Needed Now: A Real and Radical Left

waterfield wrote:

I don’t think that’s what we need at all ! This country is essentially by history fairly conservative. By moving too far to the left we all but insure a more powerful and stronger right. And with a stronger right comes authoritarianism and demagoguery. And of course from that comes what we not have in the WH. IMO any move to the extreme-right or left-is simply another form of populism that appeals to the popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument. I don’t ever want to see a left version of Trump. This one is bad enough for me.

The greatest gains for people in this country’s history occurred with the New Deal, which the republicans are trying to wipe out and which the democrats are tepid about defending.

Actually in spite of the myth of the country being conservative, if you go an issue at a time, the majority always prefers left solutions. For example, single payer health insurance.

Which would save people enormous amounts of money and hassles. In fact there’s no good reason to oppose it.

Excellent article, Zooey.

Thanks.

I agree with the writer that without the replacement of capitalism itself, we’re not going to make it as a species, and “the left” is the only part of the political spectrum that gets this. The internal drives, rules, laws (especially of competitive motion), incentives and mechanisms of the system itself all push us toward an ecological meltdown. It can’t be helped.

Naomi Klein came to that realization not too long ago:

https://thischangeseverything.org/

And even the most optimistic projections for an in-system fix rely on something that has never existed under the capitalist system: sufficient cooperation among relevant competing entities, regardless of lost profits, loss of market share, stock prices, etc. etc. That cooperation would have to put us and the planet above profits and all the rest. It would, in essence, have to be “selfless” to the extent a corporation can be selfless. And because it’s on such a ginormous scale — the entire earth — and the problem to be solved is so immense, it would have to be ongoing.

As in, an ongoing, mass, cooperative movement between naturally competitive capitalist enterprises, with sustained, selfless actions, vision and follow through.

It would be easier to just change the system itself.

If the Dems wanted to run a “far left” agenda, backed it entirely, with no apologies, and no undermining, they could win election after election, for a host of reasons:

1. Americans want the best deal possible, as they perceive it. The “far left” can provide that better than any other part of the political spectrum, and it’s not close. They can provide the best possible deal, in concrete terms, and no other part of the spectrum comes close.

2. The right wins on deeply unpopular platforms. They can’t make the case that any of their policies provide the best possible deal for Americans, ever, not once, not ever — unless they’re super-rich. But they keep winning.

3. Americans can be convinced of almost anything, tragically. Sales and marketing, personality, charisma, self-confidence, a certain presence, a certain ability to connect — these things win elections, not policies. If they didn’t, centrist and right-wing candidates in both parties would never win a race.

4. Certain parts of the political spectrum aren’t “extreme” due to their distance from the mythical and mythological center. They’re “extreme” based on their distance from reality, from what’s best for humanity and the planet. So, a “center” which supports endless war, coups, regime changes, ecological destruction, the surveillance state, skyrocketing of economic inequality, the carceral state, etc. etc. is the very definition of “extreme.”

5. It’s pretty obvious why neither the GOP nor the Dems will move well to the left. It’s not about winning elections, cuz, again, they would easily win with a far left agenda. They won’t do it because it would hurt their donors and themselves, being in the 1%. They won’t do it because it would mean the dispersal and sharing of power, as close to equally as is humanly possible, and they didn’t get into the game for that. Nor did their donors.

zn wrote:

waterfield wrote:

I don’t think that’s what we need at all ! This country is essentially by history fairly conservative. By moving too far to the left we all but insure a more powerful and stronger right. And with a stronger right comes authoritarianism and demagoguery. And of course from that comes what we not have in the WH. IMO any move to the extreme-right or left-is simply another form of populism that appeals to the popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument. I don’t ever want to see a left version of Trump. This one is bad enough for me.

The greatest gains for people in this country’s history occurred with the New Deal, which the republicans are trying to wipe out and which the democrats are tepid about defending.

Actually in spite of the myth of the country being conservative, if you go an issue at a time, the majority always prefers left solutions. For example, single payer health insurance.

Which would save people enormous amounts of money and hassles. In fact there’s no good reason to oppose it.

The New Deal was spawned from the great depression. It wasn’t a social invention. It was specifically designed by FDR to rescue the greatest economic collapse in our history. Those conditions do not exist today. Yes people support a lot of stuff including universal health care. But that doesn’t mean they’re correct. Vermont tried universal health and had to abandon it because of the costs. Out health system now is so bloated that it would be impossible to reinvent it. It’s simply too late.

The failure in Vermont didn’t have anything to do with costs. How could it? Single Payer is cheaper in every way. It cuts overhead by at least 30%.

Too many Americans need to take a refresher in math.

If product or service X requires ___ amount of both taxation and private sector spending, all that matter is the total cost. If our taxes go up, but the total goes down, we get a better deal.

It’s just math.

So, yeah, in European countries they pay higher taxes, but they get more for their money. Everyone is covered. Out of pocket costs are almost non-existent. And their total bill for health care is half what we pay.

You could do a thought experiment with pretty much 99% of the things we buy, and you’d come out the same. If our public sector were allowed to be truly public and all non-profit, there is virtually NOTHING it couldn’t offer for less than the private sector — and do it sooner, and distribute it more widely.

The private sector will always have to charge more, if for no other reason than its overhead is always more, plus you have to make a profit, pay shareholders and huge executive salaries.

