• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Second rate reporter says what?

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

People are weird.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2018 / Single Payer 2020

Single Payer 2020

by Betty Cracker|  August 11, 20172:12 pm| 160 Comments

This post is in: Election 2018, Election 2020, Open Threads, Politics, Proud to Be A Democrat, World's Best Healthcare (If You Can Afford It)

FacebookTweetEmail

Scott Lemieux published an interesting piece in The Week today about Kirsten Gillibrand’s support for a single payer solution as the ultimate goal for healthcare reform: “Kirsten Gillibrand is serious about Medicare for all.” An excerpt:

It would have been easy for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) to rest on her laurels at the town hall she held at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, New York, on Wednesday. In the wake of the narrow defeat of the Republican “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act, she received two standing ovations from a packed house before she even began to speak… But she had a more ambitious agenda in mind. Before taking questions, she celebrated the defeat of ACA repeal but quickly observed that it was not enough: Too many people still couldn’t afford insurance. And making a point she would return to repeatedly for the next hour, she identified her preferred solution: Medicare for all…

While the audience was generally supportive of her advocacy for Medicare for all — some scattered booing aside — one audience member asked a practical question: What should Congress do if the votes in Congress for Medicare for all aren’t there yet? Gillibrand had a ready answer: “You get to single-payer by letting people buy in [to Medicare] now…”

[W]hat’s politically possible at a given point is a question that can be answered the next time the Democrats take over the White House and Congress. In the meantime, the Democratic Party needs to establish Medicare for all or a comparable universal program as a goal — and whether it’s Gillibrand, Sanders, or another candidate, this is almost certainly the direction the next Democratic nominee will be pushing in.

I’m grateful to Gillibrand for stating outright that a market-driven system will never achieve affordable, universal coverage, so the public aspects of the ACA will have to be expanded to move in that direction. President Obama and the Democrats who worked on healthcare reform during his first term knew that, which is why they built in Medicaid expansion nationwide, a provision the SCOTUS sabotaged.

Anyhoo, the whole thing is worth a read. Love it or hate it, I think Lemieux is correct when he says single payer is becoming a core part of the Democratic Party platform, at least as an objective. The disagreements will arise around how to get there.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « The martyrdom of St. Googlebro
Next Post: AlieNation (Open Thread) »

Reader Interactions

160Comments

  1. 1.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 2:18 pm

    I don’t care what she says…
    She’s running in 2020.

  2. 2.

    efgoldman

    August 11, 2017 at 2:19 pm

    The disagreements will arise around how to get there.

    The leftier-than-thous, the purity ponies, and the bros are already preparing the “but you’re doing it WRONG!” arguments.
    We should ignore them, of course.

    Fuckem.

  3. 3.

    germy

    August 11, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    House Conservatives Will Try to Force Another Vote on Obamacare Repeal

  4. 4.

    tobie

    August 11, 2017 at 2:21 pm

    Betty Cracker, I tend to agree with most of your posts and always value your witty, clever writing but I have to say I find the following statement to be an article of faith not borne out by facts:

    a market-driven system will never achieve affordable, universal coverage.

    This is simply not true. There was a recent rating of the world’s healthcare systems and the two models that are said to get the most bang for the buck are the national health system in England and the 100%-privatized system in Switzerland. Germany’s healthcare system is close to the Swiss system–both rest on the pillar of employer-provided health insurance–but it does have public components. Both countries highly regulate the health insurance industry but they haven’t gone in the direction of single-payer.

    Single payer has become this weird fixation on the left as if it’s the only means to achieve affordable, universal quality healthcare. I’m not opposed to it but I suspect I’m like a lot of Americans who have insurance through their employers and, if we switch to single payer, will see their taxes rise without the concomittant rise in wages, as the companies are no longer forced to pay for health benefits.

    This is just my 2 cents.

  5. 5.

    kindness

    August 11, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    I think MediCare for all is more achievable than Single Payer right now. With all due respect I hope the Bernie contingent doesn’t cough up a lung wrt this. Guess we’ll see who really wants to win elections in 2018 & 2020.

  6. 6.

    Roger Moore

    August 11, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    The disagreements will arise around how to get there.

    And where it should be on the priority list. I agree that it’s important*, but I think it will have to take second place behind a revamped Voting Rights Act, or the Democrats’ control over Congress and the White House is likely to be short-lived.

    *Though it could theoretically become a bit less important if the hoped-for bipartisan work on shoring up Obamacare actually comes to pass.

  7. 7.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 11, 2017 at 2:22 pm

    “Single-payer” is already a shibboleth for the Sanders wing of the party, and any deviation from it is neoliberal shillery even though “Medicare for all” is not even really single-payer since Medicare as constructed is not single-payer. So embracing it as a label is smart.

    As a policy, however–and David writes about this and he knows way more than me–single-payer is a stupid hill to die on, since it’s a mechanism, not a goal.

    The problem is evident in statements like this:

    In the meantime, the Democratic Party needs to establish Medicare for all or a comparable universal program as a goal — and whether it’s Gillibrand, Sanders, or another candidate, this is almost certainly the direction the next Democratic nominee will be pushing in.

    There are some very vocal people in the party who won’t accept a comparable universal program that isn’t “single-payer”.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:24 pm

    For the record

    Affordable Care Act, which covers 20 million people. Hillary will stand up to Republican-led attacks on this landmark law—and build on its success to bring the promise of affordable health care to more people and make a “public option” possible. She will also support letting people over 55 years old buy into Medicare.

  9. 9.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 11, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    How about childcare for all?

  10. 10.

    Roger Moore

    August 11, 2017 at 2:26 pm

    @efgoldman:

    The leftier-than-thous, the purity ponies, and the bros are already preparing the “but you’re doing it WRONG!” arguments.

    They’ll shift the goalposts again and claim the goal should be a National Health System, or that we’re distracted from the real goal of reining in the banks.

  11. 11.

    elm

    August 11, 2017 at 2:27 pm

    @tobie: Describing the Swiss system as “market-driven” is a stretch.

    From Wikipedia:

    Swiss are required to purchase basic health insurance, which covers a range of treatments detailed in the Swiss Federal Law on Health Insurance Insurers are required to offer this basic insurance to everyone, regardless of age or medical condition. They are not allowed to make a profit off this basic insurance, but can on supplemental plans.

    There isn’t much dispute that a heavily regulated, mandated non-profit insurance model could achieve affordable universal coverage. There is no support for the Swiss system in the US.

  12. 12.

    Fake Irishman

    August 11, 2017 at 2:28 pm

    Betty, I tend to agree with Tobie’s criticism above, but I note that you write:

    “so the public aspects of the ACA will have to be expanded to move in that direction”

    I’ve always appreciated how your devastating wit and ideals are leavened by hard-headed pragmatism. Looking forward to working with you to expand the Medicaid expansion, develop some sort of Medicare buy-in and/or implement some kind of public option on the ACA.

  13. 13.

    BruceFromOhio

    August 11, 2017 at 2:28 pm

    But her emails.

