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@canefan said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@dogmeat being the only developed country without a national health system beggars belief also
Especially when you consider they spend nearly twice the public funds per capita than any other nation.
A good article on it is in the NYTIMes (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/upshot/the-real-reason-the-us-has-employer-sponsored-health-insurance.html) but what it doesn't spell out is how complicit organised labour was in driving this series of events by joining the medical profession and insurance industry in preventing state based systems. Instead they opted to make it based on collective bargaining agreements.
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@canefan said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Duluth said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@canefan said in Coronavirus - Overall:
being the only developed country without a national health system beggars belief also
Other countries have insurance based systems. Obamacare was a poorly implemented copy of the Swiss system for instance
Poorly implemented or not, it seemed that most people in the US are philosophically opposed to government subsidised healthcare.
Some Republicans are philosophically opposed to it - Obamacare was quite similar to Mitt Romney's system in Massachusetts, so it's not even all Republicans.
I believe polls show strong support for some sort of public health care, but it's harder to get majority support for specific proposals, and even harder if you don't have both parties on board to some extent because the opposition will be higher if it's not bipartisan.
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@Godder said in US Politics:
I believe polls show strong support for some sort of public health care, but it's harder to get majority support for specific proposals, and even harder if you don't have both parties on board to some extent because the opposition will be higher if it's not bipartisan.
It wasn't smart politics from the Dems back in at the beginning of the Obama term. I think Obama thought if he based a plan around a Republican-ish plan everyone would fall into line.
The reality is bigger trade offs were need (interstate competition etc). The Dems went to a position of "we don't need your votes" too quicklyThat meant a handful of Dem holdouts became very important. The way the last handful of votes were purchased resulted in some terrible additions to the law. That's one of the reasons Obamacare does not look much like Romneycare (or the Swiss system)
Without partisan cover there was no ability to set the penalties at the correct level (making a death spiral inevitable).
There was also no courage to stand by the costs. Various taxes were delayed and then dropped. A classic politicians position - for the benefit but not the cost.But one of the biggest obstacles is that a Swiss plan probably requires a constitutional amendment. Try that without making concessions to the other party.
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@Duluth with the filibuster, I don't think the Dems ever thought they could pass it without some Republicans being on board, but having to get to 60 instead of 50 made it harder and forced more concessions than would have been needed in a parliamentary democracy, or even in some of the states where it's less controversial.
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@antipodean said in US Politics:
@canefan said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@dogmeat being the only developed country without a national health system beggars belief also
Especially when you consider they spend nearly twice the public funds per capita than any other nation.
A good article on it is in the NYTIMes (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/upshot/the-real-reason-the-us-has-employer-sponsored-health-insurance.html) but what it doesn't spell out is how complicit organised labour was in driving this series of events by joining the medical profession and insurance industry in preventing state based systems. Instead they opted to make it based on collective bargaining agreements.
An example of free enterprise making things more expensive?
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@canefan said in US Politics:
@antipodean said in US Politics:
@canefan said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@dogmeat being the only developed country without a national health system beggars belief also
Especially when you consider they spend nearly twice the public funds per capita than any other nation.
A good article on it is in the NYTIMes (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/upshot/the-real-reason-the-us-has-employer-sponsored-health-insurance.html) but what it doesn't spell out is how complicit organised labour was in driving this series of events by joining the medical profession and insurance industry in preventing state based systems. Instead they opted to make it based on collective bargaining agreements.
An example of free enterprise making things more expensive?
An example of the corruption of democratic process and interference with free market principles.
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@Duluth said in US Politics:
Without partisan cover there was no ability to set the penalties at the correct level (making a death spiral inevitable).
Didn't it became cheaper for companies to pay the fines for not providing health insurance for their workforce rather than actually provide it?
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At the end of the day the dems would never have made meaningful changes to healthcare (despite controlling the presidency and all of Congress), because they received very large amounts of money from heath insurance companies (in this election cycle it's something like 40% of their funding). They basically gave a handout to insurance companies by making it mandatory (under financial penalty) to buy expensive, crappy health insurance. Insurance costs for grad students at my old school increased 10x.
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I hope this becomes a campaign issue if (and that's a big if) wrongdoing is found by the prosecutor looking into CIA, FBI and DOJ conduct of the Obama administration.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/eli-lake/michael-flynn-gets-railroaded-by-the-fbi/
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Can someone explain to me how the US got to a state where the two presidential candidates are Trump and this bloke?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/05/22/biden-charlamagne-trump-black/
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@Victor-Meldrew hey at least I still find myself shaking my head he said that. If it was trump I wouldn't bat an eyelash.
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@Bones said in US Politics:
@Victor-Meldrew hey at least I still find myself shaking my head he said that. If it was trump I wouldn't bat an eyelash.
Biden once plagiarized a speech by Neil Kinnock.
Says it all.
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@Victor-Meldrew nicely tied back to Cummingsgate. My doesn't that have a ring to it.
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Biden:" why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? "
Kinnock: "Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university?"
The pithiest comment I can recall was " Because standards have dropped?"...
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@Bones said in US Politics:
@Victor-Meldrew hey at least I still find myself shaking my head he said that. If it was trump I wouldn't bat an eyelash.
Yep. Are we going to have "Biden derangement syndrome" now though?
I suppose it keeps it fair.
US Politics