Trumpcare Back From Dead Again: Cassidy-Graham Cruelest Version Yet, Has 49 Votes

[Mormolyce]

The deadline for which is the 30th. Which is a Saturday, and also a holiday.

Also they need a CBO score, and they already know the won't get a full score -- there isn't enough time, and that's on the GOP for waiting until the deadline.

The usual crew -- AARP, hospitals, doctors, medical associations -- are once again nearly 100% against this bill. So is the majority of the American people. So are the ultra conservatives and Rand Paul. This will not be an easy task.

It's honestly hard to see what would be worse for them - this failing again or it actually passing.

The Republican Party is painted into an impossible corner on this one, and they have nobody to blame but themselves. A decade of karma.

[Felya]

The problem is that you can't just remove it without fucking over a lot of people. Not unless you also provide a replacement, which the Republicans have never done and seemingly aren't interested in doing.

Even if you provide a replacement. I am not defending republicans and understand this is not a popular view... but...

Having a single payer or Medicare for all, will have detrimental effects on the economy. Having single payer, is already a solution for healthcare that everyone will have to replace their current. The problem is the ripple effect of a large industry going belly up, because insurance would lose most of its clients. If I were GOP, this is what I would do:

- Minimum healthcare for all. What goes into it is its own discussion, but everyone must be covered to a minimum.
- Maintain employer benefits for providing additional coverage, with the minimum still covered by government.
- Introduce ways to receive a tax rebate if you have additional coverage.

I think GOP would be best served if the paradigm shifted away from millions losing coverage, but that the guaranteed coverage is not enough. If GOP can start saying they are adding people to the insurance pool, while providing insurance a clear path to life after government dependency... they simply win.

[Grapemask]

I'm pretty sure a lot of the healthcare woes come from the fact that fixing American healthcare is going to require ripping the band-aid off. It'll hurt.

America is a society that's become increasingly built on capitalism, particularly starting in the 80s (but with tendrils reaching back decades before that). But this form of capitalism is killing the lower classes, and the healthcare is entirely built on capitalism. Worse, healthcare is the ultimate example of "how much is your own life worth?" It's legalized extortion with a ceiling only in moral objection, and we've combined capitalism with law to then also claim that morals have no place in deciding regulation.

So we can say "throwing money at it won't fix it!" And while that may be true, our entire society is built on burying the problem, and the party that says we shouldn't throw money at the symptom is the same party that's also saying we shouldn't cure the disease, because they desire and encourage that disease. That's the market, guys!

The market absolutely will suffer from fixing healthcare. The economy probably will for a while, too. Insurance companies absolutely will fold and healthcare services will stop being a booming market of disgusting profit, at least to some degree. And people will be healthier for it.

Republicans aren't interested in the health or human aspect; they only want to protect the market and the money, even if millions are left without insurance because of it. Nothing makes this more clear than Santorum's newest op-ed on CNN defending the bill. Pages of talk about the market and taxes, but not even one word on the impact on human life.

[Deletedaccount1]

You guys should read about Hansonian Medicine before you advocate more Medicare and Medicaid.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/200..._on_healt.html
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/0...dicine-in.html
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/...ontrarian.html

[Somewhatconcerned]

I'm pretty sure a lot of the healthcare woes come from the fact that fixing American healthcare is going to require ripping the band-aid off. It'll hurt.

America is a society that's become increasingly built on capitalism, particularly starting in the 80s (but with tendrils reaching back decades before that). But this form of capitalism is killing the lower classes, and the healthcare is entirely built on capitalism. Worse, healthcare is the ultimate example of "how much is your own life worth?" It's legalized extortion with a ceiling only in moral objection, and we've combined capitalism with law to then also claim that morals have no place in deciding regulation.

So we can say "throwing money at it won't fix it!" And while that may be true, our entire society is built on burying the problem, and the party that says we shouldn't throw money at the symptom is the same party that's also saying we shouldn't cure the disease, because they desire and encourage that disease. That's the market, guys!

The market absolutely will suffer from fixing healthcare. The economy probably will for a while, too. Insurance companies absolutely will fold and healthcare services will stop being a booming market of disgusting profit, at least to some degree. And people will be healthier for it.

