The party backed a pedophile for the Senate less than a year ago. Not sure what you're expecting.

I’m probably focusing more on your emotional and exaggerated language than I should be. Your argument seems void of nuance. I guess you are saying an extreme problem needs and extreme solution. I disagree, but maybe I don’t feel the desperation like you do.

Looks like Germany is around 77% government funded, US is around 50%. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a generation the US would be much closer to 77% too.

There's no exaggerated language. You say it can't be done well. I say the rest of the world does it just fine. You say it can't be done in America because it's unique. I say we already do it with Medicare.

This isn't an extreme solution either. The rest of the world does it and gets better results at substantially lower costs. We're the outlier here. The one that chose a pseudo-free market solution that masks the reality that the health care industry is largely a billion dollar corporate welfare scam.

The very fact you say “rest of world does it just fine” is a massive oversimplification. Every system is different and has tremendous trade offs.

You (and Ocasio-Cortez) don’t seem to think this is a complex problem needing an ever changing dynamic solution. You say there is a simple solution that will be cost effective. Got it, I just disagree.

This is really not going to help optics for this in the campaigning season.

Ted Cruz said that if Texas elects a Democrat, they are going to ban barbecue in the state of Texas. I guess they will all have to move out then.

Rich coming from a man whose wife is a vegetarian.

I don't think anyone would claim it's not a complex problem, just that it's not the complexity of the problem that will stop the US adopting (a modified version of) the solutions already used elsewhere successfully, but simple profit reasons by those already benefiting from your current system. Partisan politics would pay a big part too because there is no way to get it across the line (IMO anyway) without a bump in taxes.

The Australian health care system is not perfect by any means but as someone who has gone through cancer treatment and surgery over the past 5 years, birth of a child, continued specialist appointments and medication for my wife, along with the more ad hoc appointments/medications/vaccinations... I honestly have no idea how we would be getting by in the US system. Outside of a gap payment & anesthetist payment of about $2k AUD total for my surgery, I've paid peanuts for the rest, and the entire pregnancy we went through last year didn't cost us a single cent despite my wife needing weekly check ups for the duration of the pregnancy with an endocrinologist, not to mention the lengthy hospital stay after the birth of our daughter due to some complications.

Our tax rates are fairly high here in Australia and so is the cost of the living, but our health system is one of the best things about this country IMO. Our education system on the other hand... :)

This argument is a fallacy. Yes, every system in the world is different, and yes, there are trade-offs. That doesn't mean it doesn't work. Those various countries have worked and adapted a health care system to their particular problems. You can't say, "Well, every system around the world is different, so that means the U.S. can't offer universal health care."

Since Japan was brought up... People here used to pay 10% of any hospital or clinic costs they accrued, with the rest being covered by the government. However, the population is ageing and the tax base shrinking, so they had to increase it to 20% shortly before I came here 15 years ago, and later it was 30%. Even so, I still pay a lot less for comparative health care here than I would in the U.S., even while paying 30% out of my pocket. There are trade offs to every system, but you have to look at the whole picture.

It is indeed complex. For example the government is already paying for health coverage of 66% Americans. US is almost as single payer in coverage as many other countries. The US government already spends more per capital on healthcare than Canada, Germany, France and Australia.

So, many people would not want a massive change, because ironically, they are already being subsidized by the government. It also reasonable that the country with by far the most innovation through risk taking and payoff would slow. There is a tangible benefit other countries are receiving in research and technology from the bloated US system.

Here’s a pretty good article on the data. The U.S. Spends More Public Money on Healthcare Than Sweden or Canada

What is moderate in Canada is pretty far-left on the American scale though. Whether you think it's a good thing or not depends on one's political ideology, but even as American political thought trends leftward the electorate is considerably more conservative as a whole.

Honestly, the electorate is less "conservative" and more "all the old fucks grew up in the shadow of Joe 'Communists are lurking under your bed to EAT YOU' McCarthy and they still vote more reliably than the younger generations do."

If the 18-29 demographic could ever be activated as reliably as the Depends demographic, I think you might be surprised by the outcome.

