Why Trump is wrong on everything

Most are pretty ignorant people. They just don't realize how Trump's tax reform has helped the wealthy by over 80%, and some middle class earners are going to be paying more taxes. People need to wait until next year when they pay their 2018 taxes to see if they save or pay more.

Great post. Truth personified.

Thanks for the kind remark.

I provided evidence that proves it. He could wear a sign admitting he did so, in explicit language, and you still would deny it.

Trump's drug plan falls flat in health care messaging war
By DAN DIAMOND 10/25/2018 06:25 PM EDT

President Donald Trump tried Thursday to make good on a campaign vow to lower drug prices — attacking “foreign freeloaders” and proposing significant changes to how Medicare pays for many drugs. But his populist proposal didn’t appear likely to budge the national debate around health care, just days ahead of the midterm elections.

Early indications are that it won’t be an immediate game changer — it’s too wonky for Republicans playing defense in local races, it gave Democrats a fresh opportunity to slam the administration‘s attacks on patient protections and it won’t help most voters pay less for prescriptions at local pharmacies.

To date, Democrats have dominated the health care air wars, running hundreds of thousands of TV ads that hammer Trump and Republicans on their efforts to repeal Obamacare and strike down protections for patients with pre-existing conditions. As of last week, Democrats had an 18 point advantage among voters on health care compared to Republicans, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll.

Determined to counter that messaging, the White House held a summit on Wednesday to celebrate its work combating the opioid crisis before orchestrating Trump’s speech on drug prices on Thursday.

But Trump’s attempt to strengthen Republicans’ messaging on health care may even have backfired, as Democrats quickly reminded voters that the GOP’s worked to weaken the Affordable Care Act’s patient protections. “Trump is promoting insurance policies that aren’t required to cover any prescription drugs,” said Andy Slavitt, who ran Medicare under President Barack Obama.

Trump’s moves on drug pricing have so far largely been overlooked by the public. Only about a quarter of adults had heard about a previous drug pricing plan Trump announced in May — and most who heard of it thought it wouldn’t help bring down prices, according a POLITICO-Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll.

Some analysts argued that Trump’s late October stumping on drug prices — a bipartisan source of frustration — gave the GOP a tool that could still prove to be useful. Seventy-one percent of respondents in Kaiser Family Foundation’s tracking poll say it’s “very important” for their votes, the top-ranked issue this year.

“We believe this is a politically shrewd move,” Rick Weissenstein of Cowen Washington Research Group wrote in a note to clients. “The timing, less than two weeks before the mid-term elections clearly gives him the high ground on a topic that is as populist as they come. It also puts the Dems on the defensive on an issue they have used to hammer Republicans for years."

In a speech at his health department, Trump framed the plan — which goes against Republican orthodoxy on how to rein in drug costs and includes some measures that the GOP derided when the Obama administration proposed them — as a bold move to deliver on promises to lower U.S. drug prices, which are the highest in the world.

“Nobody’s had the courage to do it, or even wanted to do it,” Trump said, ignoring that his predecessor, Obama, proposed some similar reforms.

But Trump’s sweeping proposal mostly landed with a thud in Washington and on the campaign trail. The handful of Republicans to release statements issued mild remarks saying only they would take a look at it.

Under Trump’s plan, which POLITICO first reported, Medicare would benchmark some drug prices to the typically lower prices in nations like France and Germany, with a goal of lowering U.S. drug prices over time. Trump’s plan also would encourage more private sector negotiations between vendors and drugmakers as well as change incentives to encourage doctors to prescribe less expensive drugs.

For many Republicans, Trump’s plan was not only wonky but anathema to their belief in competition as the solution to high prices. It also barely registered. “It’s not even on our radar,” said one GOP staffer for a competitive Senate race. “There are other things we’re worried about here.”

Some GOP leaders also are angry that Trump would bypass Congress and use a pilot approach made possible by an Obamacare provision that many revile. The president is planning to use Medicare’s innovation center to accomplish his reforms — a vehicle criticized by Sen. Orrin Hatch, Rep. Greg Walden and even then-Rep. Tom Price, who attacked Obama in 2016 when he proposed a similar idea.

The Trump administration decided not to “presocialize” their new plan with Congress, HHS Secretary Alex Azar told reporters.