Republicans aren't interested in the health or human aspect; they only want to protect the market and the money, even if millions are left without insurance because of it. Nothing makes this more clear than Santorum's newest op-ed on CNN defending the bill. Pages of talk about the market and taxes, but not even one word on the impact on human life.

Easy for Santorum to defend the bill when his daughter with trisomy 18 probably has the best insurance around. Yet this bill would drastically decrease funding to some 30 million kids covered by medicaid.

Let's see how the deplorables feel when their kids start to feel the consequences. I'm guessing they'll blame Antifa.

[Draco-Onis]

This would certainly help the budget if it passed. Medicare is going to run out by 2026 anyway so they will be forced to cut people out of the program at that point. I expect the administration after Trump or Trump himself will recognize where the Overton Window is moving and will slowly phase in single payer healthcare (Medicare for all).

1) This is not the medicare reform that is needed, it would require taking money from the rich Trump is allergic to that.
2) if you think Trump will phase in single payer healthcare I've got a bridge to sell you.

[Deletedaccount1]

1) This is not the medicare reform that is needed, it would require taking money from the rich Trump is allergic to that.
2) if you think Trump will phase in single payer healthcare I've got a bridge to sell you.

Doesn't matter if he will or not if 75% or more of the public wants it by next election cycle.

[Draco-Onis]

Doesn't matter if he will or not if 75% or more of the public wants it by next election cycle.

This is not a partisan thing but the general public has very little to no impact when it comes to policy making, there have been several studies on this. Our policy making relies on elite theory , if public opinion dictated policy not only healthcare but a lot things would be different.

[Gestopft]

Having a single payer or Medicare for all, will have detrimental effects on the economy. Having single payer, is already a solution for healthcare that everyone will have to replace their current. The problem is the ripple effect of a large industry going belly up, because insurance would lose most of its clients.

Obviously you can't shake up 1/6th of the economy without significant effects, but I can't help but think that the hundreds of billions or dollars freed up by proper cost controls would significantly help to cushion the blow. I'd really like to look at some data on what happened to other countries' economies when they instituted their systems. My initial googling hasn't been fruitful, but maybe tomorrow when my two-year-old is at school I can look up when various countries changed their healthcare systems and cross-reference the economic data.

[Blur4stuff]

Republican attacks against any version of single-payer still has the same problem: it's working better than the US system in a few dozen other countries. On top of that millions of their own voters use medicare. They already know first hand that socialism works better than the free market in this particular instance. Try running for office in the reddest possible district while telling the voters you're freeing them from medicare so they can enjoy capitalism in the open market.

[Smitzelplix]

The solution to the enormous Health Care problems in this country is not to pour federal taxpayer dollars on it. Exactly when is enough enough? Healthcare spending in the budget grows and grows, usually at twice the rate of the rest of the budget. When sequenstration hit four years ago, Healthcare grew when everything else suffered a cut. My favorite number ever is that over the last few years, Medicare grew at such a rate that it added three NASA's worth of spending to it's budget.

It. Must. Stop.

THat's why I laugh when people say dreamy things about NASA. You want to explore space? Sure. First, we gotta cut old sick people off the federal teat. The money's there. An ocean of it. We just spend it on the old.

That is not to say that Grandma can't get her pills. She should. But getting out the credit card to pay for it and cutting back on everything else is not a solution. Taxing more to pay for it, is not a solution. It grows and grows, and the cost curve bends what... a few percent here and there? Back slapping for a few percent change that gets erased in 2019 anyway? It's a fucking joke.

No. No more. Everyone should have access to healthcare. Period. But we have things just as important as that. Infrastructure. Education. Scientific research. Buying weapons. Healthcare should be a thing government plays a role in, but it is not and should not be the purpose of government. As a function of government spending, it might as well be.

A budget is a list of priorities, not a wish list, and Obamacare is executed via a budget. It exists on that list of priorities, along with many other things. It gets it fair share, and not one, cent more.

You want to spend more lavishly? You got a bank account. You pay for it. Me? I want my government buying more SpaceX rockets, paying for more AI research, giving more grants to college students, building more highways and buying more cruise missiles. Grandma's pills share the bag of money with things just as important.

