waterfield wrote:

I’m in a single payer system: Medicare-and I love it. Do I think it will work in this country for everyone ? No. There’s no comparing Canada’s system w/ roughly 35 million people to the US w/ roughly 300 million people. I’m attaching what I consider a scholarly article from Forbes that goes into detail on this subject. I urge you to read the entirety of the article even though it was written by a doctor. (i.e. “I couldn’t get past the fact that the author…”) IMO the comparison to Medicaid and Medicare (both government run) is quite telling.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertpearl/2017/03/16/why-a-government-run-single-payer-healthcare-approach-is-doomed-to-fail/#1744e2d12d81

“until we find an effective way to limit healthcare spending, American healthcare will continue to fail — whether it is funded by private individuals, by competing insurance companies, or by a single payer… The drivers of cost inflation are drug prices rising at double-digit rates, new medical technology increasing expenditures on procedures, wages going up in response to labor shortages, and expensive regulatory requirements. Price controls in this environment can’t work.”

IMO the most logical answer is to carefully look at how we can improve the Affordable Care Act ( ObamaCare) and have to the guts to implement those changes that are needed.

I read that article when it came out and it’s just wrong on so many things. I apologize but I’ve talked about it in other spaces and I’m all talked out about it.

The whole point of the currently proposed Medicare for All is that while there is a transition period, Medicare is bolstered significantly to account for the disparity in private/public payments. The article does a poor job iirc in speaking to how some hospitals will see MORE money because they are actually getting paid for care they were not being paid for before. Moreover, in a M4A situation where everyone is covered, they can see a GP well before they need to go to the ER and thus can save thousands per person in underserved areas.

it also ignores that the single biggest impediment to entrepreneurs growing their business is employee cost and healthcare is the biggest hurdle.

Two things trouble me, tho.

1) The minute there’s a M4A option, various insurance companies will drop out of the market entirely because a) it’s never a good idea to stay in a dying industry and b) creating havoc will only weaken the attempt to remove the profit motive from other fields… like incarceration. That means that things like freezing insurance rates prior to the M4A launch is a must or we’ll see the same shenanigans we saw prior to the ACA launch. The M4A law has to account for MILLIONS of people entering the system all at once and plan for a ROBUST launch.

2) Cost controls HAVE to be baked in from the start. Otherwise, the private market will simply choke the public system. Bernie’s right that it’s not enough even to pass M4A. if there isn’t broad pressure to get all the parts right, it won’t be enough and the 1% will kill it and we’ll be back to before the ACA and the debate will be dead for a generation or more.

Now, imho, we should also confront the Pharma manufacturers and make clear to them that much of what they make they got from US lab development. If they want to sell in the US, they’re going to negotiate. If they threaten to move overseas like they did with vaccines, then we’ll just nationalize that medicine like we should nationalize the vaccine program, seize their research and facilities under legal grounds of both National Security and Eminent Domain and distribute the medicines out of the FDA at cost.

Zooey wrote:

Good to see you, Mack. I was just wondering about you a few hours before I opened this thread up.

I think Bernie needs to freshen his message. I can see why W sees him as running on “Fuck the rich.” I don’t think that’s what Bernie means, but I can see how it comes across that way.

Personally I think the winning message is a Vision of a green future with economic prosperity created through green industries. New jobs, new possibilities, a high tech, low carbon footprint world full of flowers and cute little wild animals.

I don’t think it’s enough to run Against Trump. The Democrats need to sell a Vision. People will buy that. Right now, it’s “Trump Sucks…and here’s a vast smorgasbord of policies.” I’d be out there talking about self-driving green cars, booming alternative energy industries, cellulose-based “plastics,” AI/Robots, colonizing Mars, Virtual Reality, high tech surgery, the whole Star Trek thing. All free from foreign oil entanglements. Democrats haven’t offered a vision since Kennedy. This country is still clinging to Reagan’s vision – in spite of the fact it has brought us HERE – because nobody has hit the Reset button.

I think Biden is going to fizzle in an embarrassing way if he continues to run on a “Obama 2: The Sidekick” trail. People want change. Trump offered it, and won. There are a lot of people out there saying, “No, not that kind of change,” but a return to the status quo isn’t enough for the people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck, and that’s half the country or more. They want a vision of a world that includes THEM in an economic expansion, not just a removal of Trump, and not just a redistribution of wealth through taxes and programs.

