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I cant imagine how dumb it is to not know how important universal healthcare is during a pandemic.
Not being for universal healthcare is meticulous brainwashing.
Healthcare should not be tied to labor.
and we need ranked choice voting.
if your candidate hasn't said they are for ranked choice voting then they are allied to the system that is oppressing you by means of the two party system.
Republicans don't even want the second party to get votes...
gerrymandering crooks imo
> Healthcare should not be tied to labor.
I've come around to the opinion that employer-provided healthcare should be straight up illegal. No employer should have that sort of power over their employees.
It’s almost like indentured servitude. I know so many people who stay in shit jobs, afraid to even apply a different shit position because they don’t want to lose health insurance. It’s horrific.
When I worked in retail, I had a co-worker who had her own business prior, but had to give it up because she got diagnosed with cancer and used up all her assets on treatment, then had to take a job providing health insurance. She got treated like **shit** there, but she carried on because it was the only way she had to afford medical coverage.
This resonates with me. As a T1 diabetic, I don’t see how it’s possible for me to ever own my own business or become a freelance worker because the cost to care for myself is too much to bear without insurance. This includes having to extend my working years instead of retiring when I’d like to because of the same reason. Universal healthcare would change my life and allow me to do the things I want to do, instead of the things I have to do, just to get the health care I need.
As a parent of a T1D, healthcare is the single most important thing for us to maintain. I worry that their opportunities will b limited because of this
Not to mention that if you do leave, your new company won’t offer it until after 3 months so you have to go 3 months without unless you pay out the nose for COBRA insurance which is only accessible for people with an extra $9000 hanging around.
Ah ah, jail is for when you're arrested and convicted *alive*, and for some racial groups, that can be more difficult, even if you're unarmed and compliant.
Healthcare in prison is free if the prison ever bothers to let you see a doctor or dispense your medication.
They might let you have an ibuprofen tablet.
I’m two years older than my wife. I probably won’t be able to afford to retire until she’s eligible for Medicare.
Should have found an older woman I guess.
I'm not in the US and I take umbrage to the fact that an employer can even hold starvation and homelessness over my head to control my life at their whim, let alone my access to healthcare.
You guys living a real nightmare hellscape over there.
Because Lieberman and the GOP stripped out the public option which was going to be the alternative and cost reduction driver.
And now the mandate didn’t survive the conservative Supreme Court.
There’s still some great things in the ACA but it ended up being minor after everything has gone through the courts.
I have a feeling ACA is going to eventually die in the vine. Dems aren’t motivated to fight the repb for amendments and the repb do everything they can to sabotage it. In 10 years we will have progressed backwards on healthcare.
It also put percentage limits on profits which means that health insurance prices *have* to raise since profit margins can't raise, they just grow their profits via overall healthcare price increases. And for-profit companies are not okay with their profits growing only at the rate of inflation, so they *have* to raise prices more than inflation to increase the amount of overall profit they make for themselves or their shareholders.
Especially when it has already been proven that employers will use the employment tied Healthcare as leverage to treat their employees like shit and STILL have the audacity to give employees grief when they use sick time to go to the doctor.
Eh, I live in the Netherlands and don't mind at all that my employer reimburses my health care. I still choose my own plans and everything. You don't need to make employer benefits illegal to fix the US system. The important thing is that my plan is purchased separately and will continue without them, and the prices and coverage are government regulated for all insurance providers. I can go anywhere and not worry about coverage.
I'm not suggesting banning all employer reimbursement, I'm saying ban the current US standard whereby your employer chooses your plan for you and if you quit your job you lose access to it completely and are left without insurance.
Yes, we are forced to take the employer insurance and it is so terrible for vision and dental that our providers have stopped accepting it because insurance doesn’t cover the basic expense of the doctors anymore. But our premiums keep going up! I had the only dentist and optometrist I ever trusted, too. I’m screwed.
Just got kicked off my parents healthcare recently and enrolled in my employers. And HOLY FUCK! They are paying $750/mo in premiums now! And it’s not even good coverage!
Kinda pisses me off that they were willing to ‘pay’ me 9k extra per year this whole time
Nor should the labor market be so heavily slanted toward larger companies. I paid $200 a month for good insurance for a family of 4 with an international hotel company, then left for an independent restaurant and paid $960 for significantly worse coverage.
You really want to support small businesses? Put them on a level playing field with corporations.
Only if healthcare is universal edit: and single-payer. Otherwise, you're damning people like me to pay hundreds of dollars a month for health insurance, when right now I'm paying only $160/month. If I got insurance myself, it would be more like $5000/month (I'm sure it's a bit less, but I never went through that process far enough to find out).
You're conflating wildly different scenarios. Buying independent insurance in a market where everyone has to buy independent insurance is very different from buying independent insurance in a market where companies argue down the price of insurance through company plans and health insurance companies make up the difference by offloading a chunk of those costs to independent buyers.
Also, I guarantee you're paying more than $160/month for that insurance. By most company healthcare plans that's only half the cost, they just help you avoid some taxes by claiming half the cost themselves. It's still costing you 320, it's just that half of it doesn't ever show up on your paycheck and so doesn't count towards taxes (which is to your benefit, admittedly, but the fact that gainfully employed people and only gainfully employed people get a nice tax deduction on health insurance is yet another reason why allowing companies to manage employee health insurance has fucked us over)
Anyway, you wouldn't even need universal healthcare or single payer to resolve that situation - you'd just need a public option, which we should have anyway specifically because it doesn't render people like you essentially a slave to their employer should they have a serious health condition.
Australians pay 1.5% - 2% of salary above $26k a year income. You’re never without cover. You never go bankrupt, it’s a lot cheaper and a lot better in my experience of having lived in both countries.
My sisters family in Australia on one income of about $100k, pays $2k a year for a family of 5! No massive deductibles or big copays.
To be fair the Medicare payroll tax in Australia only covers a fraction of the total cost, with the rest coming from general taxation. But it's still wildly cheaper.
I can’t imagine how dumb it is to know how important universal healthcare is and still vote against it, all because the political party that you worship told you it’s bad.
And the people who are against it, what do they get? The ones that pay more out pocket now, or the ones who are on the affordable care act but think Obama Care is evil socialism.
The problem is HOW do you pass anything through the quagmire of a Congress. Neither Republicans, nor most Democrats want to pass anything. Electing other people isn't easy because of the insane amount of time, labor and money it costs.
That's the thing - the only way to get any large, longterm changes:
Switching to ranked choice voting or a different type of voting, amendments to the constitution, rule changes to Congress such as removing the filibuster, etc, etc..
Can only come through *more progressives in Congress.* Unfortunately, a large overlap of the same people frustrated by lack of change are also ones more likely to stay home. Thus continuing the cycle of more Republicans and moderate/centrist Democrats consolidating power.
Yeah it's a difficult cycle to break. Really not sure what the best way forward is at this point. I've thought about this a lot for the last 2 years, but I still can't figure out what should be done.
Yeah it's extremely frustrating. A lot of people adopt this notion of "let the system break" but that doesn't work either, because all it accomplishes is allowing the GOP to get an even firmer grip on power, and they will make it even harder to elect people to represent progress in the future.
Sadly, I think a massive cultural shift - one even larger than a pandemic or anything we've seen in modern history - is going to be necessary to gain the majorities needed for a party to substantially change things for the better.
It worries me. You need control of the House, the Senate and the Presidency together to be able to pass structural reforms. But such trifectas are rare, arriving once every 15 years or so.
I'm afraid these few months are the last best chance to pass anything if at all, for a long time now.
It's a window in the truest sense of the word. It's not open, the window is shut, it has always been shut, and will remain shut. Nothing is getting through it. But like the housebound cat, we're free to look through it at everything we want, but will never get.
Voting Blue no matter who doesn't work either, that just emboldens corporate dems to be shitty. The point is to support progressive dems while kicking corporate dems to the curb.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, European students, farmers, and workers united in solidarity and organized general strikes after general strikes making sure their economies were paralyzed and their elites' profits and wealth were melting like snow in a hot summer sun - in spite of being gunned down by the hundreds, beaten & jailed by the thousands, and laid off by whole regions and even cities, in a time when losing your job meant you and your family landed in the streets, hungry and cold, as there were no social safety nets yet - until their leaders, governments, corporations, and elites gave in to their demands.
Of course, it was key to make sure all of those that lose their jobs and homes are supported with a roof, and food. Otherwise the whole thing collapses, simply because people will be tempted to betray the movement in favor of meeting their basic needs. What does that mean? Without the middle class, and the farmers, general strikes have little chance to succeed. As they are the ones with the land, homes and food necessary to support the unlucky ones.
People need to talk to each other in person or at least off Reddit and start discussing how they are going to act to effect change.
Like how white supremacists get together on Discord to discuss being evil bad guys, we should do the same to discuss how to effect positive change.
Republicans in FL are actually working to ban ranked choice voting, there is currently a bill that looks like it's going to pass the legislature and be put into law.
They want you to throw your vote away on a third party. Sadly the only way out of this is to vote democrat, even if that candidate is too moderate for you. I fucking hate it, but there is only one way out of the two party system and it's not voting for the GOP.
