, was three decades of sustained propaganda attacks against Bill and her. Remove that from the equation and she would have been widely acknowledged as an exceptional choice for the Presidency.

I don't know about that. Americans are easily worried of political dynasties, which don't really fit the republican model of government. It's dubious if Hillary could have had the political career she had if she wasn't Bill's wife. Beside, she has got a very hawkish foreign policy. And she never stroke me as an enthusiastic, charismatic, or even effective reformer. E.g. her plans for UHC when her husband just got elected were a total mess, leading to years of delays until finally Obama got something (ACA) on the books.

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@blatham,

Quote:

I think perhaps that Dem strategists maybe ought to do what I've never wanted them to do - put damn near anyone into the WH and then do whatever possible to surround that person with truly good people.

That's why I've been pushing the "party loyalty" line even though I dislike parties as institutions, especially under the US system of allowing a plurality as sufficient for victory.

Remember '84 — Mondale comes right out in a debate and says "I'm gong to raise your taxes" thinking that he'd get kudos for his refreshing honesty. Yeah, that worked out well, didn't it. Gore, the bore, was another case in point — he so obviously was not enjoying himself. Kerry — smart guy, represented Massachusetts ably, but he didn't play in Peoria.

It's what I mean about electing a "placeholder" — someone bright, someone interesting, someone decent but maybe not a political firebrand, to fill the position and sell the policies thought up by Democratic strategists. Meanwhile potential future candidates with more ideological energy behind them are chairing committees, holding hearings, introducing legislation and basically being introduced to the USAmerican electorate. Effective Democratic governors are also presented to voters, maybe they're given a "Governors Task Force on Addiction" to head up so as to build up familiarity and comfort levels. When his/her term(s) ends, the placeholder can hand the baton to someone who might be a little less convivial but is already a known and respected political entity. Somebody told me that this was straight out of the Leninist playbook.

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@Olivier5,

We'd disagree on some stuff there. Surely her profile would have been much reduced had she not been married to Bill and her life would have taken other turns (though she was politically active from college before meeting him). But there's no way of knowing those alternate-universe questions.

Re the "dynasty" critique, That was a narrative or framing I never thought accurate, rather I thought it a handy means of denigrating her candidacy. Recall that these charges were launched in the contest of and at the time of the Bush family's political life. "Dynasty" had and has for more relevance in the case of that family going back to W's grandfather. George and George W both operated or lived within the top echelons of power all their lives and the family had great wealth to boot (true also, if less so, with Romney).

In contrast, Bill came from very humble beginnings and Hillary's dad was just a businessman. Thus to describe a potential Hillary presidency as a dynasty seemed (and still seems) to me much more of a propaganda-style attack and without real merit. (Let's note here that Obama, too, rose up from very humble beginnings - really the sort of American myth story that you'd imagine conservatives would celebrate, if they weren't running a con, that is).

As to Hillarycare, again I'm not with you. Republicans went full tilt on crushing this initiative and they were effective. The ACA too could only be written much as it was because of Republican obstruction (they MUST prove that government can't help citizens or their whole story breaks down).

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@hightor,

Quote:

That's why I've been pushing the "party loyalty" line even though I dislike parties as institutions, especially under the US system of allowing a plurality as sufficient for victory.

As usual, you are a little quicker than I.

Quote:

Somebody told me that this was straight out of the Leninist playbook.

It might be. I've never studied Lenin. But here we can note that Grover Norquist has, admits to it, celebrates Lenin's strategic brilliance and even has (or had) a large portrait of Lenin in his office.

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Quote:

We recently learned that former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) raised $6.1 million on his first day as a presidential candidate, and yesterday, his team released some additional details: there were more than 128,000 unique donors, with an average donation of $47. In contrast, Bernie Sanders had 223,000 donors, with a $27 average contribution, on his first day

Texas Tribune
h/t Steve Benen

1 Reply

@blatham,

Quote:

...with an average donation of $47

Filthy rich one percenters obviously.

1 Reply

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