  14. 14.

    clay

    August 11, 2017 at 2:28 pm

    @germy: The House already repealed/replaced Obamacare. How would them re-voting make any difference at all?

  15. 15.

    SatanicPanic

    August 11, 2017 at 2:29 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: Do they really know the difference though? I know some who do, but I would be curious how much of the left that is.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:29 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    And where it should be on the priority list.

    That’s the thing. Assuming we control the government in 2021, we will probably have the votes for cap and trade but not for a massive carbon tax. Another important issue. Will we have a schism over best means there also?

    Happy to see us keep pushing, but I don’t want to sugarcoat the challenges.

  17. 17.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 11, 2017 at 2:30 pm

    @kindness:

    I think MediCare for all is more achievable than Single Payer right now. With all due respect I hope the Bernie contingent doesn’t cough up a lung wrt this. Guess we’ll see who really wants to win elections in 2018 & 2020.

    Isn’t Bernie getting ready to put up a purity testsingle-payer bill for consideration to see who signs on?

    @SatanicPanic:

    Do they really know the difference though? I know some who do, but I would be curious how much of the left that is.

    They’ll know the difference as soon as somebody other than St. Sanders proposes legislation, and the professional splitters/purity ponies explain it to them.

    And, again, it’s a shibboleth, so the name matters too.

  18. 18.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:30 pm

    @SatanicPanic: They’ll know whether Bernie had signed onto it or not.

  19. 19.

    retr2327

    August 11, 2017 at 2:31 pm

    @tobie: Well, as the fortunate recipient of employer-provided health care, I can certainly understand your belief/fear that moving away from that form of health care may make things worse, not better, for those of us fortunate enough to have it.

    But I have a harder time understanding your “proof” that market-driven systems can’t work. I assume you’re not relying on England, home of the government-owned and run health system, so you must be relying on Switzerland. But health care there is mandatory to have; insurers are required to provide it to everyone; and premiums beyond 8% of your income are subsidized by the Gov’t (all from wikipedia). How, exactly, is that a market-driven system?

  20. 20.

    tobie

    August 11, 2017 at 2:32 pm

    @elm: I said “privatized,” not market driven, though I don’t see why something can’t be highly regulated and still market driven. The provisions you cite are already a part of the ACA: (1) “basic insurance to everyone, regardless of age or medical condition” = Essential Health Benefits package; and (2) “They are not allowed to make a profit off this basic insurance,” a policy which is in the same spirit as the ACA requirement that at least 80% of premium dollars have to go to actual healthcare.

    You’re disagreeing with me but haven’t identified any principal difference.

  21. 21.

    SatanicPanic

    August 11, 2017 at 2:32 pm

    @Roger Moore: This is another point I’ve been making- the ACA is probably good enough that we can limp along with it while we work on other things that are more pressing. A VRA would be very important (assuming Trump doesn’t get another SCOTUS pick), or climate change legislation would be pretty key too. Not sure it’s worth dealing with healthcare AGAIN.

  22. 22.

    kindness

    August 11, 2017 at 2:34 pm

    @tobie: You can’t really compare Germany vs. England’s health care systems and use that as a comparison to what the US might end up with. Germany’s system isn’t what one might call a ‘Market Driven’ system. It isn’t because it is completely regulated. It isn’t free market on any level. It might not be regulated as heavily as Japan’s or Switzerland’s systems but suggesting a system with that level of regulations here in the US ignores Republicans.

  23. 23.

    Mike J

    August 11, 2017 at 2:34 pm

    Susie Dent‏ Verified account @susie_dent
    This morning’s word-find: ‘balatronic’, pertaining to/characteristic of a buffoon. If they’re a dangerous buffoon the word is scogginistic.

  24. 24.

    Rob in CT

    August 11, 2017 at 2:35 pm

    @Baud: But her (neoliberal) emails!

  25. 25.

    tobie

    August 11, 2017 at 2:37 pm

    @retr2327: The architecture of the Swiss system served as the model for the ACA. Mandatory health insurance in Switzerland = the individual mandate so vilified here; subsidies by the government there = CSR here; requirement to cover there = no exclusions for preexisting conditions here.

    Can we regulate the US market more? Sure. Can we expand medicaid benefits: Yes. These are all tweaks to the existing structure that will make it better but won’t disrupt the economy in the way that single payer would and would have the same results.

    Like, you’re disagreeing without really identifying any difference in structure between the Swiss model and an improved ACA.

  26. 26.

    Doc Sardonic

    August 11, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    @tobie: Actually, unless your employer is paying 100% of your health insurance premium, which is exceedingly rare, the concomitant increase in your taxes would likely be less than your current out of pocket expenses for deductible, coinsurance and premiums.

  27. 27.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    And any debate about making health care universal is going to involve political decisions about abortion and undocumented workers, just like the ACA did. I know where this group would come out, but unfortunately not everyone is like us.

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne

    August 11, 2017 at 2:39 pm

    @tobie:

    By criticizing Betty for saying that “market-driven” healthcare systems don’t work, you’ve put yourself in the position of defending market-driven systems. But the Swiss system is not market-driven. The insurers are very heavily regulated by the government, they are not permitted to take one penny of profit from the basic policy that they sell, and their level of profits on the supplemental policies is also tightly regulated by law.

    I think you’re conflating “private insurance companies” and “market-driven systems” when those are two completely different things.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:40 pm

    @Doc Sardonic: Depends. Single payer in other countries is more efficient than what we have, but if we decide, for example, that our single payer system will not make providers take a haircut, then it could get very costly.

  30. 30.

    Gelfling 545

    August 11, 2017 at 2:42 pm

    @tobie: I don’t believe privatized and market-driven are the same thing. A system may be privatized and strictly regulated and not left to the whims of the invisible hand.

  31. 31.

    Elizabelle

    August 11, 2017 at 2:42 pm

    Betty, thank you for highlighting the Lemieux article. A few Juicers had mentioned it; bookmarking this discussion thread (will scan it later).

  32. 32.

    Jeffro

    August 11, 2017 at 2:42 pm

    @rikyrah: She’s totally running, agreed. Advocating for single-payer is smart too btw…neutralizes the Bros and unifies the party around ‘good government’?

    I don’t mean to be too blasé about it, but there are at least a half dozen post-Boomer national Dems that I’d like to see on the ticket, in any order. I don’t really care that much about who it is: just give us two youngish, charismatic, positive people (hopefully women and people of color) and let’s have at it. We have a Congress and governorships and statehouses to re-take: I’m not getting all that invested in who’s at the top of the ticket.

  33. 33.

    tobie

    August 11, 2017 at 2:42 pm

    @kindness: The auto industry is regulated but it’s still a free market. The USDA regulates most of the food I buy in stores and yet there’s a market for groceries. I don’t see any contradiction in talking about a regulated market–which is what you have in the German healthcare system, which does, by the way, have some problems. Many doctors will only take patients with private insurance because they’re reimbursed at a higher rate than from patients on public insurance. You hear a similar complaint here when doctors say they won’t take Medicare or Medicaid patients because they’re not reimbursed enough.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:43 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Market driven to me simply means more than one company competed for customers. The level of regulation doesn’t factor into it.