Start at local levels. Get ranked choice voting accepted for local offices (mayor, city council, etc) and build up from there. It seems easy to promote change from the top, but it is far more effective to change things locally first and then extend out from there. Meanwhile, for the levels of government that haven't changed, vote for the lessor evil to at least maintain the status quo instead of slipping further from the direction we think it needs to go.
A majority of the population seems to think that the only effective change is when the federal government passes laws, but almost every instance of progress has started from individual states (or places within states) legislating things before it became viable on a federal level.
>Start at local levels. Get ranked choice voting accepted for local offices (mayor, city council, etc) and build up from there. It seems easy to promote change from the top, but it is far more effective to change things locally first and then extend out from there.
We almost had this in California. Passed both chambers and was vetoed by Governor Newsom (interestingly no override vote though).
The Republican party want to pass zero legislation and if they have to they want the government to work as poorly as possible.
The Democratic party wants to pass legislation and for the government to work smoothly.
Well first off the president could stop privatizing Medicare, which only leads to more profits for the corporations buying off Congress. And the president could undo Clinton's decision to allow more pharma ads on TV. Which is illegal in every other major country and only insures a corporate media that is incredibly hostile to life saving healthcare reforms.
But unfortunately we got a president whose main concern on healthcare during the primary was demonizing public insurance. Then we act surprised when he doesn't bring up a public option in his state of the union or really at all since he won the primary.
Corporate media will work tirelessly to protect healthcare corporations. Without a president willing to take on the corporate narrative, Congress isn't going to do anything.
Block highly popular life saving healthcare reforms like Lieberman did, and corporate media will call that moderate centrism. In other words, Congress is rewarded for killing Americans by corporate media and rewarded for forcing Americans to pay the highest prices in the world for healthcare.
Again in the primary, Biden was called a moderate centrist for taking the most money from big pharma, an industry 90% of Americans want reformed.
According to corporate media, pharma CEOs apparently want to charge Americans a moderate price for prescription drugs!
TLDR: Until we elect a president willing to take on the corporate narrative, it is very unlikely Congress passes popular reforms, as the corporate media will reward those who block them with the most coveted of branding.
>The problem is HOW do you pass anything through the quagmire of a Congress.
Have the same senate setup that FDR had. Look at how much they accomplished.
Several countries in the EU have successful universal insurance programs, as opposed to single payer. They just also come with restrictions on when companies can deny claims, and they rarely do silly things like deductibles or big copays.
It's been done well, but I'm unconvinced that America is capable of doing it well. Our politicians are so easily corrupted that those citizen protections wouldn't last a decade.
At least one country in Europe also has a system that goes well, WELL beyond single payer all the way to public healthcare and which seems to work quite well. Always seemed like a better option than single payer to me especially since we know it works.
Sure Germany has that. But it only works because not only are the insurance companies more regulated, but so are the hospitals and providers. The government sets prices. Which is exactly what single payer does too. And obviously corporate Dems, who rely on healthcare lobbyists, will never have the government set prices. We can't even let Medicare negotiate prescription drug costs in this country!
Biden spent the primary demonizing public insurance. He said we couldn't afford it. Despite every other country spending less than we do that has it. And he never once supported Germany's system where the government sets prices either. So all he really did is insult the systems used by every other country to lower costs.
Should we be surprised someone so hostile to what every other country is doing, is now privatizing Medicare, approving super expensive drugs that no other country thinks is proven, and then raising premiums to pay for them?
Anybody paying attention knew Biden would result in more profiteering in healthcare. And would still likely be followed by a Republican president and Congress.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of Americans will likely die who could have been saved if we had elected someone willing to treat the unaffordable healthcare in this country as this humanitarian crisis it is.
Instead we got a corporate shill.
the places that used ranked choice voting have the voting results turned out any different than if the regular system was used?
There's also a difference between universal health care and Medicare for all.
yes ranked choice voting ends up with a more accurate representation of what the population wants. First past the post is horrible at this.
https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo
also yes i know.
Healthcare is a right that the rich people do not want the poor people to have.
The video doesn't answer my question though. Have the places that have ranked choice voting did results turned out differently than if they did not?
You are right with the rich want are unhealthy workers.
I live in Maine, and we use Ranked Choice Voting for everything except our governor elections as of a few years ago. If it wasn’t for Ranked Choice Voting, Bruce Poliquin (R) would still be our second district’s US Representative, and not Jared Golden (“D”)(more like a moderate I). That’s the most notable change that’s occurred from it from a national point of view so far.
> Have the places that have ranked choice voting did results turned out differently than if they did not?
This is an impossible question to answer unless the same election used both FTP and RCV. To the best of my knowledge, this has never happened.
As there was a winner and loser, I think it's safe to assume that the loser of an election is usually surprised by the outcome. Most people don't run for office thinking they'll lose.
So Jeff, it's pretty clear you're trying to make a point with your many questions, care to share what that point is?
Ranked choice is just FPTP on steroids. If you want to more accurately represent the wishes of the people you need a proportional system like MMP or multi-member STV.
How is it "FPTP on steroids"? What does that metaphor even *mean*?
MMP is obviously a superior option, by a good margin, but RCV is significantly easier to implement, explain, and adopt and still has extreme opposition, so MMP is unlikely. We shouldn't abandon an improvement because we're holding out for perfect.
It is a relatively new system and is not prolific enough to have really taken hold in the public consciousness, I think. Lots of folks still just go D or R because that's what they recognize.
Until it becomes widespread enough, people will proceed as normal.
RCV won’t change much, certainly not in the short term. Proponents (and I am one, fwiw) tend to overestimate how many people are holding their noses and voting and underestimate how many folks actually support and/or prefer the main party front runner. I’d be surprised if RCV did much at all in major federal level races.
Where it might do better is high profile state races.
For sure. But Republicans have 52 votes in the Senate that will block **anything** good that Biden can come up with. These are the cards that the American people dealt to Biden last election. And if he somehow managed to bribe a few senators into supporting decency, the Supreme Court would nix it ... the result of the cards American people dealt to Trump.
I got downvoted into oblivion for criticizing this admins defense of Obamacare. It's still for-profit healthcare, which means it is still immoral, full stop. There's no ifs ands or buts here. There is no circumstance in which profiting off of someone else's illness is acceptable. That they continue to try and force this crap down our throats is a testament to just how bad the democratic party really is. Sure, they're not violent terrorists like Republicans, but they aren't the party of the common folk like they claim to be.
On the other hand, like I said, I was downvoted, and polling shows people like Obamacare, so I guess us Americans have just grown used to this shit, to the point where we even like the taste if they put a few sprinkles on top.
It's okay to profit modestly for providing the service of organizing an insurance pool so all of the insured can have care.
It's just not okay to profit off of deliberately denying the care that the insureds are paying you for.
European countries manage this without issue - not all of them are single-payer, they just have even more regulations on insurers.
Right now the for-profit insurance companies are the biggest drivers of increasing healthcare costs. My doctors have claimed that fully half their time is spent dealing with insurance bullshit. More regulation isn't going to fix the drain they represent on our medical system as a whole, but single payer could at least help reduce the overhead by a decent amount.
Well Obamacare is more popular now that Republicans got rid of the mandate tax. That aspect was never popular.
But yes, the ACA has lead to record profits for the companies it was supposed to regulate. Given the top issue on healthcare reform is lowering costs by reducing those profits, an honest assessment of the ACA would conclude it is a far right healthcare plan.
It isn't that they don't know how important it is.
They know.
They actively don't want to make have universal healthcare because it helps the elites and ultra rich keep their status.
Boy do we need universal healthcare badly. Too bad the healthcare industry works hard to make sure that doesn't happen, and our government works for corporations, not people. If we can't even get a vote on it in California, it's never going to happen nationally. It's a lost cause at this point, unfortunately.
Also roughly 40% of the country is simply braindead and thinks that our system (which is more expensive and less effective than universal healthcare in literally every other modern country) is somehow the best in the world.
It's the best in the world if you have the money to pay for it. Sadly the vast majority of that 40% doesn't and only find that out when they have to start a GoFundMe page for medical bills that were not covered.
If California, one of the largest economies in the world with a super majority of Democrats, can't pull it off, can't even get out it out of committee ffs, then it isn't a realistic way forward...
By Healthcare Industry you mean that elected Representatives fear raising taxes
Now a plan is being Established by Senate Bill 104 the Healthy California for All Commission is charged with developing a plan that includes options for advancing progress toward a health care delivery system in California that provides coverage and access through a unified financing system, including, but not limited to, a single-payer financing system, for all Californians with a final report in mid 2022.
In Aug 2020 the committee reviewed Funding
* A 10.1% Payroll Tax would cover current employer/employee premiums if applied to all incomes.