It’s interesting that the debates are on Bernie’s ground, though. The issues front and center are the issues he raised, and the DNC doesn’t like it, but the cat is out of the bag. The Overton Window has moved. I just can’t believe that the Green New Deal isn’t in the center of it. The DNC can limit questions on climate change, but I am surprised that none of the two dozen candidates if forcing the issue. It’s polling as the most important issue to people. The MOST important. And it’s a second or third tier topic, down there with expanding social security, or something.

I didn’t see the debates, but the “viral” bits were not about the GND.

Long ways to go, here. I will say I expect the Center to pull behind Harris, rather than Warren, should Biden’s hull take on too much water. This thing looks to me like it’s headed towards a brokered convention, though, because Biden, Harris, Warren, and Sanders are all going to get delegates. And maybe someone else, like Buttigieg, could catch on.

That seems to be the plan. folks like Mayor Pete, Warren, Harris and maybe one or two others including Biden will do everything to stay on until the convention. Then after the first vote doesn’t yield a consensus, it’ll go to a brokered convention and the super delegates kick in and then we’ll have Harris and Harris will slay at the debates and Dems will think it’s in the bag and we’ll see billions in negative ads and Trump will once again win because it will be all to easy for the RNC operatives to get someone like Harris spinning like a top with all the flip flops and policy changes which sometimes change day to day.

I did see the debates and it seems like the plan is to feed Biden to Harris to show that she’s the toughest. Also with such a wide open field, they’re also draining a lot of Bernie’s money insofar as plenty of people want others like Tulsi, Booker, Yang, Castro and others to be included in the debates and thus mentioned in the reporting.

With 1.2 million volunteers, Bernie OWNS the ground game for sure, but most of the rest of the Dem candidates are doing a Clinton and leaving much of the ground game to generic DNC stuff which is minuscule in comparison.

I dunno.

wv wrote:

Mackeyser wrote:

wv wrote:

“… for establishment centrists, Warren was emerging as an acceptable alternative to Sanders…”

Yeah, and this is exactly what i expected. They’d love Biden, but if they think Biden cant win, they’d hold their nose and support Warren.

Anyone but Bernie for the centrists.

One wonders if they’d support Trump over Bernie?

w
v

Well, they did before, in large numbers.

I’ll just put this out there.

Trump is GOING to get re-elected because the DNC is feckless. Bernie NEVER had a chance and the DNC would rather fundraise another four years on Trump’s tweets than actually engage in representative democracy that is responsible to the constituent base as opposed to corporate donors. That’s why campaign finance was never going to happen.

I really tried for a minute to hold out hope for a Bernie candidacy, but when the DNC argues in open court that they do not have a fiduciary responsibility to the Bernie supporters who gave money and that they can use the money in any way they like and appoint a candidate in a backroom if they choose because violating their charter is not criminal… well, that was game over.

I’m glad Bernie is running insofar as he is the gravity to keep this from being a 1981 Republican vs a 2019 Trumpian, but unfortunately, I’m not sure even the gravity of a black hole could move the Dems to the actual center left, let alone to the left (Bernie being on the Center left and all).

Oh, also, hi all. Mea culpa, I’m an ass for not posting… at all. Between medical issues and my damned “outta sight, outta mind” functioning, I’m just terrible at communicating, it seems.

Hope this little ray of sunshine finds all of you well. Only the ray of sunshine is meant sarcastically, of course.

=============

Hey Mack, send me an email sometime. I got some Braz. Jujitsu questions

Ike26501@yahoo

w
v

I don’t do email anymore, but you can text me any time you like. Can we do DMs on this site? If not, I’ll just email you my contact info.

LOVE to answer some BJJ questions!!!

Well, WV, last time I was called a Lizard Lord was a really weird weekend in Vegas.

But it was honorary, was only for the weekend and I wasn’t really allowed to BE a Lizard Lord.

And Zooey, I’ll email you today with contact info.

I’m at mackeyser@mac.com

I know, super original…

Everything you’ve all said thus far is right except this: there’s just not enough of us.

That’s just not true.

The two parties make up less than 53% of the electorate.

Of the remaining 47%, MOST agree with the progressive agenda and policies (and that Venn diagram overlaps almost 80% of Dems and over 50% of Reps)

If Bernie were to run as a third party candidate, he’d cannibalize significant vote from BOTH parties AS WELL as bringing in new people to the process.

NO candidate is perfect.

That said, Bernie is one of very few politicians who’s not a “lesser of two evils” candidate.

I mean, even moderate Republicans respect him and actually agree with him on many, many issues. Moreover, there aren’t that many attacks that stand up from the Left.