  35. 35.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 11, 2017 at 2:44 pm

    @Baud: I cannot imagine Sanders happily signing onto someone else’s healthcare proposal. Grudgingly, maybe, with a lot of harrumphing about how much it pains him to have to demean himself like this.

  36. 36.

    germy

    August 11, 2017 at 2:44 pm

    If Chicago Alderman Ameya Pawar is successful in winning the Democratic Party nomination to stand for governor of Illinois and then wins the election, he will: 1) commute all low-level drug offenders’ sentences and free them from jail; 2) take educational oversight power from Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel and give it to the Chicago School Board; 3) fund schools out of a fairly distributed state pools, ending the system of funding based on local taxes, which disadvantages schools in poor neighborhoods; and 4) make access to paid sick leave and child care universal in the state of Illinois.

    He calls it the “New Deal for Illinois.”

    To win the nomination, he’ll have to beat the Hyatt hotels heir J.B. Pritzker, who’s already pumped $21M of his personal fortune into his candidacy.

  37. 37.

    Hoodie

    August 11, 2017 at 2:44 pm

    Medicare for all is a smart rhetorical stance. Medicare generally has a positive reputation and it puts the GOP in the position of having to trash Medicare to oppose her. She also outflanks the Bernie contingent without fully committing to single payer. I get the sense that she would play well as a candidate. Even my generally wing nut sister likes her.

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    August 11, 2017 at 2:45 pm

    PS: I don’t understand why we aren’t making more of a deal of following the Swiss system, with the heavy regulation consumer/patient protection.

    Memo to all of us: stress protection rather than using “regulation”, which is a bad word to the plutocrats and useful morons we find ourself dealing with.

    Regulation protects and enhances capitalism, unless you’re into Darwinian capitalism (which is what the plutocrats want, being worthy and all …)

  39. 39.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:45 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: Agree.

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    August 11, 2017 at 2:45 pm

    @tobie:

    I’ve suspected for quite a while that the whole point of PPACA was to get us to a Swiss-style system.

    And there seems to be one other big difference in the Swiss system: their hospitals are all public, not private. Right now in the US, a majority of our hospitals are for-profit private hospitals. This is a huge driver of our increased healthcare costs.

  41. 41.

    Roger Moore

    August 11, 2017 at 2:46 pm

    @clay:

    The House already repealed/replaced Obamacare. How would them re-voting make any difference at all?

    It sounds as if this is a vote on straight repeal with no replacement. It’s pointless grandstanding, but what else did you expect from the HFC.

  42. 42.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:46 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Maybe call it the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

  43. 43.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 11, 2017 at 2:48 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    straight repeal with no replacement

    So, not a reconciliation bill, then.

  44. 44.

    tobie

    August 11, 2017 at 2:49 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I take your point but what I was saying that there are other options besides single payer or medicare for all that work quite well and would be less disruptive to the economy. And I deliberately described the Swiss system as “privatized” insurance, not a free market, though I still stand by the claim that a regulated market is still a market.

    EDIT: You are right that for-profit hospitals are a huge driver are medical costs in the US. It’s a real problem.

    @Doc Sardonic: I lived in Germany for several years and had copays and deductibles with my private German insurance. Yes, they were less than in the US but they exist there.

  45. 45.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:49 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: They are back to voting for bills that won’t get enacted into law.

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    August 11, 2017 at 2:49 pm

    @Baud:

    Market driven to me simply means more than one company competed for customers. The level of regulation doesn’t factor into it.

    IIRC, that’s not the actual definition of “market-driven.” A company that is market-driven makes changes based on what customers want and/or what the market can bear. If your company is heavily regulated by the government and limited in what it’s allowed to do by law, it can’t be market driven.

  47. 47.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 11, 2017 at 2:49 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I would love Love LOVE to see a stronger public hospital system. VA for All!

  48. 48.

    Doc Sardonic

    August 11, 2017 at 2:50 pm

    @Baud: Very true. To transition to “single payer” the way our system has been designed from trading the chicken to insurance with deductibles, copay, pre-existing conditions and the rest of the too numerous too list ingredients in the grand miasma stew that is our healthcare system, everybody is going to have to go to the barbershop. This includes doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and even us the citizenry. Nobody is going to get everything they want especially the “why should I have to buy insurance because freedumb?” fuckwits.

  49. 49.

    Kent

    August 11, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    I think MediCare for all is more achievable than Single Payer right now. With all due respect I hope the Bernie contingent doesn’t cough up a lung wrt this. Guess we’ll see who really wants to win elections in 2018 & 2020.

    Wait….what? What is the difference between Medicare for All and Single Payer?

    Is it that Medicare for All would be just one option out of a suite of other private payer options?

    I would expect that in real life, an actual Medicare for All type of program would follow a similar pattern to the existing Medicare plan for the elderly. You would have the option of “regular” Medicare which is government-run insurance and also the option of the equivalent of Medicare Advantage which would be privately-administered medicare plans run by AETNA, Blue Cross, etc. And you’d also have the option of supplemental coverage though private providers for all the things that a government-run Medicare for All doesn’t actually cover.

    In practice and implementation I suspect we are really talking about a distinction without a difference.

  50. 50.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    @Mnemosyne: So how do the Swiss decide which company to go with if it’s not market driven?

  51. 51.

    germy

    August 11, 2017 at 2:51 pm

    @Baud:

    They are back to voting for bills that won’t get enacted into law.

    Good. Keeps them busy without actually causing too much harm.

  52. 52.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 11, 2017 at 2:52 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: Wilmer apologists like to point out that his voting record shows a willingness to compromise, accept half a loaf while fighting for the other, etc., and there’s a lot of truth to that. The problem is his relentless, manichean sanctimony and reductive rhetoric (“there is NO reason we can’t have…. in this country”). He’s convinced a sizable chunk of should-be Dem voters that the only thing between them and Nordic utopia is the corruption and cowardice of the Democratic establishment, with their donuts and bottled water.

  53. 53.

    efgoldman

    August 11, 2017 at 2:52 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    There are some very vocal people in the party who won’t accept a comparable universal program

    We should never conflate “very vocal” with “large numbers”

  54. 54.

    Mnemosyne

    August 11, 2017 at 2:54 pm

    @tobie:

    I agree that there’s more than one way to get to universal healthcare, and being solely focused on “single payer” is a huge mistake, but it’s become the favored slogan of people who haven’t done any research, so we’re kind of stuck with it.

    The problem phrase is not “market” but “market-driven.” IANAEconomist, but having a market for something and having an area of the economy that’s driven by its market are two totally different things.

  55. 55.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 11, 2017 at 2:54 pm

    @Kent: Well, it’s not a distinction without a difference because “single-payer” has a particular policy meaning, which is relevant when we’re talking about policy. Specificity of language is very important when discussing policy, given that policy consists entirely of language. And Medicare for all is not single-payer, it’s mixed-payer/semi-private.