“I think a lot of Republicans are struggling to grasp that this could be real,” said Rodney Whitlock, who served as a GOP congressional aide and now works on drug pricing issues in the private sector. “Importing price controls are things Republican ideology would say, ‘this is inconceivable,’” he added.

Trump’s proposal was also too little, too late for many Democrats, who support many of the ideas but want to hammer the president on his Obamacare repeal efforts in the waning days of their campaigns.

“I introduced a bill to do what President Trump said he wanted during the campaign … and I met with the President in the Oval Office to seek his support,” said. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. “Instead, President Trump and congressional Republicans have spent the last two years sabotaging our health care system and targeting protections for people with pre-existing conditions.”

White House allies tried to rally support on Thursday afternoon.

“This administration’s top goal in health care is bringing down drug costs,” said Alex Campau, who served as a health care adviser to Trump before leaving the White House this summer. “They will continue to take big actions until patients see their costs come down.”

It's difficult to trust the GOP with our healthcare system. They've tried too many times to repeal ACA. Their goal is to repeal ACA to give bigger tax cuts to the wealthy. Even many democrats can't see this, and they complain that ACA is too costly. They're fighting the wrong battle. Without ACA, over 13 million Americans will lose health insurance, and the rest will pay higher premiums. The GOP is already proposing deep cuts in Medicare/Medicaid in the 2019 budget.
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/393028-house-gop-2019-budget-calls-for-deep-medicare-medicaid-spending-cuts

What is so frustrating is that so many democrats are voting for the very legislators who are working to cut their benefits.

The Obama administration and Dems generally are using healthcare as a tool for turning the US economy into a socialist printing press for money.

You have to choose between socialism and healthcare. If you want affordable healthcare, give up socialism. If you want socialism, forget about affordable healthcare.

I already know what the Dems will choose, and who they'll blame for their choice.

No. Healthcare should be a benefit of citizenship. Most developed countries provide universal health care; we're one of the last to provide it. A healthy citizenry helps our country's economy and security. List of Countries with Universal Healthcare
Country Start Date of Universal Health Care System Type
Netherlands 1966 Two-Tier
Austria 1967 Insurance Mandate
United Arab Emirates 1971 Single Payer
Finland 1972 Single Payer
30 more rows•Aug 9, 2009
List of Countries with Universal Healthcare – True Cost – Analyzing ...
https://truecostblog.com/2009/08/09/countries-with-universal-healthcare-by-date/

US healthcare is big business. All the government health care programs you mention are funded by taxing investors who profit and pay taxes from investing in the US. They didn't obstruct Obamacare because all it did was provide a more guaranteed source of revenue to insurance companies, which fueled stock market growth.

If a truly affordable and effective form of public health care was introduced, Dems would reject it because of potentially negative effects on GDP growth. The Democratic party is the party of cooperation with the global empire, so anything that could truly cut costs for US consumers is not supported by them, because they are supported by global investment interests that make money by keeping US spending high.

So the only reason they support socialism in the US is because it invigorates the stock markets for the government to subsidize and stimulate more business activity. If they provided public welfare services in a way that caused less business activity instead of more, they would get in trouble and lose their media backing, funding, etc.

There's no reason why the US cannot follow the best of universal health care. They have been established in many countries, and they can advise what are good and what are bad. There's much information that can be used to prevent most of the mistakes made by countries with universal health care whether it's a one-payer or two-payer system.

Do any of these other countries with socialized health care pay doctors and everyone else involved anywhere near what the same professionals get paid in the US?

The US health care system is extremely expensive because everyone, including support industries like equipment and furniture makers, are getting paid a lot. Foreign businesses are part of this and big pharmaceuticals like Bayer and their subsidiaries are major tax-payers in the European countries that fund public healthcare and other universal welfare guarantees for citizens.

If the US was funding a universal healthcare system by keeping its costs down and making money on expensive healthcare industries in Europe, we also wouldn't want them taking control of their healthcare and lowering costs, because that would cut into our funding of our system.

The Trump administration, I've read, has been demanding drug pricing be set relative to a pricing index in a number of other countries, so that would prevent the drug companies from making their money in the US and then using it to subsidize lower prices elsewhere. I doubt the Dems will support that, though, because they support a global system where the US is docile in paying whatever foreign companies want to charge, no matter how little they charge other people outside the US.