Yeah, he voted for the Crime Bill in ’94, but he spoke out about the issues at the time and voted for it because of the domestic violence provisions, not to enable mass incarceration. The thing with Bernie having a one-track mind is that he’s consistently saying the same thing for 30+ years.

It won’t be perfect, but he’s on record early and often.

It helps that he finds ways to get progressive things passed WITH the help of Republicans.

Neither Clinton or Obama could do that and HRC wasn’t even interested in trying.

Anyway, there ARE more of us. On Twitter #DemExit and #DemExodus are a real thing and there are MILLIONS of people who are working hard to enact things like open primaries and Ranked Choice Voting so that alternative candidates have a chance.

I’ll give Trump this, his election has mobilized people who would never have fought this hard if HRC was elected (sorta like even the left went soporific at times under Obama…or they were Chloroformed by the DNC folks, either way)

Man, twitter is blowing up over this.

I dunno if folks now, but it was in many cases Twitter investigative journalists…private individuals who found ways get information that has really driven this.

Especially with the fourth estate exchanging their integrity for access, this wouldn’t have happened without the incessant digging of the twitterverse.

Lots of it was just bad and/or wrong which turns every twitter user into Ben Bradlee, but at least we get the raw feed.

Every significant story I’ve seen in the MSM, I’ve seen AND gotten significant depth and detail days or even months before on Twitter.

Left twitter is not only a real thing, but it’s no joke.

Manafort was the easiest target, but Flynn is either next or just after.

The biggest deal is Papadapoulos. It’s likely he wore a wire for at least 3 weeks and maybe even 3 months.

Apparently, 4 different sources in the WH have confirmed that Trump has asked about resigning. He’s just asking, but it seems pretty clear that if Mueller continues on this track that he’ll do a Nixon and resign and be pardoned, likely by Pence.

This presumes that Pence doesn’t go first (which, honestly, I’d prefer).

Everyone who has any authority on this (be they formerly involved with Watergate or former Federal prosecutors) has said the dominoes have started to fall and it doesn’t look good for anyone other than Chris Christie who dodged a bullet being shunned…

This thread is gold!

I actually think that after the 2018 election, if the Dems really crap on progressives, that Bernie will start immediately to get on the ticket in all 50 states and start campaigning.

He’s already doing a lot of ground game going around the country and his engagements are still selling out.

The alternatives that are palatable, but not perfect are Tulsi Gabbard and Nina Turner, but good luck making any of that happen. I mean, we’re talking about two women of color with legitimate progressive credentials and Tulsi has the resume to do the job (I fully admit that Nina Turner, while most excellent at speechifyin’ is light on the resume side)

That said, I’m certain the DNC is going to rally behind Kamala Harris. Book it. Presuming Hillary doesn’t run again with the idea to make Kamala Harris the VP.

I have a lot to add about transgender issues as well as a few other points, but I’m at the VA right now so I’ll have to participate later. Just wanted to plant a seed.

We all know that if the US and western countries actually had to pay their fair share in lives and treasure for their actions, things would be markedly different.

Sorta like women’s healthcare would change if men could also have babies…

Don’t watch most of that although I hear Power is a pretty good show.

Heck, I’m not even caught up on my Ray Donovan and I hate to admit that I’ve never seen The Wire.

It’s totally on my list, but with all the stuff in the news, I gotta pace myself. I get too worked up.

That and I wanna binge watch the Sopranos.

Also, happy Birthday…early.

Said before and will say again: original Antifa? Virtually all of America during WW2 and even before. Mass demonstrations against fascism were happening in the 30s.

Anyone railing on about Antifa who isn’t railing longer and louder against fascism and Neo-Nazis is either a Neo-Nazi or Nazi sympathizer.

I have very little patience for the Whataboutism and equivocation that’s going on with this.

Neo-Nazis and fascists are bad. Unequivocally. End of line.

I’m thinking about writing a short story on “drone swarms”.

They don’t have the AI to cover that…yet, but they’re close. At this time, drones require a 1 on 1 control. (that we know about. I think there are some proof of concepts out there that use more than one, but nothing like a swarm of thousands or millions of drones)

However, the key will be using “queens” that are controlled and then having the swarm already programmed to behave in a certain way. Thus, the swarm would be predictable from an offensive standpoint, but nearly undetectable from a defensive standpoint and even if detected, nearly impossible to disrupt or predict.

There are multiple offensive vectors, from millions of small detonations to biological pathogen release to simple fear and disruption.

Question is will my short story be done before we see a swarm of drones on Youtube???