    @efgoldman: Sufficiently vocal to fuck shit up.

  56. 56.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:55 pm

    Somewhat OT, I recently read this interesting Vox piece about Carter and the Dem Congress. Something to avoid if we get back control.

    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/4/16075196/trump-legislative-failure-carter

  57. 57.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 2:57 pm

    @Mnemosyne: Ah, you’re making a difference better a market system and a market-driven system. I can see your point then.

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne

    August 11, 2017 at 2:57 pm

    @Baud:

    Because the companies are limited in what they can do to influence or change the market they operate in, so they are unable to drive the market.

    The problem work is not “market.” Everything has a market of some kind, but not everything is driven by that market.

  59. 59.

    trollhattan

    August 11, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    @rikyrah:
    I’m very open to her running. Running a woman two times in a row would be quite the message by Dems that we need to knock that fvcking door between women and the White House into toothpicks and to do it now, not “some convenient time in the future.” Dudes are making quite a hash of the place ATM.

  60. 60.

    elm

    August 11, 2017 at 2:58 pm

    @tobie: The statement you originally quoted, from Mrs. Cracker, was:

    a market-driven system will never achieve affordable, universal coverage.

    That’s why I said the Swiss system isn’t market-driven, it’s not. It’s regulation-driven but uses private insurers to solve many technical matters.

  61. 61.

    Mnemosyne

    August 11, 2017 at 2:59 pm

    @Baud:

    And I think Betty was making the same point: it’s not that we can’t have a market of any kind for insurance (even the UK has supplemental insurance policies that people can buy), it’s that they don’t allow the insurance companies to drive that market.

  62. 62.

    low-tech cyclist

    August 11, 2017 at 3:00 pm

    I think Sen. Gillibrand’s shown the Dems the way to go, not just with health care, but across the board.

    1) Say, loud and proud, what we really really want. What our real goal is.
    2) Say what we’ll do as a first step, if the end goal can’t be done right away.
    3) Be willing to explain how the first step helps us get to the ultimate goal, and reiterate that the ultimate goal is what we want to get to.

  63. 63.

    Kent

    August 11, 2017 at 3:01 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Major major. So I googled “single payer” to determine the exact difference and the top link was from the web site Physicians for a National Health Program. In the very first sentence of their definition of “single payer” I find this:

    http://www.pnhp.org/facts/what-is-single-payer

    Single-payer national health insurance, also known as “Medicare for all,” is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health care financing, but the delivery of care remains largely in private hands. Under a single-payer system, all residents of the U.S. would be covered for all medically necessary services, including doctor, hospital, preventive, long-term care, mental health, reproductive health care, dental, vision, prescription drug and medical supply costs.

    The program would be funded by the savings obtained from replacing today’s inefficient, profit-oriented, multiple insurance payers with a single streamlined, nonprofit, public payer, and by modest new taxes based on ability to pay. Premiums would disappear; 95 percent of all households would save money. Patients would no longer face financial barriers to care such as co-pays and deductibles, and would regain free choice of doctor and hospital. Doctors would regain autonomy over patient care.

    The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, based on PNHP’s AJPH-published Physicians’ Proposal, would establish an American single-payer health insurance system.

    So I don’t think the definitional distinctions are as well defined as you suggest.

    Or, perhaps it is more accurate to say that there is a policy distinction between “public option” and “single payer” but the term “Medicare for All” seems to be used broadly enough as to apply to either type of program.

  64. 64.

    tobie

    August 11, 2017 at 3:01 pm

    Serious question…does anyone know when and how Canada transitioned to single-payer? It would be interesting to look into how a modern economy did this, and since I’ve raised the question I suppose I should go look it up myself. My general impression is that people are willing to pay quite a bit for the general welfare if they feel there is a functioning social contract. Reagan’s “gov’t is the problem not the solution” destroyed that compact in the US.

  65. 65.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 3:01 pm

    @trollhattan:

    I’m very open to her running

    Before you decide, make sure to read my 10 page manifesto on why no woman can be as good a president as Donald Trump.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    @low-tech cyclist: I believe Obama did that when the ACA was passed. People need to hear.

  67. 67.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 3:03 pm

    @Jeffro:

    I don’t mean to be too blasé about it, but there are at least a half dozen post-Boomer national Dems that I’d like to see on the ticket, in any order. I don’t really care that much about who it is: just give us two youngish, charismatic, positive people (hopefully women and people of color) and let’s have at it.

    I am with you.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 3:03 pm

    @Kent:

    Premiums would disappear

    Medicare has premiums.

  69. 69.

    Betty Cracker

    August 11, 2017 at 3:04 pm

    @tobie: I think Gillibrand said “for profit” rather than “market driven,” but they mean the same thing in my book. A for-profit system won’t achieve universal, affordable coverage for everyone. It doesn’t anywhere in the world.

  70. 70.

    tobie

    August 11, 2017 at 3:04 pm

    @elm: Thanks, Elm. Mnemosyne pointed that out as well, and I apologize to you, Betty Cracker, and anyone else if I took your remarks out of context. I only wanted to emphasize that systems based on employer provided healthcare can work.

  71. 71.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    @Hoodie:

    Medicare for all is a smart rhetorical stance. Medicare generally has a positive reputation and it puts the GOP in the position of having to trash Medicare to oppose her

    The Poster Children for Medicare, as opposed to Medicaid, is a older WHITE couple.

  72. 72.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 11, 2017 at 3:06 pm

    @Kent: “Medicare” contains, as a subset, Medicare Advantage and so forth; it is multi-payer. Traditional medicare is single-payer. Which are we talking about expanding? Nobody seems to say.

  73. 73.

    trollhattan

    August 11, 2017 at 3:07 pm

    @Baud:
    Will do, but It’s still down there in the bottom of my Costco Cheerios box and I can’t seem to grab it yet. [note to self: two bowls/day] Clever campaign strategery, BTW.

  74. 74.

    trollhattan

    August 11, 2017 at 3:08 pm

    Somebody fire up the Silverman signal.

    On Aug. 7, Malheur occupier Travis Cox of Oregon was sentenced to two years probation for conspiracy. Sean, Sandra and Dylan Anderson were each sentenced in recent months to a year of probation for trespassing, and Geoffrey Stanek and Eric Lee Flores were sentenced to two years’ probation for conspiracy. Ten other participants — Jason Patrick, Joseph O’Shaughnessy, Jason Blomgren, Wesley Kjar, Duane Ehmer, Darryl Thorn, Jake Ryan, Ryan Payne, Jon Ritzheimer and Blaine Cooper, still await sentencing for felonies and other charges.

  75. 75.

    Kent

    August 11, 2017 at 3:10 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Exactly. “Single Payer” seems to be a precise policy term as is “public option”. However “Medicare for All” seems to be a vague term that could apply to either or both depending on the specific proposal.

    Gillibrand is proposing a “public option” form of Medicare for All”

    The proposed legislation from the Physicians for a National Health Program would be a “single payer” program which they are also calling Medicare for All.