I'm not understanding your reasoning. We already pay the most for health care. It doesn't need to be that way. That's been proven around the world. Here are the reasons for higher cost in the US. Specialists, nurses and primary care doctors all earn significantly more in the U.S. compared to other countries. General physicians in America made an average of $218,173 in 2016, the report notes, which was double the average of generalists in the other countries, where pay ranged from $86,607 in Sweden to $154,126 in Germany.

Administrative costs, meanwhile, accounted for 8 percent of total national health expenditures in the U.S. For the other countries, they ranged from 1 percent to 3 percent. Health care professionals in America also reported a higher level of "administrative burden." A survey showed that a significant portion of doctors call the time they lose to issues surrounding insurance claims and reporting clinical data a major problem.

That's a funny position for me to be taking, because my brother, nephews, and nieces are doctors. One nephew is an Intensivist, and his salary is close to $300,000/year. However, he is a good man who volunteers himself in third world countries to train other doctors. He's now spending two years in Bhutan to train doctors. My brother is an Ophthalmologist, and he has volunteered in third world countries to treat patients for free.

Trump is trying to lower our prescription costs by getting foreign freeloaders to start paying their fair share of research and development expenses.

Right, and you need to look at why those high salaries and business revenues don't induce more competition to lower costs, and it has to do with the highly regulated nature of everything involved with healthcare. The moment some affordable alternative starts gaining ground, such as midwifery, the medical establishment launches a public fear campaign that patients will be dying if they don't choose a much more expensive medicalized birth at a hospital, where they'll be groomed into getting a C-section, etc. all driving up costs.

This happens in all sorts of ways when people submit to medical care because, ultimately, health care is a business. When the ACA required people to buy health insurance, it made the demand curve for health insurance more inelastic, which stimulated more investment into health insurance. As a result, health care providers began increasing the prices for their service with the knowledge that either the insurance companies, the investing public, or both would be in the position to pay even more money.

The only way to get health care prices down is to allow people who are willing to work for less to enter into the field as doctors, nurses, dentists, etc. and find a way to ensure they don't provide bad service or unnecessary procedures to make more money. That is practically impossible because it would require truly honest and decent/good people not taking advantage of patients AND it's just too easy for greedy business people to get into health care professions to manipulate patients and their insurance companies in ways that milk the most money.

That happens not only in health care but in every private and public institution, including schools and the criminal justice system. It's just a question of people getting involved who understand business and how to manipulate systems to move money in ways that they want it to move.

Trump was trying to buy votes with more republican b s lies.

Trump's dislike for foreign freeloaders taking advantage of the US seems genuine.

More important is his concern about exploitative/unfair trade relations.

Pfizer to raise drug prices despite Trump complaints
By Tami Luhby, CNN Business
Updated 7:14 PM ET, Fri November 16, 2018

New York (CNN Business)Pfizer is planning to raise prices on 41 drugs in January, a few months after the company agreed to defer hikes under heavy pressure from President Donald Trump.

The manufacturer said Friday it would raise the list price of all but four of the drugs by 5%, effective January 15. Three drugs will increase 3%, while one will go up by 9%. The medications represent 10% of Pfizer's drug portfolio.

The drugmaker surprised many in July with its decision to walk back hikes after Trump tweeted that the company should be "ashamed" of itself for raising prices and taking advantage of the poor. The next day, the president tweeted that he had spoken personally to Pfizer's CEO, who agreed to roll back the increases.

Trump has made lowering drug prices a main focus of his first term. In May, his administration rolled out a 44-page "blueprint" for increasing competition, reducing regulations and changing the incentives for all players in the drug industry. Last month, Trump outlined a plan to revamp how Medicare pays for certain high-cost drugs by basing reimbursements on the prices paid in other countries.

But Pfizer made clear all along that the deferral would be temporary -- lasting only until the end of the year or until Trump's blueprint went into effect, whichever came sooner.

Pfizer noted Friday that the increases will be offset by higher rebates and discounts offered to insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers, which administer drug programs for employers, federal and state governments and other clients. It said it expects these players to share those benefits with patients so their costs don't go up.