That doesn't make the US any different from Canada, where younger voters also vote the least, and at quite similar turnout rates to young voters in America. There are some issues(such as capital punishment and immigration) on which both countries share similar views. Here are some others:

** Handgun ban: 48% favor in Canada, 28% in the United States
** Abortion: 77% favor under some circumstances in Canada, 68% USA
** Same-sex marriage; 74% to 67%
** Kyoto Protocol: 78% Canada, 62% America
** NAFTA: 71% Canada, 56% America

Now the last one could be based on the different roles of the nations in the deal, and of course free trade is traditionally a conservative position so you could consider that one 'reversed'. But there is a significant difference here, a quantifiable one most definitely not within the margin of error. On many fronts, a moderate position in a country like Canada(gaps with many European nations are at least as big if not larger) is a leftist one in America.

Also, good to know that the new standard for whether or not the FBI investigates something is whether or not they want to. :banghead:

He really is the guy at the end of the bar.

How exactly is that a new standard? That's the standard for law enforcement agencies since.. forever.

I think he's saying whether or not the interviewee wants to.

I guarantee you that the FBI doesn't really care what the interviewee wants them to do. They'll investigate if they feel they need to.

Yeah, I was just clarifying his statement.

From what I've read it looks like the FBI can investigate, but they have to be ordered to do so through the executive branch. Congress doesn't have the ability to order the FBI to investigate. Bush1 ordered the FBI to investigate the Anita Hill accusations, so there is precedent.

An enormous chunk of that money goes toward corporate welfare. Some of these are direct such as the inability to negotiate drug prices. Others are indirect such as the inability of consumers to import prescriptions from other countries.

Obamacare is one of the biggest handouts of them all. Forcing everyone to purchase a health insurance plan while subsidizing with taxpayer money. We put money in things like the Farm Bill to subsidize health insurance and loan money to insurance companies at no interest.

Government has artificially restricted the ability of retail clinics or pharmacies to provide basic services to prop up more expensive traditional options. They limit the number of accredited schools. Limit the number of residency positions. Don't respect foreign doctors accreditation. And ultimately artificially limit the number of licensed doctors allowed in the market (we have half the number of physicians per capita than Canada).

So yes America pays a lot of money into health care. But it's not all going toward patient care. It's going toward artificially propping up businesses by either giving them direct handouts or restricting the supply side of the market. It's the reason this country pays 3 times the price for colonoscopies, bypass surgeries, or pretty much any other medical procedure.

Still got, it: Corporations shouldn't run healthcare, the government can do it better and cheaper.

What percentage of Americans do you think are in desperate need of radical healthcare reform? Assuming many enjoy their employer-paid insurance, Medicare is great (according to you) and Medicaid, I'm assuming, is also a functioning government program.

Yeah, about that.....(I know likely TIC to RM)

But CMS is an over regulated morass of wasted funds, excessive spending on non-healthcare related things and a whore to lobbyists looking out for their own interests, which have little to do with patient outcomes.

I personally support a universal health option, but the current model needs to be almost gutted and rebuilt.

Enjoy is overstating it. I work for the agency that deals with ERISA and therefore takes participant complaints - a lot of people are frankly shocked over what their employer paid insurance doesn't cover, even when they assert that their doctors say they need it (and sometimes the insurance companies are being jerks, but a lot of times that's how their plans are written). Thankfully though pre-existing condition exclusions are not a thing anymore (those really got people upset).

Well they literally do. Medicare pays less for services and has lower administrative costs. If Congress was not legally restricting the program from negotiating drug prices (or importing overseas), they would get those cheaper too.


I don't know. People in this country enjoy paying more for less not only in health care but in other areas. It's just part of our culture at this point.

I'm not saying there is massive demand (although polls show there is good support for it). Just that it isn't some radical idea that makes you an extremist.

12% of people in the US do not have any health insurance at all. So that's about 40 million people in desperate need of radical healthcare reform.

20% of households who make less than $36,000/yr have no insurance.


The fact that 40 million Americans have no health coverage should be seen as an embarrassing, catastrophic problem in our nation and it should be the single biggest priority of our government to solve this problem in a unified, non-partisan way.

The fact that our congress basically doesn't give a shit, and many in congress would actively fight against this should be a worldwide embarrassment to us all, IMO.

In order for the 40 million stat to be true it has to include undocumented people.

Only 46% of the uninsured cite cost as reason they are not insured. Meaning, they are probably young and healthy and do not want to pay for it.

So, now were are left with a 12 to 14 million. Of those how many are in transition or will soon be in a profession in 5 years?


Health insurance coverage in the United States - Wikipedia

I'm also sure people are fine with their employer-sponsored plan. Mainly because that's all they know.