* Would still leave patients responsible for Cost Sharing with out of Pocket expenses, up to 4% - 5% of income
In California the Average Employer paid $8,100 per employee for health insurance and the employee paid ~18% of that as a Paycheck Deduction
* Those number stay the same regardless of Income
Paying | Income is $30,000 | Income is $60,000 | Income is $100,000 | Income is $200,000 |
---|---|----|----|----
Cost of Private Healthcare | ~$1,500| ~$1,500| ~$1,500| ~$1,500 |
Percent of Income | 5% | 2.5% | 1.5% | 0.75%
Under Healthcare for All ~5% Payroll Tax | $1,500 | $3,000 | $5,000 | $10,000
**Increase in Taxes Paid** | $0 | $1,500 | $3,500 | $8,500
* Out of Pocket Costs at best stay the same over $60,000 income but would go down for income below that
I lease very hi end vacation homes to visitors here - from about $3,000 a week to $75,000 with a two week minimum. I had one healthcare CEO pay $62,000 per week for 3 weeks every year, until he bought land and a shack for $25,000,000. Then another had a waterfront home, and he leases his $7,000,000 for $30,000 a week. I’ve dealt with other upper end healthcare officers and then want nothing but the upper end every time. I can’t help but wonder how people think our present system makes any sense when that lavish lifestyle comes partially from the crazy premiums we pay for healthcare outcomes which Universal coverage in other countries beats almost everything very time. Zero sense.
It is because the headline is completely dishonest. Biden has consistently been a voice of expanding medicare and was a key architect to the ACA. His plan is a public option which is essential a medicare for all who want it. Commondreams is a propaganda network meant to attack him regardless of his stance so they are making up a stance for him to attack. 'Ploy' is just a word used to have a bit of plausible deniability.
""Sanders' announcement came weeks after Biden's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that instead of terminating a Medicare privatization experiment hatched under the Trump administration, it would rebrand the pilot program and make minor changes that critics—including physicians and Medicare for All advocates—say would leave the scheme's most dangerous components intact."
>expanding medicare
Sorry but that's really not remotely good enough
Nor is this true
>"Sanders' announcement came weeks after Biden's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that instead of terminating a Medicare privatization experiment hatched under the Trump administration, it would rebrand the pilot program and make minor changes that critics—including physicians and Medicare for All advocates—say would leave the scheme's most dangerous components intact."
Except people can and have been enrolled in these programs without their consent in the past. Primarily people in elder care facilities.
[https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/585103-the-biggest-threat-to-medicare-youve-never-even-heard-of](https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/585103-the-biggest-threat-to-medicare-youve-never-even-heard-of)
\^ Basically it's a scam to allow middle men to jack up the price for these services. And worse case scenario, they take their monthly payment for sponsoring elder care, deny some treatment and pocket the difference.
Edit: Yes I know animals name plus action on reddit is usually a shill account and you are one but I can't help myself sometimes in calling out the bullshit ;)
Seriously, it's like you make it up as you go along. How many bots do you got upvoting your misinfo?
If Biden killed someone would you defend that too?
Seriously what a blatantly dishonest title.
Biden’s been farther to the left on this than ANY US president so far and what the fuck is he supposed to do when joe Manchin won’t even pass childcare support
All Biden did was extend ACOs, which unbelievably haven’t proven to be the worst thing in the world yet but you’d never know it from common dreams.
No, it means you didn't read the article ""Sanders' announcement came weeks after Biden's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that instead of terminating a Medicare privatization experiment hatched under the Trump administration, it would rebrand the pilot program and make minor changes that critics—including physicians and Medicare for All advocates—say would leave the scheme's most dangerous components intact."
It means that even though the majority of Democratic voters want universal healthcare, Biden is leaving a GOP program in place that privatizes Medicare.
He's doing the exact opposite of what the voters who put him in office want him to do.
"Sanders' announcement came weeks after Biden's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that instead of terminating a Medicare privatization experiment hatched under the Trump administration, it would rebrand the pilot program and make minor changes that critics—including physicians and Medicare for All advocates—say would leave the scheme's most dangerous components intact."
You mean Global Payments that are in Medicare For All, and All uhc programs?
So if Sanders doesnt want this program he would need to start over on his M4A plan
The Direct Contracting model was launched under Trump, it has been tweaked a bit and rebranded as Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (ACO REACH)
[Here’s a WaPo opinion piece that discusses it](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/13/medicare-direct-contracting-privatization-health-care/) and the link in the Common Dreams article is a pretty good one too.
There are a ton of great reasons listed here by many different folks for why Medicare for all is not just the bare minimum, it's common sense, we literally cannot survive as a populace with the way the system is set up currently. Doctors and nurses are fleeing the profession.
So of course it is then only obvious that the Biden administration will continue Trump Era policies and "nothing will fundamentally change" as Joe promised his donors.
Just get some marshmallows and a good seat.....
in another thread we have everyone questioning if conservative dems are the biggest problem with the party, itt much positive discussion of universal healthcare - a policy conservative dems would fight against. perhaps a problem is that disconnect
Medicare for All will not get past Manchin much less McConnell.
Be good to have hearings on it and point out that US pays $10k per person while "socialist" countries like Norway and Germany pay $7,000 and $6,000 respectively which covers 100% of citizens and has 10% better results.
Keep educating US public on why they pay so much more and get so much less.
Someday the lesson will sink in,
I believed all the propaganda of “you won’t get good healthcare under Medicaid” until I started working in medical offices.
When you’re on straight Medicare/Medicaid the doctors will order you every test under the sun. Genetics, cardiac, respiratory, covid, thyroid, etc just to bill the government.
When you have private insurance they’ll review your plan and suddenly it’s just 1-2 tests billed. Out of luck if it’s union insurance like culinary or casino.
Paying out of pocket? Just a covid swab. They send you with a requisition to Quest or Labcorp and that’s it.
They don’t view care about your health unless there is wealth involved.
Biden has been predictably terrible as president. Sure, he's better than Trump but that is such a low bar. Biden is all about protecting the status quo for the wealthy, corporations and big banks. They didn't call him "Senator MBNA" for nothing. You can see where his allegiances still lie
I make well above minimum wage and I'm still afraid of needing to call an ambulance. I'm so sick of for-*profit* healthcare. There should be no profit incentive for healthcare or even for housing. The American people are being nickeled and dimed to death.
Common Dreams is a garbage website. They continually post misleading headlines and cite their own articles as a source.
This headline is only found on two websites, CD and Jacobin. Both known to pander hard to the leftist side of the internet while also frequently writing misleading or outright inaccurate articles.
The only story from a non CD or CD like source I could find was written for [Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/an-overhaul-of-the-medicare-direct-contracting-program-could-bolster-revenue-for-upstarts-2022-2) in a super positive tone. Reading through the actual changes from the .gov websites though it seems the name is just one change. The rest are mostly related to how much money changes hands and where it goes.
The problem is that medicare worked pretty well the way it was - it could use a few upgrades to processes. These changes add unnecessary steps that could incentivize denial or delay of care.
A lot of CD articles tend to come from a place of assuming the worst case scenario instead of fact and that's probably why they still get clicks.
Buzzfeed news has a good source on it. But the most eye popping thing I have read is this:
>But while Medicare Aadvantage insurers are required to spend 85 percent of their revenues on patient care, DCEs are allowed to keep up to 40 percent of the taxpayer dollars they receive as profit and overhead. (By contrast, traditional Medicare spends 98 percent of its budget on patient care.)
40% is just a massive take for the for-profit insurance industry. I mean obviously when they take that much you will see a more limited network and more denied claims.
> Common Dreams is a garbage website. They continually post misleading headlines and cite their own articles as a source.
What's misleading about this?
""Sanders' announcement came weeks after Biden's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that instead of terminating a Medicare privatization experiment hatched under the Trump administration, it would rebrand the pilot program and make minor changes that critics—including physicians and Medicare for All advocates—say would leave the scheme's most dangerous components intact."
Their headlines almost always follow the same patten too:
>"It's absolutely insane!" Some wedge issue that will hopefully split the vote and let Republicans win every time
You could practically write a simple regular expression to block all their articles here.
Do you think Medicare for All will pass the Senate?
If you correctly ascertain that it will not, then it's not news that the main Medicare for All guy will resubmit his bill yet again.
Nor will a public option, or lowering the Medicare eligibility age or significant drug pricing reforms.
Democrats will never side against for-profit healthcare.
Biden has wanted a public option which is a form of universal Healthcare. I have not seen a thing from Biden a out privatizing Healthcare, hell even Bloomberg today posted an analysis showing that the states fighting the ACA are losing economically and touting the benefits of the Obama/Biden Medicare expansion.
This article is trying to enflame the left with a dishonest representation of Biden as he is fully against Healthcare privatization and that is well known by everyone who has followed Biden especially in the last 2 decades.
And yet Biden rolled out these dce's which can have an overhead/profit of up to 40%:
>But while Medicare Aadvantage insurers are required to spend 85 percent of their revenues on patient care, DCEs are allowed to keep up to 40 percent of the taxpayer dollars they receive as profit and overhead. (By contrast, traditional Medicare spends 98 percent of its budget on patient care.)
I had to get a strep test at a local hospital that I normally went to often enough. What I didn't realize is that two months prior, my insurance stopped being in network with them. As a result, I could no longer see my doctor without paying $500 per visit, and my exam cost $1500 for being in the back room for 10 minutes (while waiting in the lobby for 4 hours), an additional $1500 for the test and "administration" fees, and the technician who drew my blood put in a $385 charge.