  76. 76.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 3:12 pm

    @trollhattan:

    I’m very open to her running. Running a woman two times in a row would be quite the message by Dems that we need to knock that fvcking door between women and the White House into toothpicks and to do it now

    Amen.

    I still flashback to the shudders that I get from 2008, when John Edwards was being sold as the ‘ safe White Man’.

    MAN…we dodged that bullet.

  77. 77.

    zhena gogolia

    August 11, 2017 at 3:13 pm

    I must have missed something, because I have no idea what “donuts” stand for.

    The day after the election, one of my students said, “It just shows the limitations of the neoliberal vision.” I was puzzling over what the election had to do with government-private interest partnerships for urban redesign. I still don’t quite understand how they’ve decided to reinterpret “neoliberal.”

  78. 78.

    gene108

    August 11, 2017 at 3:14 pm

    @tobie:

    Single payer has become this weird fixation on the left as if it’s the only means to achieve affordable, universal quality healthcare.

    For a lot of folks on the Left, universal coverage without the destruction of for profit health insurers is a failure. The destruction of for profit health insurance is as important or more important than universal coverage.

    The destruction of health insurers will be the first step to usher in the glorious people’s revolution, where for profit enterprise will be a thing of the past.

  79. 79.

    Yutsano

    August 11, 2017 at 3:16 pm

    @tobie: The first province to adopt universal hospital insurance was Saskatchewan in 1947, but the actual creation of a unified health law wasn’t until 1984.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Health_Act

  80. 80.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    I must have missed something, because I have no idea what “donuts” stand for.

    check this article:

    Message Failure From Nina Turner and Our Revolution

    http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/08/10/message-failure-from-nina-turner-and-our-revolution/

  81. 81.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 11, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    @Hoodie:

    Medicare generally has a positive reputation and it puts the GOP in the position of having to trash Medicare to oppose her.

    They could go with “more Medicare for them means less for you”, or a claim that Medicare is on the verge of collapse and expanding it will push it over the brink. Might not work, though: Bush claimed to be “saving” it by privatizing it and that didn’t fly at all.

  82. 82.

    TenguPhule

    August 11, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    @Baud:

    They are back to voting for bills that won’t get enacted into law.

    And not voting for bills that need to become law.

    Debt Ceiling Crisis, DAMN THE TORPEDOES AND FULL SPEED AHEAD INTO THE REEF!!!

    /Yes, I’m bitter about this completely unnecessary catastrophe.

  83. 83.

    Roger Moore

    August 11, 2017 at 3:18 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    Not sure it’s worth dealing with healthcare AGAIN.

    I sure as hell don’t want replacing Obamacare with Single Payer to dominate the legislative agenda to the extent passing Obamacare dominated it in 2009-2010. I’m fine with passing technical fixes, but they have to be treated as technical fixes rather than a major legislative push. There are too many other things that need attention.

  84. 84.

    Miss Bianca

    August 11, 2017 at 3:19 pm

    @tobie: My understanding is that the Canadian system went province by province, not national all at once – and I believe it is still administered at a provincial, rather than national, level. However, IANAC, so without looking it up I am going to say that that is merely my recollection.

    ETA: Just to tack on to what Yutsano said.

  85. 85.

    TenguPhule

    August 11, 2017 at 3:20 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    There are too many other things that need attention.

    Single Payer doesn’t even make the top 20 in the list of things that need fixing on the existential level for the USA now.

    That’s how bad its gotten.

  86. 86.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 11, 2017 at 3:21 pm

    @Kent: One of the issues with conflating ‘medicare for all’ (which medicare?) and ‘single-payer’ is that part of why medicare is so broadly popular with beneficiaries is medicare advantage.

  87. 87.

    Ksmiami

    August 11, 2017 at 3:23 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: hey that’s what Ive been clamoring for “kidcare” – medical/dental for all us children 0-18. then build off that. also if the biggest challenges we are facing are from technological disruption, then I think a stronger democratic platform should be America2.0 – time for an upgrade- this means a top to bottom campaign to modernize aging infrastructure, streamline the military and put the best innovators in charge of addressing climate and labor.

  88. 88.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 3:24 pm

    Dear Bob Mueller,
    We know you’re thorough, meticulous, and cautious.
    But if you could speed it up, we’d appreciate it.
    Thanks,
    -The World pic.twitter.com/YcgMjFu2qx

    — Holly O’Reilly (@AynRandPaulRyan) August 11, 2017

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 3:25 pm

    @Ksmiami:

    @FlipYrWhig: hey that’s what Ive been clamoring for “kidcare” – medical/dental for all us children 0-18. then build off that.

    Kidcare, and Medicare Eligibility from age 50. Get that AARP Card and Medicare Card in the same month.

  90. 90.

    Roger Moore

    August 11, 2017 at 3:26 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Single Payer doesn’t even make the top 20 in the list of things that need fixing on the existential level for the USA now.

    And heaven only knows how much worse it will be in 2020.

  91. 91.

    Miss Bianca

    August 11, 2017 at 3:27 pm

    @Ksmiami: Personally, I favor the approach of tackling in pieces, from both ends of the age spectrum – lower the eligibility age for Medicare to 55 (or even age 50) as one step, then expand coverage for 0-18 (or even 0-26, in keeping with the ACA guidelines) as another step.

    ETA: Cause I’m one of those damn “incrementalist” progressives – which is to say, no sort of progressive at all, according to my leftist betters.

  92. 92.

    TenguPhule

    August 11, 2017 at 3:27 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    And heaven only knows how much worse it will be in 2020.

    If we make it to the end of this year without something else blowing up, I will be amazed.

  93. 93.

    tobie

    August 11, 2017 at 3:28 pm

    @Yutsano: @Miss Bianca: Thanks for the info and also for the link to the Wikipedia page on the Canadian Health Act.

  94. 94.

    germy

    August 11, 2017 at 3:30 pm

    Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) initially said he opposed the Senate’s Obamacare repeal efforts, voted for it anyway — and now claims he’s glad it was defeated.

    In a video published by liberal super PAC American Bridge, Heller claims he’s happy with the outcome of the bill’s defeat — glossing over the fact that he voted for the bill himself.

    “I obviously got in the middle of this healthcare battle,” Heller said, “and I feel real pleased with the way this thing turned out.”

    He concluded the short statement by saying, with a smile, that Republicans are now “turning the page to tax reform.”

  95. 95.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    @Miss Bianca:

    then expand coverage for 0-18 (or even 0-26, in keeping with the ACA guidelines) as another step.

    Love that 0-26…makes sense.

  96. 96.

    Kent

    August 11, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Right. Personally I think “Medicare for All” is a great campaign slogan for Democrats. The term “Single Payer” is wonky insidery language. It’s all about the framing.

    Honestly based on how politics gets done in this country, under the best case scenario, any kind of next round health care reform that moves us closer to single payer is almost certainly going to contain private “Medicare Advantage” types of options contained within it. That seems the likely compromise to get the 60 votes necessary. So we would get to universal coverage but wouldn’t necessarily wring all the rent capturing out of the system. And we would end up paying more for health care at the national level than might otherwise have been the case under a perfect system. But that’s pretty much the American way.