One of the tricks with the system is as an employee, you don't see just how much you're actually paying. Health insurance benefits are part of your overall compensation but you're not actually told what that compensation is. They think "wow, I only pay $300 a month to insure my family" when in reality it costs $1800. That they could be taking home an additional $1500 a month under another system.

On the same topic, remember that employer-sponsored health care has a huge government subsidy built-in. In this country we are supposed to pay payroll and income tax on our compensation. But we don't count health insurance as compensation. While this benefits the general public, it also acts as more corporate welfare for insurance companies.

All this of course is done so that people don't know what they're paying for health care. Because if people really saw the numbers, they'd be pissed.

I actually found this statistic to be quite astounding. I thought public spending per capita would be much lower in the US in comparison to other countries. I even went looking for stats that were a little more recent (your link stops at 2013):
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/...able-countries

It seems obvious to me that we clearly spend enough public money on healthcare but that we are also horribly inefficient at it.

Also back in Trump related news Ford is refusing to testify before congress without an FBI investigation into her allegations. I wonder if that gives Republicans just enough cover to get Kavanaugh through.

yeah, that’s what I got from it too. It’s also why I don’t think making the government significantly bigger would save money. I’m biased, but in my head I seeing the wreck with inefficient and excessive administrators in public education as the canary in waiting room.

Companies are required to report the cost of coverage to employees. Whether people look at that is a separate question.

You're right. Obamacare made them add it to the W-2.

This is what I was getting at. If it's ok for law enforcement agencies to not investigate something because they don't feel like it … well, we're in a lot worse shape than even I think we are. Some things need to be investigated because there's a basic, charter-level duty to do so and whether or not anyone 'wants to' shouldn't have the first darned thing to do with it.

.02

I wish it was that simple, but people always get "more conservative" as they get older, and the American electorate is definitely more "conservative" than Canada's regardless of age. Canada seems to have the well meaning northeast liberal group we do, the still more or less libertarian mountain/plains just don't move here & make it crowded group, and the pacific northwest liberal group, but then they have the socialist Quebecois while we have the fundamentalist/religious right, (and their welfare recipients are alcoholics from like Newfoundland instead of meth addicts from West Virginia, but idk if that affects voting patterns).

Yep, it likely will, and I think it's a dumb move if she believes her own story. I'm struggling for the exact phrasing that is acceptable, but this wasn't a rape, it was the type of common incident that would need a face and some emotion attached to it for it to resonate. Anita Hill did not have a fair hearing either, but if that happened in today's climate it would've destroyed Thomas's nomination. Like it or hate it, in 2018 the 30% in the middle have to wonder if something like this is tied in to partisan politics, and she officially picked a side. It shouldn't matter, but for a he said/she said story from 30 years ago that'll be enough for it to be brushed aside unless more evidence shows up.
*Raises hand*

I didn't have health insurance for parts of the last 5 years, and as a single male with no kids working in the contracting space - but working hard enough to stay above the Medicare etc lines - I judged it was worth the risk. I agree it will make sense once I have a family or get a lot older (and having parents who aren't living paycheck to paycheck I could lean on for a short term problem is always a psychological fallback), but I fundamentally disagree with the idea that everyone needs insurance, and I certainly disagree with the idea that I should subsidize health care costs for those who are overweight, smoke cigarettes, don't exercise, have severe drug or alcohol problems, are hypochondriacs, etc.

I also got caught with a lacrosse ball to the eye in those 5 years during the part I was in Massachusetts and forced to pay for health coverage... and it may or may not have saved me money vs paying out of pocket then & pocketing years of insurance premiums, but it was a complete nightmare of bureaucracy to navigate and I have no idea if it did cost more or not, because the costs were so hidden I couldn't even figure out what the were. And I don't need or want that shit, but I still have multiple eye care facilities asking me to come back for "check ups" that will cost me $0, but they can bill indirectly to Massachusetts taxpayers for presumably hundreds.

(I also wonder if this should go back in the Obamacare thread, or wherever the last big heath care blowout we had was.)

Woah Woah Woah... PEOPLE DON'T FULLY READ THEIR INSURANCE PLANS?!?

We all agree as payees that health insurance sucks and I think it's a little worse than auto insurance etc... but I bet if most people had to frequently tap into their other insurance plans they'd be apoplectic as well about what they covered.

Because shit changes and people get scared.

Today's kids are going to be scared old fucks in 40 years as technology and shit changes and they long for the 'good old days,' but the good old days they long for aren't going to be the Mayberry days the boomers want to bring back.