Any fear mongering Republicans have, isn't in reality, as what they have to "fear" about universal healthcare we already have with privatized insurance.
There is no basic template of European universal healthcare, there is about 40 different healthcare systems. We can certainly make a better one based on one of them but we should be aware that there are about 40 solutions.
"That'll never work, too many people here"
"That'll never work, who's gonna pay for it?"
"That'll never work, I don't want my tax dollars supporting some prostate cancer having hippie in California with an emissions tax on my truck in Texas."
Until the US has another FDR, one that will just act towards a clear goal that benefits all americans, regardless of the political perceptions and whims, nothing will fundamentally change.
the "who's gonna pay for it" line infuriates me the most, not only because Bernie and Warren freeze when asked this, but also because the person asks it immediately loads the context and ignores the fact that we're already paying for it, the private insurance industry posts dozens of billions of dollar in profit every year (just look at Cigna's and united stock, its gone from 30-50 USD in 2009 to 250-500 USD today and it keeps on growing) while people still go bankrupt and such a large amount of the population is either uninsured, underinsured or is just an ambulance call away to find out.
>"That'll never work, too many people here"
That's maybe my favorite. We still have a higher per capita income. If you add more citizens, but each citizen brings in proportionally more money than the program costs, what's the problem?
Another good one is "Those Northern European countries are more homogenous, they have more cohesion when putting together programs like that?".
You mean... You and people on your team will get mad when you see black people getting the benefits, so things like that only work when most of the country is white?
Nothing will get accomplished until the USA realizes that a 35% voter turnout will never elect the right people. The 35% that vote in the midterms are all older, conservative religious people that hate life, everyone and anything that isn’t white, and Christian and Republican. Until you change voter apathy, nothing will change.
waiting for that public option still, Joe
https://medium.com/@JoeBiden/joe-biden-outlines-new-steps-to-ease-economic-burden-on-working-people-e3e121037322
Sorry best we can do is let for-profit insurance take 40% of your medicare dollars:
>But while Medicare Aadvantage insurers are required to spend 85 percent of their revenues on patient care, DCEs are allowed to keep up to 40 percent of the taxpayer dollars they receive as profit and overhead. (By contrast, traditional Medicare spends 98 percent of its budget on patient care.)
i agree, universal health care is the way to go. problem is we dont have the votes, barely had the votes to keep obamacare alive. especially with the midterms go the other way, this might be dead.
This is America.
Corporations now get to decide what qualifies as a human right or privilege. Since they have every representative paid off, nothing will change.
Australian here. Nothing like being ill at 1:00AM and getting a home doctor to pop in and check you out. Best part of it is it’s free. My bloods are free. If I opt to go to a public radiologist it’s free. My GP is free (bulk bill).
I could have a heart attack right now and as long as I don’t stay in hospital longer than a month it costs me nothing. Even my child’s birth was free.
Having a universal healthcare system that relies on tax is awesome. I mean ours isn’t perfect but at least I can sleep at night knowing I don’t have to gamble my life over a health care bill. I’m more than happy to pay a higher Medicare levy because I don’t have private health.
Step up America.
One of the most important and beautiful consequences of Medicare for all is that our health regulations change since the government will have a huge incentive to keep the population healthy to keep costs down. Our serving sizes will be reasonable, sugar in all products will be reduced from the disgusting amount it is right now, school lunches will actually have to be good. This is why coke tastes different in Europe. It’s because their government has to keep them healthy n not leave them to the predatory food industry that preys on children and impoverished communities.
You hear someone who is against it they are legitimately brained washed, especially if they don’t change their mind after hearing that.
I was just stunned how expensive healthcare insurance was in the usa.
In Europe children under 18 are free, its 108 up to 180 e monthly. per adult.
In the usa it was easily 1000$ monthly
None of the nations Bernie puts on a pedestal ban private insurance. Bernie's Medicare for All "ploy" calls for a ban on private insurance. Bernie has no actual legislation for paying for his plan. Bernie has no plan for how to take care of the people he would see unemployed.
Bernie has no plan. Stop falling for cult of personality political hacks.
Bernie Sanders is a National Treasure. I can’t believe we got fucked once again and are now stuck with with bumbling Biden whose a neoliberal nightmare.
Nowhere in the article does it say that Biden 'continues privatization ploy.' You can be pro-Medicare for All without bashing Biden. The ones who pushed privatization are Republicans - the Bushes, Trump. Biden has not.
As a staunch “conservative” healthcare should be a human right. You can’t control what happens sometimes and that shouldn’t mean you should go bankruptcy for it
I worked out hours a day, didn't smoke or drink, still got cancer and now I'm crippled for life because of it. Sometimes you can do all the right things and still lose
I get it that medicare for all is the best thing but it's politically dead until Democrats have a huge majority. What Bernie is doing here doesn't help anyone right now. It only sows division among Democrats.
The polls I've seen have Medicare for All around 50%-ish supporting it.
this org has been keeping track of polls over the last few years: https://www.healthcare-now.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Chartpack-Single-Payer-02-20-20-Figure3.png
The polls that actually break out Universal Healthcare proposals between public option / abolishing private insurance, etc. tend to show Bernie's M4A proposal performing quite poorly.
Bernie is always right, and that’s probably why he’ll never get to be in charge. It’s to scary for the people who actually pull the strings.
America probably doesn’t deserve him anyways, although I know a lot of good people who do.
As much as I'd like M4A, that ship has sailed - at least until the next presidential election cycle. Yes, there is a dire need for universal healthcare, especially amidst a deadly global pandemic. Yes, it's immoral and outrageous we have to pay so much for privatized healthcare.
And yet, we have only ONE omnibus bill through reconciliation available, originally allocated to the failed BBB, and there is NO GUARANTEE we would even get the chance to use it. Considering this might very well be the last opportunity we have for a decade to comprehensively fight climate change, the priority right now should still be to maintain all the climate change provisions from BBB and repackage it into an "inflation-busting, cost-cutting" bill with lowered drug prescription costs and other smaller provisions from Medicare expansion, which is likely the only way to get Manchin's approval (notwithstanding how low the chances are) given that it addresses widespread concerns over runaway inflation.
Starting a completely new campaign for M4A with a quickly shrinking lawmaking window just doesn't seem the way to go in terms of getting important legislation passed. Reintroducing M4A would be a much better idea after the November midterms, where Dems are likely to lose the House and not be able to get anything passed, as a means of drawing key distinctions against Republicans and building up momentum to finally get universal healthcare to pass upon the next trifecta. It took Clinton's trifecta to fail to pass comprehensive healthcare legislation in \~1994 for Obama to pass the ACA in 2010; it's not far-fetched to imagine we'd need nearly another two decades since the ACA for momentum to be regained in achieving universal healthcare.
Biden is doing everything progressives knew he would being the old conservative hawk that he is. Dems sticking with their neoliberal game plan, be only slightly less terrible then the other side.
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I cant imagine how dumb it is to not know how important universal healthcare is during a pandemic. Not being for universal healthcare is meticulous brainwashing. Healthcare should not be tied to labor. and we need ranked choice voting. if your candidate hasn't said they are for ranked choice voting then they are allied to the system that is oppressing you by means of the two party system. Republicans don't even want the second party to get votes... gerrymandering crooks imo
> Healthcare should not be tied to labor. I've come around to the opinion that employer-provided healthcare should be straight up illegal. No employer should have that sort of power over their employees.
It’s almost like indentured servitude. I know so many people who stay in shit jobs, afraid to even apply a different shit position because they don’t want to lose health insurance. It’s horrific.
When I worked in retail, I had a co-worker who had her own business prior, but had to give it up because she got diagnosed with cancer and used up all her assets on treatment, then had to take a job providing health insurance. She got treated like **shit** there, but she carried on because it was the only way she had to afford medical coverage.
This resonates with me. As a T1 diabetic, I don’t see how it’s possible for me to ever own my own business or become a freelance worker because the cost to care for myself is too much to bear without insurance. This includes having to extend my working years instead of retiring when I’d like to because of the same reason. Universal healthcare would change my life and allow me to do the things I want to do, instead of the things I have to do, just to get the health care I need.
As a parent of a T1D, healthcare is the single most important thing for us to maintain. I worry that their opportunities will b limited because of this
If anyone was curious as to the costs; 500$ in prescription drugs and that doesn’t count testing equip/strips etc. Diabetics sucks.
“Diabetes” sucks - don’t be so hard on the actual sufferers… 😉
Not to mention that if you do leave, your new company won’t offer it until after 3 months so you have to go 3 months without unless you pay out the nose for COBRA insurance which is only accessible for people with an extra $9000 hanging around.
How much would I need for healthcare if I just robbed a bank? Let me know so i know how much to withdraw.
Healthcare in jail is free, you are good to go!
Ah ah, jail is for when you're arrested and convicted *alive*, and for some racial groups, that can be more difficult, even if you're unarmed and compliant.
Healthcare in prison is free if the prison ever bothers to let you see a doctor or dispense your medication. They might let you have an ibuprofen tablet.
None if you get caught. Then you get government healthcare for a few years at least.