  97. 97.

    Miss Bianca

    August 11, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    @germy: Christ, what a weasel. Obligatory apologies to weasels. And does he go on to “say, with a smile”, how the Republicans are going to go on to tax reform *without* gutting health care?

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 3:35 pm

    @germy:

    Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) initially said he opposed the Senate’s Obamacare repeal efforts, voted for it anyway — and now claims he’s glad it was defeated.

    In a video published by liberal super PAC American Bridge, Heller claims he’s happy with the outcome of the bill’s defeat — glossing over the fact that he voted for the bill himself.

    “I obviously got in the middle of this healthcare battle,” Heller said, “and I feel real pleased with the way this thing turned out.”

    He concluded the short statement by saying, with a smile, that Republicans are now “turning the page to tax reform.”

    Nope.
    Uh huh
    No way, muthaphucka.
    That vote is going to be tied around your neck like an anvil.

  99. 99.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 11, 2017 at 3:35 pm

    @Ksmiami: I was wondering about the political feasibility of having the government will pay for all births. You’d get people whining about welfare mothers and so forth but I feel like it’d be outweighed by how popular it would be. Just say no mother should have to bring home a bill with her baby. Add the Finland baby-box thing. How expensive could that be, even for complicated births? I honestly have no idea. But it seems like we willingly pay for a lot of things that are much less ethically justifiable than that.

  100. 100.

    retr2327

    August 11, 2017 at 3:38 pm

    @tobie: If your conception of “market-driven” is sufficiently flexible to swallow a requirement that companies not make any profit from providing insurance, then yes, I suppose I can’t identify any difference in structure that you would recognize . . .

  101. 101.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 3:39 pm

    That muthaphucka Lieberman…objecting to Medicare’s age being lowered to 55. If we’d already had that in place with Obamacare…the move to lower to 50 wouldn’t seem so ‘radical’.

  102. 102.

    TenguPhule

    August 11, 2017 at 3:40 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    You’d get people whining about welfare mothers and so forth but I feel like it’d be outweighed by how popular it would be.

    Hahahaha, no.

    Slutshaming is a national conservative ritual that requires all women who have the audacity to be pregnant and not white and married to a rich person to be roundly condemned as leeches on society’s tit.

    I blame the Pilgrims, if they’d just had the decency to die off and not spread their rigid theology into our national identity.

  103. 103.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 11, 2017 at 3:40 pm

    @Kent: “Single payer” is one of the WORST slogans ever created. It doesn’t even communicate WHO THE HELL PAYS, just that there’s one of them. That’s pretty much the least compelling part of the whole idea. It’d be like selling a cell phone as a Rectangle Machine. Seeing “Single Payer” get used by the same people who carp and moan about everything Democrats and liberals attempt in the way of “messaging” is mind-boggling.

  104. 104.

    raven

    August 11, 2017 at 3:43 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: Sort of like Pro Life.

  105. 105.

    germy

    August 11, 2017 at 3:43 pm

    @rikyrah:

    That vote is going to be tied around your neck like an anvil.

    Meanwhile the weasel is experiencing the most horrible nightmare a smiling republican can suffer: he’s being primaried from the right.

  106. 106.

    tobie

    August 11, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    @retr2327: I don’t want to hog the thread with this discussion but would note that both Swiss and German private insurance companies are “not-for-profit” (as opposed to “non-profit”) companies. They can’t make money on the basic plan (i.e., our “bronze plan”) but on anything above and beyond that they can and do make money to sustain and advance the business.

  107. 107.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 11, 2017 at 3:45 pm

    @TenguPhule: I acknowledge the popularity of slut-shaming. But that works much better as an anti-abortion argument, because having an abortion is in their eyes getting out of a deserved punishment. But becoming a mother and not getting a bill… that wouldn’t play as getting out of your well-deserved slut-punishment, because you’d still have to find a way to care for the baby. (I’m all for government-provided childcare too, but I concede that it would be a heavy lift politically because of anti-“welfare” sentiments on the right.)

  108. 108.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 3:47 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: The thing is to just do it and then it’ll be hard to take away. And unlike reforming the entire health care finance system, doing this wouldn’t be that disruptive.

  109. 109.

    VFX Lurker

    August 11, 2017 at 3:48 pm

    My one concern with federal single-payer is the Hyde Amendment, which leads to cruel outcomes in Medicaid.

    After this summer, though, I can picture this Congress using federal single-payer to also deny women access to maternity care and birth control in addition to abortion.

    I used to think more highly of single-payer, but only because I saw its implementations in countries that cared about women’s health. Not sure about my own country.

  110. 110.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 11, 2017 at 3:49 pm

    @Baud: Ivanka is working on these issues now, right? @_@

  111. 111.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 3:51 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: Glad she’s there to act as a moderating force.

  112. 112.

    Cheryl Rofer

    August 11, 2017 at 3:52 pm

    Trump is threatening Kim Jong Un again, but I’m headed to my knitting group! See y’all later!

  113. 113.

    TenguPhule

    August 11, 2017 at 3:54 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    But becoming a mother and not getting a bill… that wouldn’t play as getting out of your well-deserved slut-punishment, because you’d still have to find a way to care for the baby. (I’m all for government-provided childcare too, but I concede that it would be a heavy lift politically because of anti-“welfare” sentiments on the right.)

    “Young Bucks with their T-bone steaks.”

    Facts don’t matter to the Conservative Khristians. They’re very good at demonizing by making shit up.

  114. 114.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 11, 2017 at 3:54 pm

    @Kent: I agree that “medicare for all” is a great slogan, but I’m also aware that there are people who are very hung up on “single payer” and it’s important to know what we’re talking about.

  115. 115.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 11, 2017 at 3:57 pm

    A “market driven” solution will never work in something as totally fucked up and anti-market as you can get, such as health care.

  116. 116.

    raven

    August 11, 2017 at 3:58 pm

    “This man will not get away with what he is doing. If he utters one threat in the form of an overt threat, which, by the way, he has been uttering for years and his family has been uttering for years, or if he does anything with respect to Guam, or any place else that is an American territory or an America ally, he will truly regret it and he will regret it fast,” Trump said.

  117. 117.

    TenguPhule

    August 11, 2017 at 3:58 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
    Military solutions are now fully in place,locked and loaded,should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!

    I do not like this alternate timeline.

  118. 118.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 3:58 pm

    @VFX Lurker:

    After this summer, though, I can picture this Congress using federal single-payer to also deny women access to maternity care and birth control in addition to abortion.

    You do not lie.

  119. 119.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 11, 2017 at 3:59 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: @Baud: The Princess Trumpale will be bringing Gwyneth Wannabe “Brand” to India on our behalf this fall

    Christina Wilkie‏Verified account @ christinawilkie 24h24 hours ago
    Ivanka Trump leading the US del. to Global Entrepreneurship Summit is an insult to entrepreneurs. She’s worked for her dad her whole life.