I'm more conservative than I was when I was entering college because I've realized the world isn't entirely sunshine, rainbows & butterflies, and I don't have the ability to become a dictator & enact progressive social proposals & I'll have to wait for our idiot politicians to pass them.

I've also argued at least one dumb thing on this board when I was 18 that I look back and ask what that kid was thinking, because people's views change as they age. Not necessarily better, hopefully not worse, but if we're being honest probably a little more mainstream.

And lol no, we're not going to be having ethical debates about abortion or talking about Mayberry days in 40 years. The technology will be so far past what's possible now I don't know how to predict its advance. We're already seeing a technology made public 15 years ago (Smartphones) redefining what it means to hang out as family & friends as most people gather in person but communicate with others elsewhere, you want to predict 40 years from now? :)

I do think I've become more conservative on fiscal/economic matters as I've aged but have somewhat maintained my liberal attitude towards social issues (e.g. healthcare, LGBT rights etc.).

They often are in conflict for sure and there is no easy answer. I'm not beholden to the GOP or Dems but like to think I vote for my most important interest during elections.

You know there is a political party that offers what you are looking for? Previous to 2016 the argument that they are "inexperienced" or "batshit crazy" was plausible. However fter Trump was elected president it's probably time for people to just start voting for 3rd/4th party's and to stop worrying about the lessor to two evils. Couldn't get much worse than the past 2 years for Republican voters could it?

I think there is a very legit (non racist, non religious fundamentalist, etc) group of Republican voters that want to know how the hell are we going to pay for these things? I am in complete agreement that the actual modern GOP apparatus is just a different spending monster than the Democrats but I do think there are GOP voters who are actually fiscally conservative. Like it would be great to live in utopia why didn't anyone in the history of the world ever think about utopia for everyone?

What if I told you Boomers may have always been more conservative?

But you're presuming that it's one political party over another that is concerned about monetary and budget policy, and in that assumption you're wrong. Not because there are R's that care, but you're forgetting that it's the R's that pounded the drum about the deficit, then conveniently cut income in good times, while adding spending. How many decades of this current plan will it take before the economy would ever start paying for it? I digress. I guess my point is that there are a lot of people on both sides who want to see good spending policies in place. You just can't have one group though that is ready to dismantle a social safety net because they need to add more to the military, because patriotism and strength and power. Talk about a bloated socialist department, that's it right there. No, there are plenty on both sides. However, you can't take a policy that is designed to give so easily to the top, yell at the bottom to try harder and then castigate the bottom when they feel like the game is rigged against them, because it is. As far as the aging thing goes, I'm much more liberal than I ever was in college. Facebook calls me a moderate because I get my news from all over and at least am willing to listen enough to hear different points of view. Challenge everything, but be able to see through the bullshit.

And what party is this?

Panerd is a libertarian whose hobby is railing against the Democrats in particular.

'

We'd be much better off in a gridlocked government with Hillary in charge and Congress in the hands of the Republicans. Voting for third party candidates helped get us into this mess (and also cost Al Gore the presidency).

If anything, I've become more liberal as I've grown older.

I don't know if it's accurate to say I've become more liberal, but I've definitely become less Republican. I've always been moderate on social issues and fiscally conservative. I started to break from the Republican party about 15 years ago when it became clear that "fiscally conservative" simply meant deficit spending on different priorities than the Democrats. It's only accelerated in the past several years as the party has proven itself to not be about capital "C" Conservative values, but small "c" conservative positions that are primarily the values of reactionary, scared, old white people who can't deal with the world changing around them.

I've definitely become more liberal. I was President of the College Republicans when I was at Rutgers (now granted NJ Republicans are not the same as Alabama Republicans). I've veered quite a bit farther to the left - mostly because I found religion. Flirted a bit with Christian Socialism and moved more towards a comfortable center-left Christian Democrat (though sometimes those Christian Socialist desires peek back up).

This board is predominantly liberal so no doubt it seems that way. Can't say I have ever found any of JiMGa's viewpoints (or any of my friends who for some ridiculous reason back Trump) enlightening.

Agree wholeheartedly with point 1 (The Obama presidency was fantastic for the most part). Laughing at point two. People who hold their noses and voted for either Clinton or Trump are the problem not 3rd party voters. Note I'm not saying if you legitimately liked either candidate you are the problem but I found very few on both sides who liked either of them. Blame the small chunk with integrity though if it makes you feel better.