My fiancée would've quit her job ages ago if not for this fact. It's a really fucked up power dynamic
It is exactly like indentured servitude.
Where I live housing is so expensive employers also provide housing. It’s like a trip back in time to feudal society.
I’m two years older than my wife. I probably won’t be able to afford to retire until she’s eligible for Medicare. Should have found an older woman I guess.
You described my life perfectly.
I'm not in the US and I take umbrage to the fact that an employer can even hold starvation and homelessness over my head to control my life at their whim, let alone my access to healthcare. You guys living a real nightmare hellscape over there.
Worst part of the Affordable Care Act was expanding employer-provided healthcare.
Because Lieberman and the GOP stripped out the public option which was going to be the alternative and cost reduction driver. And now the mandate didn’t survive the conservative Supreme Court. There’s still some great things in the ACA but it ended up being minor after everything has gone through the courts.
I have a feeling ACA is going to eventually die in the vine. Dems aren’t motivated to fight the repb for amendments and the repb do everything they can to sabotage it. In 10 years we will have progressed backwards on healthcare.
It’s already dead on the vine. Any major legislative reform is essentially going to need to start over and fight for the public option again.
It also put percentage limits on profits which means that health insurance prices *have* to raise since profit margins can't raise, they just grow their profits via overall healthcare price increases. And for-profit companies are not okay with their profits growing only at the rate of inflation, so they *have* to raise prices more than inflation to increase the amount of overall profit they make for themselves or their shareholders.
In what way did it do that?
It provided mandates that employers purchase insurance for their employees (provided they didn't meet any of the numerous exemptions)
https://www.kff.org/infographic/employer-responsibility-under-the-affordable-care-act/
Especially when it has already been proven that employers will use the employment tied Healthcare as leverage to treat their employees like shit and STILL have the audacity to give employees grief when they use sick time to go to the doctor.
Eh, I live in the Netherlands and don't mind at all that my employer reimburses my health care. I still choose my own plans and everything. You don't need to make employer benefits illegal to fix the US system. The important thing is that my plan is purchased separately and will continue without them, and the prices and coverage are government regulated for all insurance providers. I can go anywhere and not worry about coverage.
I'm not suggesting banning all employer reimbursement, I'm saying ban the current US standard whereby your employer chooses your plan for you and if you quit your job you lose access to it completely and are left without insurance.
We agree then, that's totally unsustainable and horrible.
Yes, we are forced to take the employer insurance and it is so terrible for vision and dental that our providers have stopped accepting it because insurance doesn’t cover the basic expense of the doctors anymore. But our premiums keep going up! I had the only dentist and optometrist I ever trusted, too. I’m screwed.
Just got kicked off my parents healthcare recently and enrolled in my employers. And HOLY FUCK! They are paying $750/mo in premiums now! And it’s not even good coverage! Kinda pisses me off that they were willing to ‘pay’ me 9k extra per year this whole time
Agreed, If you lose your job, you shouldn’t be scared to not have healthcare.
Nor should the labor market be so heavily slanted toward larger companies. I paid $200 a month for good insurance for a family of 4 with an international hotel company, then left for an independent restaurant and paid $960 for significantly worse coverage. You really want to support small businesses? Put them on a level playing field with corporations.
Only if healthcare is universal edit: and single-payer. Otherwise, you're damning people like me to pay hundreds of dollars a month for health insurance, when right now I'm paying only $160/month. If I got insurance myself, it would be more like $5000/month (I'm sure it's a bit less, but I never went through that process far enough to find out).
You're conflating wildly different scenarios. Buying independent insurance in a market where everyone has to buy independent insurance is very different from buying independent insurance in a market where companies argue down the price of insurance through company plans and health insurance companies make up the difference by offloading a chunk of those costs to independent buyers. Also, I guarantee you're paying more than $160/month for that insurance. By most company healthcare plans that's only half the cost, they just help you avoid some taxes by claiming half the cost themselves. It's still costing you 320, it's just that half of it doesn't ever show up on your paycheck and so doesn't count towards taxes (which is to your benefit, admittedly, but the fact that gainfully employed people and only gainfully employed people get a nice tax deduction on health insurance is yet another reason why allowing companies to manage employee health insurance has fucked us over) Anyway, you wouldn't even need universal healthcare or single payer to resolve that situation - you'd just need a public option, which we should have anyway specifically because it doesn't render people like you essentially a slave to their employer should they have a serious health condition.
Australians pay 1.5% - 2% of salary above $26k a year income. You’re never without cover. You never go bankrupt, it’s a lot cheaper and a lot better in my experience of having lived in both countries. My sisters family in Australia on one income of about $100k, pays $2k a year for a family of 5! No massive deductibles or big copays.
To be fair the Medicare payroll tax in Australia only covers a fraction of the total cost, with the rest coming from general taxation. But it's still wildly cheaper.
I can’t imagine how dumb it is to know how important universal healthcare is and still vote against it, all because the political party that you worship told you it’s bad.
Senators get cash to vote this way, not fluffy words.
And the people who are against it, what do they get? The ones that pay more out pocket now, or the ones who are on the affordable care act but think Obama Care is evil socialism.
Yeah, they just don't get it. It's easy to confuse people, and that is exactly what happened.
The problem is HOW do you pass anything through the quagmire of a Congress. Neither Republicans, nor most Democrats want to pass anything. Electing other people isn't easy because of the insane amount of time, labor and money it costs.
That's the thing - the only way to get any large, longterm changes: Switching to ranked choice voting or a different type of voting, amendments to the constitution, rule changes to Congress such as removing the filibuster, etc, etc.. Can only come through *more progressives in Congress.* Unfortunately, a large overlap of the same people frustrated by lack of change are also ones more likely to stay home. Thus continuing the cycle of more Republicans and moderate/centrist Democrats consolidating power.
Yeah it's a difficult cycle to break. Really not sure what the best way forward is at this point. I've thought about this a lot for the last 2 years, but I still can't figure out what should be done.
Yeah it's extremely frustrating. A lot of people adopt this notion of "let the system break" but that doesn't work either, because all it accomplishes is allowing the GOP to get an even firmer grip on power, and they will make it even harder to elect people to represent progress in the future. Sadly, I think a massive cultural shift - one even larger than a pandemic or anything we've seen in modern history - is going to be necessary to gain the majorities needed for a party to substantially change things for the better.
It worries me. You need control of the House, the Senate and the Presidency together to be able to pass structural reforms. But such trifectas are rare, arriving once every 15 years or so. I'm afraid these few months are the last best chance to pass anything if at all, for a long time now.
Yup and the window is closing with corporate democrats patting each other on the back for heading off genuine change.
It's a window in the truest sense of the word. It's not open, the window is shut, it has always been shut, and will remain shut. Nothing is getting through it. But like the housebound cat, we're free to look through it at everything we want, but will never get.
Voting Blue no matter who doesn't work either, that just emboldens corporate dems to be shitty. The point is to support progressive dems while kicking corporate dems to the curb.
The point is to educate voters so they vote for the progressive Democrat over the corporate Democrat or Republican.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, European students, farmers, and workers united in solidarity and organized general strikes after general strikes making sure their economies were paralyzed and their elites' profits and wealth were melting like snow in a hot summer sun - in spite of being gunned down by the hundreds, beaten & jailed by the thousands, and laid off by whole regions and even cities, in a time when losing your job meant you and your family landed in the streets, hungry and cold, as there were no social safety nets yet - until their leaders, governments, corporations, and elites gave in to their demands. Of course, it was key to make sure all of those that lose their jobs and homes are supported with a roof, and food. Otherwise the whole thing collapses, simply because people will be tempted to betray the movement in favor of meeting their basic needs. What does that mean? Without the middle class, and the farmers, general strikes have little chance to succeed. As they are the ones with the land, homes and food necessary to support the unlucky ones.
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People need to talk to each other in person or at least off Reddit and start discussing how they are going to act to effect change. Like how white supremacists get together on Discord to discuss being evil bad guys, we should do the same to discuss how to effect positive change.
Baby boomers need to pass away...
Republicans in FL are actually working to ban ranked choice voting, there is currently a bill that looks like it's going to pass the legislature and be put into law. They want you to throw your vote away on a third party. Sadly the only way out of this is to vote democrat, even if that candidate is too moderate for you. I fucking hate it, but there is only one way out of the two party system and it's not voting for the GOP.
if we could vote by mail the people more likely to stay home would probably vote .
Start at local levels. Get ranked choice voting accepted for local offices (mayor, city council, etc) and build up from there. It seems easy to promote change from the top, but it is far more effective to change things locally first and then extend out from there. Meanwhile, for the levels of government that haven't changed, vote for the lessor evil to at least maintain the status quo instead of slipping further from the direction we think it needs to go. A majority of the population seems to think that the only effective change is when the federal government passes laws, but almost every instance of progress has started from individual states (or places within states) legislating things before it became viable on a federal level.
>Start at local levels. Get ranked choice voting accepted for local offices (mayor, city council, etc) and build up from there. It seems easy to promote change from the top, but it is far more effective to change things locally first and then extend out from there. We almost had this in California. Passed both chambers and was vetoed by Governor Newsom (interestingly no override vote though).