    Bobby Ghosh‏Verified account @ ghoshworld 14h14 hours ago
    India diplomat tells me: “We regard @ IvankaTrump the way we do half-wit Saudi princes. It’s in our national interest to flatter them.”
    The diplomat added: “Yes, it is a shame that the US should be compared to a kingdom. But that is America’s shame, not Modi’s, or India’s.”Bobby Ghosh added,

  120. 120.

    germy

    August 11, 2017 at 3:59 pm

    excellent LGM comment:

    Gone2Ground • 9 minutes ago

    From the article:

    Mary Nelson, 73, used her question time at Carter’s Darien town hall to insist that Republicans were all wrong about single-payer health care. She walked through an experience that her Australian relatives had gone through, and described a cheap system “with no hoops to jump through” that could be copied in America.

    “They are taxed out the wazoo in Australia,” interjected Adrienne Stidhams, 48, a Trump supporter.

    “How much do we pay for premiums?” Nelson asked rhetorically.

    That’s the kind of thing that must send shivers down the spines of the GOP: an informed electorate.

  121. 121.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    August 11, 2017 at 4:00 pm

    @Baud: But her Emails!

  122. 122.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 4:00 pm

    @TenguPhule:

    Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
    Military solutions are now fully in place,locked and loaded,should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!

    His voters would have to apologize until Jesus returns….and, it still wouldn’t be enough.

  123. 123.

    trollhattan

    August 11, 2017 at 4:00 pm

    @TenguPhule:
    What, we were misplaced, unlocked and empty before? Who knew?

  124. 124.

    jl

    August 11, 2017 at 4:01 pm

    I don’t think it’s true that single payer is the only way to get good health care for US. But is one way, so good to put it up for debate.
    Nothing going to happen for next few years since knaves and fools are running things right now.
    Would be good to debate various forms of single payer systems, and how improvements to PPACA would compare.

  125. 125.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 4:02 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Bobby Ghosh‏Verified account @ ghoshworld 14h14 hours ago
    India diplomat tells me: “We regard @ IvankaTrump the way we do half-wit Saudi princes. It’s in our national interest to flatter them.”
    The diplomat added: “Yes, it is a shame that the US should be compared to a kingdom. But that is America’s shame, not Modi’s, or India’s.”Bobby Ghosh added,

    No lie told.
    Don’t feel bad at all about what they’ve said.

  126. 126.

    Baud

    August 11, 2017 at 4:03 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Ivanka Trump leading the US del. to Global Entrepreneurship Summit is an insult to entrepreneurs.

    Also, an insult to the U.S., the Globe, and summits.

  127. 127.

    Kent

    August 11, 2017 at 4:03 pm

    @retr2327:

    Attaining universal coverage and wringing private profits out of the health care system are two completely separate policy objectives. And the insurance companies themselves are only one layer in a system of private hospitals, private clinics, and privately employed medical providers. Private profits are earned at every level of the system, not just at the insurance companies.

    A majority of Americans is likely to support the first objective. I think it’s relatively easy to sell. I think the second objective is something of a fools errand. Pretty much every other sector of the economy: transportation, energy, environmental protection, infrastructure development, education etc. etc. has layers of participation by private entities that earn profits. I’m not sure why eliminating private profit from health care is more important than any other sector of the economy.

  128. 128.

    rikyrah

    August 11, 2017 at 4:03 pm

    OFA targets vulnerable Republicans with a new grassroots project https://t.co/b3KyJUthvS pic.twitter.com/OuFwMuuPjO
    — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 11, 2017

  129. 129.

    Frank Wilhoit

    August 11, 2017 at 4:06 pm

    @tobie: “…Both countries highly regulate the health insurance industry…” First of all, say what you mean: for “highly” read “effectively”. Their regulation of their health insurance industries appears “high”, because it goes beyond what we could do here, not merely in degree but in kind. American industries have been above the law for so long that they simply will not consent to being regulated effectively and there is no power that can coerce them. (And Bernie Sanders and his people do not understand that problem in those terms and have no idea what to do about it, but I digress.)

    The private sector has nothing to contribute — except cash, derived from skimming, to campaigns. They cannot contribute efficiency in delivery. Perhaps in other places they can; but here, even if they had the craft, they do not care about efficiency and cannot be induced to care about it. All they care about is skimming. And our problem is not that there is not enough skimming going on; it is that there is too much.

  130. 130.

    Major Major Major Major

    August 11, 2017 at 4:07 pm

    @Kent: The second objective isn’t even something Democrats can agree they want to do, so, maybe let’s not make it our overriding goal and stick with achieving universal coverage instead.

  131. 131.

    gene108

    August 11, 2017 at 4:09 pm

    @rikyrah:

    His voters would have to apologize until Jesus returns….

    The way Trump’s going Jesus may have to return sooner than he thought

  132. 132.

    germy

    August 11, 2017 at 4:09 pm

    @Frank Wilhoit:

    And our problem is not that there is not enough skimming going on;
    it is that there is too much.

    Well said.

  133. 133.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 11, 2017 at 4:09 pm

    @raven: my post got et, but trump seems quite preoccupied with “uttering” today

    POTUS: “My critics are only saying that because it’s me. If somebody else uttered the exact words, they’d say, what a great statement.”
    If Kim Jong Un “utters one threat” or targets a US territory or US ally, “he will truly regret it. And he will regret it fast.”

    Jim Acosta‏Verified account
    Trump defends his comments on North Korea: “this man will not get away with what he’s doing.”

    he’s “getting away with” uttering.

  134. 134.

    Captain C

    August 11, 2017 at 4:10 pm

    @Major Major Major Major:

    There are some very vocal people in the party who won’t accept a comparable universal program that isn’t “single-payer”.

    Because it’s not Moral or Right. And being Moral and Right is more important that saving or otherwise improving actual lives.

  135. 135.

    Captain C

    August 11, 2017 at 4:11 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Trump defends his comments on North Korea: “this man will not get away with what he’s doing.”

    I’m guessing this yet more projection on his part.

  136. 136.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    August 11, 2017 at 4:13 pm

    @Captain C: also, virtue signaling

  137. 137.

    Captain C

    August 11, 2017 at 4:19 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    He’s convinced a sizable chunk of should-be Dem voters that the only thing between them and Nordic utopia is the corruption and cowardice of the Democratic establishment, with their donuts and bottled water.

    Well, that and “identity politics.”

  138. 138.

    Captain C

    August 11, 2017 at 4:20 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That too.

  139. 139.

    gene108

    August 11, 2017 at 4:21 pm

    @Kent:

    Pretty much every other sector of the economy: transportation, energy, environmental protection, infrastructure development, education etc. etc. has layers of participation by private entities that earn profits.

    We do not interact directly with the financial ends of these industries. Roads get paved. Our taxes pay for that. We aren’t fighting with the paving company because they are directly billing us for the asphalt they laid down in front of our house.

  140. 140.

    retr2327

    August 11, 2017 at 4:22 pm

    @Kent: I think if you review my comments from the top, you’ll find I didn’t really take a position on what the endpoint should be, or how it should be reached. I’ve just been discussing the meaning of “market-driven” with Tobie, who seems to have a different understanding of it.