"We believe the best means to address affordability of medicines is to reduce the growing out-of-pocket costs that consumers are facing due to high deductibles and co-insurance, and ensure that patients receive the benefit of rebates at the pharmacy counter," Ian Read, Pfizer's chief executive officer, said in a statement.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The Department of Health & Human Services said that its secretary, Alex Azar, and Trump "will continue to take bold action to restructure this broken market."

"Actions announced today on list prices further illustrate the perverse incentives of America's drug pricing system," said Caitlin Oakley, an agency spokeswoman. "Drug companies raising their prices and offsetting them with higher rebates benefits everyone but the consumer, who routinely pays out of pocket based on list price."

Pfizer's price increases are "not egregious" and may serve as a trial balloon to gauge the administration's response, said David Maris, senior analyst at Wells Fargo Securities.

"However, given how public the previous rebuke was, we think this [will] enflame the debate around drug pricing," Maris said, "especially since it comes less than two weeks following an election that resulted in Democrat control of the House with many having run on drug-price-controls/Medicare-for-All platforms."

While a few other companies, such as Novartis and Merck, also agreed over the summer to freeze prices on certain drugs, many manufacturers continued to hike them. Drugmakers increased the cost of 104 medications in June and the first two days of July, only weeks after the administration unveiled its blueprint, according to a Wells Fargo Securities report. Manufacturers typically raise prices at the start and in the middle of the year.

Congress is expected to continue its focus on reducing drug prices next year, and it's one of the few areas of common ground between the parties. Both Trump and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who is vying to reclaim her post as House speaker, mentioned it the day after the midterm elections last week.

Discounts to the consumer doesn't work that way. The insurance companies and pharmacies will keep the profit to improve their bottom line. Consumers benefit only when the price is dropped.
It's similar to giving bigger tax cuts to the rich hoping it'll trickle down to the middle class and the poor. When have we seen that?

Trump tells California that they could have prevented wildfire with raking
The president visited California and blamed their wildfires on, among other things, a lack of raking

MATTHEW ROZSA
NOVEMBER 18, 2018 5:00PM (UTC)

President Donald Trump visited the California community of Paradise on Saturday to express empathy for the citizens victimized by one of the worst American wildfires in recorded history — and yet still managed to insult the devastated state.

"Right now, we want to take care of the people who have been so badly hurt. This is very sad to see. As far as the lives are concerned, nobody knows quite yet," Trump said during his trip, according to USA Today. So far 76 people have been reported killed as a result of the wildfire and 1,276 people are unaccounted for.

Trump also made a controversial remark during the Saturday visit, one in which he implied that a lack of raking was among the factors contributing to the wildfires that have wreaked havoc on the state.

"We’ve gotta take care of the floors, you know, the floors of the forest," Trump said. "It’s very important. You look at other countries where they do it differently and it’s a whole different story. I was with the president of Finland and he said, ‘We’re a forest nation.’ He called it a forest nation. And they spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things. And they don’t have any problem. And when it is, it’s a very small problem."

A number of prominent Americans skewered Trump on Twitter for making that statement.

"Trump blames the CA fires on the under-raking of leaves," posted actor George Takei. "I don't have a further comment, because really nothing is going to beat that on its own."

"Comforter-in-chief adds insult, ignorance to injury. Denies climate change‘s role in wildfires," wrote MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff. "In Paradise, Trump actually said “raking and cleaning and doing things” would prevent death and devastation we‘ve seen here in CA. 76 dead. 1,276 missing."

"Donald Trump is so stupid he actually thinks that people not raking leaves is the cause of wildfires in California," posted reporter James Kosur. "I didn’t realize someone’s IQ could fall into the negatives."

"Trump says #Finland doesn’t have a problem with forest fires because they 'spend lots of time raking and cleaning, doing things," writes Stockholm University journalism professor and Guardian contributor Christian Christiansen. "It’s true. All Finns required by law to spend 6 months after high school raking forests. Penalty for non-compliance is 6 months more raking."

Conservative commentator Bill Kristol held a poll that quoted Trump and then asked, "Should we laugh, cry, mock or impeach?" As of this writing, more than half of the 16,000 plus who have voted have chosen "impeach."

The president's comments seemingly blaming California for its wildfires were reminiscent of a controversy from last weekend. On that occasion Trump tweeted, "There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!"

He later followed up with a tweet saying, "With proper Forest Management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart!"