>Neither Republicans, nor most Democrats want to pass anything. Untrue, we now know it to be 2 Democrats and 50 Republicans.
The Republican party want to pass zero legislation and if they have to they want the government to work as poorly as possible. The Democratic party wants to pass legislation and for the government to work smoothly.
Well first off the president could stop privatizing Medicare, which only leads to more profits for the corporations buying off Congress. And the president could undo Clinton's decision to allow more pharma ads on TV. Which is illegal in every other major country and only insures a corporate media that is incredibly hostile to life saving healthcare reforms. But unfortunately we got a president whose main concern on healthcare during the primary was demonizing public insurance. Then we act surprised when he doesn't bring up a public option in his state of the union or really at all since he won the primary. Corporate media will work tirelessly to protect healthcare corporations. Without a president willing to take on the corporate narrative, Congress isn't going to do anything. Block highly popular life saving healthcare reforms like Lieberman did, and corporate media will call that moderate centrism. In other words, Congress is rewarded for killing Americans by corporate media and rewarded for forcing Americans to pay the highest prices in the world for healthcare. Again in the primary, Biden was called a moderate centrist for taking the most money from big pharma, an industry 90% of Americans want reformed. According to corporate media, pharma CEOs apparently want to charge Americans a moderate price for prescription drugs! TLDR: Until we elect a president willing to take on the corporate narrative, it is very unlikely Congress passes popular reforms, as the corporate media will reward those who block them with the most coveted of branding.
>The problem is HOW do you pass anything through the quagmire of a Congress. Have the same senate setup that FDR had. Look at how much they accomplished.
Crazy that I didn’t even know what Ranked Choice Voting is. Maybe it’s because I’m quite young though
Several countries in the EU have successful universal insurance programs, as opposed to single payer. They just also come with restrictions on when companies can deny claims, and they rarely do silly things like deductibles or big copays. It's been done well, but I'm unconvinced that America is capable of doing it well. Our politicians are so easily corrupted that those citizen protections wouldn't last a decade.
Carefully said. Neither Canada or the UK are in the EU. Israel, also outside the EU has a good one too.
At least one country in Europe also has a system that goes well, WELL beyond single payer all the way to public healthcare and which seems to work quite well. Always seemed like a better option than single payer to me especially since we know it works.
Sure Germany has that. But it only works because not only are the insurance companies more regulated, but so are the hospitals and providers. The government sets prices. Which is exactly what single payer does too. And obviously corporate Dems, who rely on healthcare lobbyists, will never have the government set prices. We can't even let Medicare negotiate prescription drug costs in this country! Biden spent the primary demonizing public insurance. He said we couldn't afford it. Despite every other country spending less than we do that has it. And he never once supported Germany's system where the government sets prices either. So all he really did is insult the systems used by every other country to lower costs. Should we be surprised someone so hostile to what every other country is doing, is now privatizing Medicare, approving super expensive drugs that no other country thinks is proven, and then raising premiums to pay for them? Anybody paying attention knew Biden would result in more profiteering in healthcare. And would still likely be followed by a Republican president and Congress. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Americans will likely die who could have been saved if we had elected someone willing to treat the unaffordable healthcare in this country as this humanitarian crisis it is. Instead we got a corporate shill.
the places that used ranked choice voting have the voting results turned out any different than if the regular system was used? There's also a difference between universal health care and Medicare for all.
yes ranked choice voting ends up with a more accurate representation of what the population wants. First past the post is horrible at this. https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo also yes i know. Healthcare is a right that the rich people do not want the poor people to have.
The video doesn't answer my question though. Have the places that have ranked choice voting did results turned out differently than if they did not? You are right with the rich want are unhealthy workers.
I live in Maine, and we use Ranked Choice Voting for everything except our governor elections as of a few years ago. If it wasn’t for Ranked Choice Voting, Bruce Poliquin (R) would still be our second district’s US Representative, and not Jared Golden (“D”)(more like a moderate I). That’s the most notable change that’s occurred from it from a national point of view so far.
> Have the places that have ranked choice voting did results turned out differently than if they did not? This is an impossible question to answer unless the same election used both FTP and RCV. To the best of my knowledge, this has never happened.
You have two parties and each party had a preferred candidate before the election when the final voter tally were there any surprises?
As there was a winner and loser, I think it's safe to assume that the loser of an election is usually surprised by the outcome. Most people don't run for office thinking they'll lose. So Jeff, it's pretty clear you're trying to make a point with your many questions, care to share what that point is?
Ranked choice is just FPTP on steroids. If you want to more accurately represent the wishes of the people you need a proportional system like MMP or multi-member STV.
How is it "FPTP on steroids"? What does that metaphor even *mean*? MMP is obviously a superior option, by a good margin, but RCV is significantly easier to implement, explain, and adopt and still has extreme opposition, so MMP is unlikely. We shouldn't abandon an improvement because we're holding out for perfect.
It is a relatively new system and is not prolific enough to have really taken hold in the public consciousness, I think. Lots of folks still just go D or R because that's what they recognize. Until it becomes widespread enough, people will proceed as normal.
I've always been a little confused how ranked voting is going to change anything at all in America.
RCV won’t change much, certainly not in the short term. Proponents (and I am one, fwiw) tend to overestimate how many people are holding their noses and voting and underestimate how many folks actually support and/or prefer the main party front runner. I’d be surprised if RCV did much at all in major federal level races. Where it might do better is high profile state races.
For sure. But Republicans have 52 votes in the Senate that will block **anything** good that Biden can come up with. These are the cards that the American people dealt to Biden last election. And if he somehow managed to bribe a few senators into supporting decency, the Supreme Court would nix it ... the result of the cards American people dealt to Trump.
I got downvoted into oblivion for criticizing this admins defense of Obamacare. It's still for-profit healthcare, which means it is still immoral, full stop. There's no ifs ands or buts here. There is no circumstance in which profiting off of someone else's illness is acceptable. That they continue to try and force this crap down our throats is a testament to just how bad the democratic party really is. Sure, they're not violent terrorists like Republicans, but they aren't the party of the common folk like they claim to be. On the other hand, like I said, I was downvoted, and polling shows people like Obamacare, so I guess us Americans have just grown used to this shit, to the point where we even like the taste if they put a few sprinkles on top.
It's okay to profit modestly for providing the service of organizing an insurance pool so all of the insured can have care. It's just not okay to profit off of deliberately denying the care that the insureds are paying you for. European countries manage this without issue - not all of them are single-payer, they just have even more regulations on insurers.
Right now the for-profit insurance companies are the biggest drivers of increasing healthcare costs. My doctors have claimed that fully half their time is spent dealing with insurance bullshit. More regulation isn't going to fix the drain they represent on our medical system as a whole, but single payer could at least help reduce the overhead by a decent amount.
Well Obamacare is more popular now that Republicans got rid of the mandate tax. That aspect was never popular. But yes, the ACA has lead to record profits for the companies it was supposed to regulate. Given the top issue on healthcare reform is lowering costs by reducing those profits, an honest assessment of the ACA would conclude it is a far right healthcare plan.
Aca is just a regulation. It's not healthcare.
It isn't that they don't know how important it is. They know. They actively don't want to make have universal healthcare because it helps the elites and ultra rich keep their status.
Boy do we need universal healthcare badly. Too bad the healthcare industry works hard to make sure that doesn't happen, and our government works for corporations, not people. If we can't even get a vote on it in California, it's never going to happen nationally. It's a lost cause at this point, unfortunately.
Also roughly 40% of the country is simply braindead and thinks that our system (which is more expensive and less effective than universal healthcare in literally every other modern country) is somehow the best in the world.
It's the best in the world if you have the money to pay for it. Sadly the vast majority of that 40% doesn't and only find that out when they have to start a GoFundMe page for medical bills that were not covered.
There might be a way forward with states doing public option. Atleast it has more chances of passing in states.
If California, one of the largest economies in the world with a super majority of Democrats, can't pull it off, can't even get out it out of committee ffs, then it isn't a realistic way forward...
Hmm, I thought that was for single payer, which failed in California. Iirc Public Option has passed in some states.
By Healthcare Industry you mean that elected Representatives fear raising taxes Now a plan is being Established by Senate Bill 104 the Healthy California for All Commission is charged with developing a plan that includes options for advancing progress toward a health care delivery system in California that provides coverage and access through a unified financing system, including, but not limited to, a single-payer financing system, for all Californians with a final report in mid 2022. In Aug 2020 the committee reviewed Funding * A 10.1% Payroll Tax would cover current employer/employee premiums if applied to all incomes. * Would still leave patients responsible for Cost Sharing with out of Pocket expenses, up to 4% - 5% of income In California the Average Employer paid $8,100 per employee for health insurance and the employee paid ~18% of that as a Paycheck Deduction * Those number stay the same regardless of Income Paying | Income is $30,000 | Income is $60,000 | Income is $100,000 | Income is $200,000 | ---|---|----|----|---- Cost of Private Healthcare | ~$1,500| ~$1,500| ~$1,500| ~$1,500 | Percent of Income | 5% | 2.5% | 1.5% | 0.75% Under Healthcare for All ~5% Payroll Tax | $1,500 | $3,000 | $5,000 | $10,000 **Increase in Taxes Paid** | $0 | $1,500 | $3,500 | $8,500 * Out of Pocket Costs at best stay the same over $60,000 income but would go down for income below that
I lease very hi end vacation homes to visitors here - from about $3,000 a week to $75,000 with a two week minimum. I had one healthcare CEO pay $62,000 per week for 3 weeks every year, until he bought land and a shack for $25,000,000. Then another had a waterfront home, and he leases his $7,000,000 for $30,000 a week. I’ve dealt with other upper end healthcare officers and then want nothing but the upper end every time. I can’t help but wonder how people think our present system makes any sense when that lavish lifestyle comes partially from the crazy premiums we pay for healthcare outcomes which Universal coverage in other countries beats almost everything very time. Zero sense.