I'm curious why in your post you focused on Medicare when the real target of this bill and the past bills have always seemed to have been Medicaid which all age groups can benefit from, not just the old. Actually come to think of it, does this bill or the ones in the past even do anything to Medicare?

[Deletedaccount1]

This is not a partisan thing but the general public has very little to no impact when it comes to policy making, there have been several studies on this. Our policy making relies on elite theory , if public opinion dictated policy not only healthcare but a lot things would be different.

There's a lot cases where that just isn't true. Look at how public support for gay marriage shifted from 2008 to 2012 and how many politicians changed their positions as a result (Obama and Clinton notably). Complete pluralism is obviously non-existent but if elite theory were true in the United States many things would be different. Obamacare would not exist, Trump would never have been elected, spending on healthcare would already be smaller and the country would be far more neoliberal in general (more free trade for example which is blocked by populist protectionism).

[Glorious Leader]

There's a lot cases where that just isn't true. Look at how public support for gay marriage shifted from 2008 to 2012 and how many politicians changed their positions as a result (Obama and Clinton notably). Complete pluralism is obviously non-existent but if elite theory were true in the United States many things would be different. Obamacare would not exist, Trump would never have been elected, spending on healthcare would already be smaller and the country would be far more neoliberal in general (more free trade for example which is blocked by populist protectionism).

While this may be true for a handful of social issues (actually at this point really only gay marriage) it remains the case that the public wants are largely ignored. Political scientists refer to this as the democratic deficit. Elite theory is in fact largely true. The US would be an entirely different place if the wishes and desires of it's people we're actually met and if you poll the american people you see that their is indeed a wide consensus on a number of issues that get virtually zero traction from the political establishment. Healthcare being one but theirs a list. Universal background checks on firearms another. Gay marriage is likely the only significant one that's had any traction in recent years and even then it was a bitter fucking fight.

[IIamaKing]

The ACA objectively increased the quality of coverage provided by health insurance plans.

Maybe if you went from no or total dog shit coverage. If you had fair, good or great it went through the roof and got cut to shit. Have to assume you had shit or no or mom/dad insurance if you actually believe this.

[paralleluniverse]

[JohnBrown1917]

https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/910256403574640641


Liberals are already blaming a conservative bill on Sanders.
lololol

[Fugus]

https://twitter.com/peterdaou/status/910256403574640641


Liberals are already blaming a conservative bill on Sanders.
lololol

Why do people keep calling them liberal? They aren't. The liberals were the ones who were cheated during the primaries and by and large didn't want Clinton and were called Sexist because of it (Though those "sexist" voters would have been falling over themselves to vote for Elizabeth Warren).

Calling these people liberal is about like calling Clinton an economic left wing extremist.

[JohnBrown1917]

Why do people keep calling them liberal? They aren't. The liberals were the ones who were cheated during the primaries and by and large didn't want Clinton and were called Sexist because of it (Though those "sexist" voters would have been falling over themselves to vote for Elizabeth Warren).

Calling these people liberal is about like calling Clinton an economic left wing extremist.

Then who did the liberals want? Because they sure as hell did not like Sanders.

[Fugus]

Then who did the liberals want? Because they sure as hell did not like Sanders.

The liberals and progressives I saw did want Sanders, it was the Moderates and right wing Democrats that wanted Clinton. The whole "First woman president" was something they tried to get more liberal and women voters to support her, but her voters actual supporters weren't the liberal base.

At best, the liberal base held their nose in the general if they voted for her.

Edit: And if that was the case, who do you think made up the Sanders supporters?

[JohnBrown1917]

The liberals and progressives I saw did want Sanders, it was the Moderates and right wing Democrats that wanted Clinton. The whole "First woman president" was something they tried to get more liberal and women voters to support her, but her voters actual supporters weren't the liberal base.

At best, the liberal base held their nose in the general if they voted for her.

Oh now I see, its a misunderstanding. I'm using the standard definition for liberal, the one used by Europeans/left wingers in the US. Sanders supporters don't really see themselves as liberal.