General Politics Discussion (III) [ARCHIVED] • Page 29

In all honestly if it's the Medicare For All idea that Bernie pushed in the primary, it's a bad idea.

Hopefully it's a bit more detailed than that.

 

Can you elaborate?

 

Clearly, I need to check this comic book out:

 

Bernie's plan was mostly just a skeleton idea that allowed other people to fill in the blanks. He made it worse by saying literally everyone will be covered, there will be no copays, no nothing like that, etc. Sounds great, but a plan like that would pretty much be impossible to fund, even if you are generous with the projected cuts in prices that come with single payer systems. Every single payer system around the world, as far as I know, will both 1. Include SOME OOP costs on certain things, and/or 2. Not cover certain things at all. Now these aren't going to be your "normal" diseases that they don't cover, but there will be more rare things that they either don't cover or cover only part of the cost or etc. Also, it does vary from nation to nation. NHS for example I think may actually be "free" for the most part, but they also make it a bit harder to see specialists (at least in theory thats how their system is supposed to work, I'm sure some Brits here could shed some light on it)

America is a country of 320 million so the costs of even a 'regular' single payer like what other countries do will be enormous, let alone one where we literally do Medicare For All, every single thing is covered, etc.

My hope is for an idea that creates a system like Australia's, where there is a public health care system with public hospitals and public doctors and etc, but people above a certain income threshhold can buy private insurance in exchange for not paying an extra tax. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think it's something like everyone pays a 1.5% tax to fund the public option, and then people making over like 80K there can either buy private insurance or pay an extra 1% tax. My fear with that is Republicans/conservatives will try to starve public hospitals of funding and what not to make it run shittily, but I'm not sure of a better system to keep OOP down/non-existent. There are some good ideas that incorporate some OOP expenses that I like, namely the AmeriCare Act. I'd use that as a starting point and build on it from there. It does a good job of keeping the working poor from having the OOP expenses, slowly phasing them in for the slightly more well off working poor/middle class, and addresses employer sponsored insurance as well.

 

Since 2007, DEA has taken $3.2B in cash from people not charged with a crime

 

New Zealand man challenges environment minister to a fist fight over water pollution policy

Can I challenge Trump to fight me

 

Senate intelligence leaders: 20 people to be questioned, first hearing Thursday - CNNPolitics.com

 

I do not want to see what that money gets spent on/who's pockets it ends up in.

yes i do

 

Joking aside, nothing troubling about that at all.

 

Government regulated armed robbers.

 

Joe Walsh and Angela (can't remember her last name) going at it on CNN right now. Walsh claiming Obama had the bar lowered for him overall lol

 

You should read this article:

Meet the New Harry and Louise | Jacobin


Suffice to say, there are other problems with the American system that contribute significantly to the extraordinary costs in our healthcare system, e.g., patents, the autonomy of pharmaceutical companies, the existence of private insurance itself, etc, all of which, when addressed, would make possible something similar to Bernie's plan more plausible.

 

The most damaging part of Trump’s climate change order is the message it sends

 

Poll: 6 in 10 Americans think traditional news outlets report fake news

 

"the_donald subreddit attempts to rationalize awful thing he/congress did" is my favorite variety of headline

 

They did it to themselves. Trump has just been using the of trust to his advantage.

 

House GOP Weighing Another Try on Obamacare Vote Next Week

 

"We should like put her on a coin or somehthing, wouldn't that be great?"-also probably the president of the United States