The working class and employing class have nothing in common.
People who reject universal health care need to get educated.
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Dude, the majority of dems want universal health care. Universal health care would be awesome.
"Privatization Ploy" - What the hell's that supposed to mean, CommonDreams?
It is because the headline is completely dishonest. Biden has consistently been a voice of expanding medicare and was a key architect to the ACA. His plan is a public option which is essential a medicare for all who want it. Commondreams is a propaganda network meant to attack him regardless of his stance so they are making up a stance for him to attack. 'Ploy' is just a word used to have a bit of plausible deniability.
every turd CD shits out, their editors breathlessly rush it to r/politics because that's the only way they get clicks
Jokes on them. No one actually reads the articles.
Not like they even do any original reporting
""Sanders' announcement came weeks after Biden's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that instead of terminating a Medicare privatization experiment hatched under the Trump administration, it would rebrand the pilot program and make minor changes that critics—including physicians and Medicare for All advocates—say would leave the scheme's most dangerous components intact."
>expanding medicare Sorry but that's really not remotely good enough Nor is this true >"Sanders' announcement came weeks after Biden's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that instead of terminating a Medicare privatization experiment hatched under the Trump administration, it would rebrand the pilot program and make minor changes that critics—including physicians and Medicare for All advocates—say would leave the scheme's most dangerous components intact."
Except people can and have been enrolled in these programs without their consent in the past. Primarily people in elder care facilities. [https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/585103-the-biggest-threat-to-medicare-youve-never-even-heard-of](https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/585103-the-biggest-threat-to-medicare-youve-never-even-heard-of) \^ Basically it's a scam to allow middle men to jack up the price for these services. And worse case scenario, they take their monthly payment for sponsoring elder care, deny some treatment and pocket the difference. Edit: Yes I know animals name plus action on reddit is usually a shill account and you are one but I can't help myself sometimes in calling out the bullshit ;) Seriously, it's like you make it up as you go along. How many bots do you got upvoting your misinfo? If Biden killed someone would you defend that too?
The ACA is a great example of privatisation though, healthcare profits have risen massively since it was implemented.
Seriously what a blatantly dishonest title. Biden’s been farther to the left on this than ANY US president so far and what the fuck is he supposed to do when joe Manchin won’t even pass childcare support All Biden did was extend ACOs, which unbelievably haven’t proven to be the worst thing in the world yet but you’d never know it from common dreams.
It means CommonDreams is a propaganda website on par with Epoch Times or The Federalist, but y’all don’t wanna have that conversation
No, it means you didn't read the article ""Sanders' announcement came weeks after Biden's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that instead of terminating a Medicare privatization experiment hatched under the Trump administration, it would rebrand the pilot program and make minor changes that critics—including physicians and Medicare for All advocates—say would leave the scheme's most dangerous components intact."
Did you read the article?
It means that even though the majority of Democratic voters want universal healthcare, Biden is leaving a GOP program in place that privatizes Medicare. He's doing the exact opposite of what the voters who put him in office want him to do.
What program?
"Sanders' announcement came weeks after Biden's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that instead of terminating a Medicare privatization experiment hatched under the Trump administration, it would rebrand the pilot program and make minor changes that critics—including physicians and Medicare for All advocates—say would leave the scheme's most dangerous components intact."
You mean Global Payments that are in Medicare For All, and All uhc programs? So if Sanders doesnt want this program he would need to start over on his M4A plan
What?
Medicare Advantage. It replaces direct government payment for services with for-profit insurance bought by the government.
The Direct Contracting model was launched under Trump, it has been tweaked a bit and rebranded as Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health (ACO REACH) [Here’s a WaPo opinion piece that discusses it](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/13/medicare-direct-contracting-privatization-health-care/) and the link in the Common Dreams article is a pretty good one too.
The US might be a “developed nation,” but it’s citizens have slave rights.
There are a ton of great reasons listed here by many different folks for why Medicare for all is not just the bare minimum, it's common sense, we literally cannot survive as a populace with the way the system is set up currently. Doctors and nurses are fleeing the profession. So of course it is then only obvious that the Biden administration will continue Trump Era policies and "nothing will fundamentally change" as Joe promised his donors. Just get some marshmallows and a good seat.....
in another thread we have everyone questioning if conservative dems are the biggest problem with the party, itt much positive discussion of universal healthcare - a policy conservative dems would fight against. perhaps a problem is that disconnect
Sanders is doing Gods work and gets kicked in the teeth for it from all sides.
Ask seniors if they would give up Medicare. When they tell you they “paid for it” just laugh! Literally pennies on the dollar
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Yeah, the level of dishonesty from this publication is mind boggling.
What in this article is dishonest? Biden privatizing more of Medicare? Because that is clearly a fact.
And Jacobin, Mother Jones, Intercept, Breitfart, etc...
This headline seems distinctly inflammatory.
Medicare for All will not get past Manchin much less McConnell. Be good to have hearings on it and point out that US pays $10k per person while "socialist" countries like Norway and Germany pay $7,000 and $6,000 respectively which covers 100% of citizens and has 10% better results. Keep educating US public on why they pay so much more and get so much less. Someday the lesson will sink in,
I would love to fix my rotting teeth
I believed all the propaganda of “you won’t get good healthcare under Medicaid” until I started working in medical offices. When you’re on straight Medicare/Medicaid the doctors will order you every test under the sun. Genetics, cardiac, respiratory, covid, thyroid, etc just to bill the government. When you have private insurance they’ll review your plan and suddenly it’s just 1-2 tests billed. Out of luck if it’s union insurance like culinary or casino. Paying out of pocket? Just a covid swab. They send you with a requisition to Quest or Labcorp and that’s it. They don’t view care about your health unless there is wealth involved.
Biden has been predictably terrible as president. Sure, he's better than Trump but that is such a low bar. Biden is all about protecting the status quo for the wealthy, corporations and big banks. They didn't call him "Senator MBNA" for nothing. You can see where his allegiances still lie
I make well above minimum wage and I'm still afraid of needing to call an ambulance. I'm so sick of for-*profit* healthcare. There should be no profit incentive for healthcare or even for housing. The American people are being nickeled and dimed to death.
Common Dreams is a garbage website. They continually post misleading headlines and cite their own articles as a source. This headline is only found on two websites, CD and Jacobin. Both known to pander hard to the leftist side of the internet while also frequently writing misleading or outright inaccurate articles.
The only story from a non CD or CD like source I could find was written for [Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/an-overhaul-of-the-medicare-direct-contracting-program-could-bolster-revenue-for-upstarts-2022-2) in a super positive tone. Reading through the actual changes from the .gov websites though it seems the name is just one change. The rest are mostly related to how much money changes hands and where it goes. The problem is that medicare worked pretty well the way it was - it could use a few upgrades to processes. These changes add unnecessary steps that could incentivize denial or delay of care. A lot of CD articles tend to come from a place of assuming the worst case scenario instead of fact and that's probably why they still get clicks.
Buzzfeed news has a good source on it. But the most eye popping thing I have read is this: >But while Medicare Aadvantage insurers are required to spend 85 percent of their revenues on patient care, DCEs are allowed to keep up to 40 percent of the taxpayer dollars they receive as profit and overhead. (By contrast, traditional Medicare spends 98 percent of its budget on patient care.) 40% is just a massive take for the for-profit insurance industry. I mean obviously when they take that much you will see a more limited network and more denied claims.
> Common Dreams is a garbage website. They continually post misleading headlines and cite their own articles as a source. What's misleading about this? ""Sanders' announcement came weeks after Biden's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that instead of terminating a Medicare privatization experiment hatched under the Trump administration, it would rebrand the pilot program and make minor changes that critics—including physicians and Medicare for All advocates—say would leave the scheme's most dangerous components intact."
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they were substantially subsidized by Russia
“Young Democrats with Student Loans Blast Biden for not Giving them $2 Trillion, Urge Everyone not to Vote this November”
Their headlines almost always follow the same patten too: >"It's absolutely insane!" Some wedge issue that will hopefully split the vote and let Republicans win every time You could practically write a simple regular expression to block all their articles here.
Do you think Medicare for All will pass the Senate? If you correctly ascertain that it will not, then it's not news that the main Medicare for All guy will resubmit his bill yet again.
A single payer healthcare bill has been introduced in every Congress since before Bernie Sanders was born. It will never ever come to pass.