The ONLY Americans that benefit from the system we currently have are rich Americans. Everyone else pays far more for far less, because of the capitalist system . . . . and rank and file workers will always be paid less because of capitalism as well.

nittany ram wrote:

FYI for anyone interested….

Waterfield is partially correct when he says single payer failed in Vermont because of costs. However, the Vermont plan excluded large businesses from participating. Therefore, a huge source of funding was lost from the beginning. Plus, they never figured out what to do with people who were already on federal Medicare/Medicaid. For these reasons, one could argue that what Vermont was trying to implement wasn’t really single payer anyway, so their experience cannot really be used as an “I told you so” by the anti-single payer crowd.

Plus of course single payer works all over the world in different places and has for decades. Including Canada and Scandanavia.

The thing that CAN’T be justified, IMO, is paying for private insurance companies who make a profit and have high administrative overhead on top of it. That’s as much as 10 times greater the administrative costs than public systems and of course not a dime of that goes toward health care.

There are many reasons doctors are for single payer.

…

zn wrote:

There are many reasons doctors are for single payer.

nittany ram wrote:

And no country that has single payer is in the process of dismantling it in favor of a privatized system

There’s this from that bastion of agenda-driven left-of-liberal commie pinko fanaticism, Newsweek. This is not the only article and not the only poll.

—

THE BEST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM? DOCTORS BACK SINGLE-PAYER PLAN, SURVEY SHOWS

http://www.newsweek.com/best-health-care-system-doctors-back-single-payer-plan-survey-shows-667751

Doctors have come out overwhelmingly in support of a single-payer health care system, a new study shows.

Forty-two percent of doctors support the type of federal insurance system currently being championed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, according to pollster Merrit Hawkins. Another 14 percent of physicians were “somewhat supportive,” but only 33 percent “strongly opposes” the single-payer system and six percent was somewhat against it.

In the same study from 2008, 42 percent of doctors strongly or mildly supported single-payer—a swing of 14 percentage points. And the percentage that strongly or mildly opposed single-payer has dropped 19 percent.

The doctors are part of an overall trend in support of the so-called “Medicare for All” approach. Overall, 33 percent of Americans now favor the single-payer system, up 5 percentage points since January and up 12 percent since 2014, a Pew Research Center study shows. Politicians are also reading the tea leaves: Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have signed onto a bill by Sanders to create a single-payer system that would make the federal government the nation’s health care insurer.

First, it’s generational. According to both the Pew Research Center’s poll and the survey from Merrit Hawkins, support for a single-payer health insurance is much greater among younger adults and doctors than older adults. And with older doctors retiring and young doctors starting to practice, there is less resistance to single-payer.

Doctors added that a single-payer health care system helps them focus on their actual job and spend more time caring for patients and less time navigating the existing insurance-based system, according to Merritt Hawkins.

“Doctors are constantly seeing patients that have health problems that they can’t address because of their insurance,” said Dr. Ed Weisbart of Physicians for a National Health Program, an organization that advocates for single payer. “There are so many people without insurance, and that has improved, but the quality of [their] insurance is getting worse and worse.”

Doctors, he added, are “fed up” with the current system.

Weisbart said that the reason he went to medical school and became a physician was because he wanted to help people—not to spend time dealing with nonclinical administrative work. And single-payer, he says, is the best way to resolve it.

“There really aren’t any other good strategies,” he said. “Physicians are realizing, well, good gosh, we’ve tested out every model we can think of.”

The Merritt Hawkins survey was emailed to 70,000 physicians and received 1,033 responses. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

My chemo is a bit less than 30K a session now. In fifteen years, as far as I can tell, no delivery-side costs have fallen. None. They’ve mostly gone up and up and up, as has my insurance premium.

That went up $500 per month from 2017 to 2018, and is expected to nearly double in 2019.

I’ll need to figure out something else, because I’ll be priced out of the exchanges next year if that occurs.

It’s coming to a head, folks.

We need to go to tax-funded delivery side medicine, and tax-funded insurance options. Both. Not just Single Payer . . . though that would be a massive, life-saving improvement over what we have now. It would literally save tens of thousands of lives a year. But Single Payer, too, will hit a wall, if we don’t do something about radically lowering delivery costs. To me, the best way to go is to update the old ways:

Towns used to hire their own doctors and nurses, and no one paid for their visits unless they wanted to bring them a chicken or something. It was just part of the deal when you lived in this or that town.

Update this for 2018 and beyond. Have Single Payer for backup costs and certain kinds of long-term or specialty care.

We’re just flat out not going to be able to afford for-profit medicine in this country, for the non-rich, if we don’t de-commodify.

waterfield wrote:

Here is an answer to your question WV.

‘Why don’t we just copy the Canadians?’ is because we can’t. We’re not Canadian and we don’t share the same history or the same social ethos.’”

I don’t buy that. It’s not because we are so culturely different; it’s because the US has been so propagandized that anything socialist is bad, and single payer is largely portrayed as socialist by the powers that be. It’s not culture – it’s a relatively small group of people who got rich off the current healthcare system, and therefore have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. IMO that’s what’s keeping us from having single payer. If you describe the benefits of single payer to most Americans and they are all for it. It’s not until you call it single payer that they turn up their noses.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by nittany ram.

Well i dunno what to think of those polls. Because Clinton got more votes than Bernie. Ya know. I mean voters had a choice between the two. And they voted for crooked hillary.

So either the polls are wrong, or people dont think its an important issue, or…?

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