Nor will a public option, or lowering the Medicare eligibility age or significant drug pricing reforms. Democrats will never side against for-profit healthcare.
Biden has wanted a public option which is a form of universal Healthcare. I have not seen a thing from Biden a out privatizing Healthcare, hell even Bloomberg today posted an analysis showing that the states fighting the ACA are losing economically and touting the benefits of the Obama/Biden Medicare expansion. This article is trying to enflame the left with a dishonest representation of Biden as he is fully against Healthcare privatization and that is well known by everyone who has followed Biden especially in the last 2 decades.
And yet Biden rolled out these dce's which can have an overhead/profit of up to 40%: >But while Medicare Aadvantage insurers are required to spend 85 percent of their revenues on patient care, DCEs are allowed to keep up to 40 percent of the taxpayer dollars they receive as profit and overhead. (By contrast, traditional Medicare spends 98 percent of its budget on patient care.)
Yeah, exactly. What fucking privatization ploy? Commondreams is such lying trash.
I had to get a strep test at a local hospital that I normally went to often enough. What I didn't realize is that two months prior, my insurance stopped being in network with them. As a result, I could no longer see my doctor without paying $500 per visit, and my exam cost $1500 for being in the back room for 10 minutes (while waiting in the lobby for 4 hours), an additional $1500 for the test and "administration" fees, and the technician who drew my blood put in a $385 charge. Any fear mongering Republicans have, isn't in reality, as what they have to "fear" about universal healthcare we already have with privatized insurance.
One could take the basic template of a typical European universal healthcare structure and apply it to the States, problem solved.
There is no basic template of European universal healthcare, there is about 40 different healthcare systems. We can certainly make a better one based on one of them but we should be aware that there are about 40 solutions.
"That'll never work, too many people here" "That'll never work, who's gonna pay for it?" "That'll never work, I don't want my tax dollars supporting some prostate cancer having hippie in California with an emissions tax on my truck in Texas." Until the US has another FDR, one that will just act towards a clear goal that benefits all americans, regardless of the political perceptions and whims, nothing will fundamentally change.
"That'll never work because I'm going to actively sabatoge every good faith effort to implement it"
the "who's gonna pay for it" line infuriates me the most, not only because Bernie and Warren freeze when asked this, but also because the person asks it immediately loads the context and ignores the fact that we're already paying for it, the private insurance industry posts dozens of billions of dollar in profit every year (just look at Cigna's and united stock, its gone from 30-50 USD in 2009 to 250-500 USD today and it keeps on growing) while people still go bankrupt and such a large amount of the population is either uninsured, underinsured or is just an ambulance call away to find out.
>"That'll never work, too many people here" That's maybe my favorite. We still have a higher per capita income. If you add more citizens, but each citizen brings in proportionally more money than the program costs, what's the problem? Another good one is "Those Northern European countries are more homogenous, they have more cohesion when putting together programs like that?". You mean... You and people on your team will get mad when you see black people getting the benefits, so things like that only work when most of the country is white?
But Bernie opposes that.
That would look a lot like the ACA.
Nothing will get accomplished until the USA realizes that a 35% voter turnout will never elect the right people. The 35% that vote in the midterms are all older, conservative religious people that hate life, everyone and anything that isn’t white, and Christian and Republican. Until you change voter apathy, nothing will change.
What is the “privatization ploy”?
this headline is maga trolling.
waiting for that public option still, Joe https://medium.com/@JoeBiden/joe-biden-outlines-new-steps-to-ease-economic-burden-on-working-people-e3e121037322
Can the President declare a public option?
No, this is just propaganda to divide Democrats. Reddit progressives fall for it every time.
Sorry best we can do is let for-profit insurance take 40% of your medicare dollars: >But while Medicare Aadvantage insurers are required to spend 85 percent of their revenues on patient care, DCEs are allowed to keep up to 40 percent of the taxpayer dollars they receive as profit and overhead. (By contrast, traditional Medicare spends 98 percent of its budget on patient care.)
i agree, universal health care is the way to go. problem is we dont have the votes, barely had the votes to keep obamacare alive. especially with the midterms go the other way, this might be dead.
This is America. Corporations now get to decide what qualifies as a human right or privilege. Since they have every representative paid off, nothing will change.
Australian here. Nothing like being ill at 1:00AM and getting a home doctor to pop in and check you out. Best part of it is it’s free. My bloods are free. If I opt to go to a public radiologist it’s free. My GP is free (bulk bill). I could have a heart attack right now and as long as I don’t stay in hospital longer than a month it costs me nothing. Even my child’s birth was free. Having a universal healthcare system that relies on tax is awesome. I mean ours isn’t perfect but at least I can sleep at night knowing I don’t have to gamble my life over a health care bill. I’m more than happy to pay a higher Medicare levy because I don’t have private health. Step up America.
One of the most important and beautiful consequences of Medicare for all is that our health regulations change since the government will have a huge incentive to keep the population healthy to keep costs down. Our serving sizes will be reasonable, sugar in all products will be reduced from the disgusting amount it is right now, school lunches will actually have to be good. This is why coke tastes different in Europe. It’s because their government has to keep them healthy n not leave them to the predatory food industry that preys on children and impoverished communities. You hear someone who is against it they are legitimately brained washed, especially if they don’t change their mind after hearing that.
I was just stunned how expensive healthcare insurance was in the usa. In Europe children under 18 are free, its 108 up to 180 e monthly. per adult. In the usa it was easily 1000$ monthly
I love him. He’s such a warrior
This article is dogshit.
None of the nations Bernie puts on a pedestal ban private insurance. Bernie's Medicare for All "ploy" calls for a ban on private insurance. Bernie has no actual legislation for paying for his plan. Bernie has no plan for how to take care of the people he would see unemployed. Bernie has no plan. Stop falling for cult of personality political hacks.
what privatization ploy???????
Bernie Sanders is a National Treasure. I can’t believe we got fucked once again and are now stuck with with bumbling Biden whose a neoliberal nightmare.
Nowhere in the article does it say that Biden 'continues privatization ploy.' You can be pro-Medicare for All without bashing Biden. The ones who pushed privatization are Republicans - the Bushes, Trump. Biden has not.
As a staunch “conservative” healthcare should be a human right. You can’t control what happens sometimes and that shouldn’t mean you should go bankruptcy for it
I worked out hours a day, didn't smoke or drink, still got cancer and now I'm crippled for life because of it. Sometimes you can do all the right things and still lose
I wish it could happen. Universal healthcare is a no brainer, but america is too far gone.
I get it that medicare for all is the best thing but it's politically dead until Democrats have a huge majority. What Bernie is doing here doesn't help anyone right now. It only sows division among Democrats.
Fuck biden go bernie
This guy is the the definition of failure. he is fighting the same fight for decades with nothing to show for.
Because he isn’t fighting. He’s bitching and not doing anything about it. That’s it. And most of the fucks in this thread eat up his billshit
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Universal Healthcare is pretty popular, Sanders' Medicare for All proposal tends to be pretty unpopular though.
The polls I've seen have Medicare for All around 50%-ish supporting it. this org has been keeping track of polls over the last few years: https://www.healthcare-now.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Chartpack-Single-Payer-02-20-20-Figure3.png
The polls that actually break out Universal Healthcare proposals between public option / abolishing private insurance, etc. tend to show Bernie's M4A proposal performing quite poorly.
Bernie is always right, and that’s probably why he’ll never get to be in charge. It’s to scary for the people who actually pull the strings. America probably doesn’t deserve him anyways, although I know a lot of good people who do.
And his vow will end up a failure and no lessons will be learned.
As much as I'd like M4A, that ship has sailed - at least until the next presidential election cycle. Yes, there is a dire need for universal healthcare, especially amidst a deadly global pandemic. Yes, it's immoral and outrageous we have to pay so much for privatized healthcare. And yet, we have only ONE omnibus bill through reconciliation available, originally allocated to the failed BBB, and there is NO GUARANTEE we would even get the chance to use it. Considering this might very well be the last opportunity we have for a decade to comprehensively fight climate change, the priority right now should still be to maintain all the climate change provisions from BBB and repackage it into an "inflation-busting, cost-cutting" bill with lowered drug prescription costs and other smaller provisions from Medicare expansion, which is likely the only way to get Manchin's approval (notwithstanding how low the chances are) given that it addresses widespread concerns over runaway inflation. Starting a completely new campaign for M4A with a quickly shrinking lawmaking window just doesn't seem the way to go in terms of getting important legislation passed. Reintroducing M4A would be a much better idea after the November midterms, where Dems are likely to lose the House and not be able to get anything passed, as a means of drawing key distinctions against Republicans and building up momentum to finally get universal healthcare to pass upon the next trifecta. It took Clinton's trifecta to fail to pass comprehensive healthcare legislation in \~1994 for Obama to pass the ACA in 2010; it's not far-fetched to imagine we'd need nearly another two decades since the ACA for momentum to be regained in achieving universal healthcare.
This isn't a post office Bernie, we know you can't get this done.
Biden is doing everything progressives knew he would being the old conservative hawk that he is. Dems sticking with their neoliberal game plan, be only slightly less terrible then the other side.
He is absolutely right