    FWIW, I am not, by any means, a believer in a market-driven solution to health care, but I don’t believe that it’s necessary to drive all profit out of it either. In short, smart and effective regulation is mandatory.

  141. 141.

    eclare

    August 11, 2017 at 4:26 pm

    @trollhattan: Maybe he finally found that aircraft carrier group that he lost a few months ago.

  142. 142.

    Captain C

    August 11, 2017 at 4:27 pm

    @rikyrah: I would say that wouldn’t be good for his spine, but based on his vote vs. his rhetoric, I’d say he already doesn’t have one.

  143. 143.

    Roger Moore

    August 11, 2017 at 4:27 pm

    @jl:

    I don’t think it’s true that single payer is the only way to get good health care for US. But is one way, so good to put it up for debate.

    A good point. Lets move the fucking Overton Window to the point that the discussion is about how to get everyone coverage, not whether we should let poor people die because they don’t have health insurance.

  144. 144.

    clay

    August 11, 2017 at 4:28 pm

    @Jeffro:

    I don’t really care that much about who it is: just give us two youngish, charismatic, positive people (hopefully women and people of color) and let’s have at it.

    I hate to say it, but I think charismatic is the key word here. I know as good liberals we’re supposed to want the best positions and policy statements, but since at least JFK, with very few exceptions, the candidate with the more natural charm has prevailed.

    Kennedy, LBJ, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama… Nixon was propelled by dirty tricks and leftist disunity (sound familiar?), while Bush/Dukakis was a wash, charisma-wise.

  145. 145.

    Kent

    August 11, 2017 at 4:32 pm

    @retr2327:

    Retr2327: I think we are 100% on the same page. I was just sloppy in replying to your post and intended to add to your argument rather than suggest I was disagreeing.

    In my former life I worked for the federal government writing environmental and fisheries regulations for NOAA. Smart and effective regulation is exactly what I agree with and how most of the rest of the modern world structures its economies.

  146. 146.

    Roger Moore

    August 11, 2017 at 4:34 pm

    @Kent:

    I’m not sure why eliminating private profit from health care is more important than any other sector of the economy.

    I don’t think we need to root out all private profit, but I strongly feel that doctors should be considered fiduciaries. The average person has no way of judging what care is appropriate, and that leaves a lot of room for doctors to make patient decisions based on their interests instead of their patients’. Of course that applies to more than just financial interests; there’s very good evidence that obstetricians have been pushing medically unnecessary c-sections because they’re good for the doctor.

  147. 147.

    trollhattan

    August 11, 2017 at 4:35 pm

    @eclare:
    Heh, stupid Aussies, stealin’ our stuff agin’.

  148. 148.

    jl

    August 11, 2017 at 4:40 pm

    Single payer is one way to achieve better quality and more affordable health care in the US. I disagree that it is the only way. Seems like a good time to put up some ideas for single payer and similar systems. Nothing else can happen now due to the jerks in charge of WH and Congress. Would be good to debate the proposal against ideas to improve PPACA. If single payer and similar ideas continue to get good polling support, might spur some moderate GOPers and conservative Democrats to get off their butts and put forward serious proposals to fix problems in US health care system.

    One thing in favor of single payer, is that going that route brings in Congressional power to tax and decide how to spend tax money, and make some other reforms easier. One example would be problems of provider market power and opaque pricing in provider markets. In a perfect world, a market oriented economist might argue would be better to address those issues directly, gut in US system, doing so might be as hard or harder than getting to the various single payer systems adopted.

    Does anyone ‘hate’ this proposal? Why? I see no reason to hate it. Unless you are one of the GOP knaves and fools currently in charge.

  149. 149.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 11, 2017 at 4:43 pm

    @clay: LBJ had no charisma, and neither did Carter. (LBJ is more of a throwback to the “machine pol” kind of character, which is weird after JFK was already the “new media celebrity” guy by 1960 standards.

    I actually think the key concepts going forward for Democrats are youth, optimism, and the avoidance of corruption. “Charisma” is too hard to come by, which makes it hard to select for. (And most of what people call charisma is retrospective anyway. I was never much for Bill Clinton’s supposed charisma, and George W. Bush was far more _amiable_ than charismatic. I think we haven’t really had that many _charismatic_ per se presidents in the TV era: IMHO only JFK, Reagan, and Obama qualify. I don’t know what to do with Trump, who’s just _such an asshole_. I find it hard to define a raging, unattractive, hard-to-watch asshole as charismatic.

  150. 150.

    Captain C

    August 11, 2017 at 4:46 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    But that works much better as an anti-abortion argument, because having an abortion is in their eyes getting out of a deserved punishment.

    I still can’t figure out how they can square wanting to punish “sluts” by making them have and care for babies with being so “pro-life” (really “anti-abortion” or maybe “pro-forced-birth”) that they can’t talk about anything but how much they care about the little fetuses, which are a True Blessing from God. Or something. Seriously, we’re going to punish you for having icky sexytime fun with a little bundle of joy which is the best thing ever (as long as we don’t have to pay for any of the actual expenses associated with its upbringing).

  151. 151.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 11, 2017 at 4:55 pm

    @Captain C: I think it’s supposed to be that it’s the kind of punishment that successfully reforms the offender. The baby teaches you responsibility in a tough-love way and then teaches you joy and tenderness in a nice way. Then again, maybe, like you’re saying, it’s just grotesquely inconsistent, like most of what they believe.

  152. 152.

    clay

    August 11, 2017 at 5:05 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: I realize that ‘charisma’ is vaguely defined at best, and often depends on the eye of the beholder. But one must take into account the duality of the choice here. LBJ and Carter may not be movie-star-types, but they were up against Goldwater and Ford. So, comparatively, they were more charismatic. GWB was a kind of fratty asshole, but he had a relaxed, schmoozy way about him. And he went up against Gore and Kerry — two famously stiff wonks. (I recognize he didn’t beat Gore properly, but he made it close enough to steal.)

    I love Hillary, but she was stiff like Gore. And Trump, goddamn him, knows showmanship and self-promotion (and little else). He’s very watchable on camera — that’s how he got famous in the first place. I thought 2016 would finally be the year of a policy-based election, but it was not to be. I have little faith that 2020 will be any different, which is why we need someone charming and telegenic. I think Gillibrand qualifies, to bring this back on topic.

  153. 153.

    VeniceRiley

    August 11, 2017 at 5:19 pm

    What does everyone think about letting everyone buy into Medicaid as an option on their exchange in each state? That would keep it with the states, who are hell bent on controlling everything. It would strengthen Medicaid and put people with political capital in their corner. And it might be doable more than Medicare for all.

  154. 154.

    TenguPhule

    August 11, 2017 at 5:22 pm

    @Captain C:

    Seriously, we’re going to punish you for having icky sexytime fun with a little bundle of joy which is the best thing ever

    You’re forgetting carrying to term, labor and birth.

    I assure you, they have not.

  155. 155.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 11, 2017 at 5:42 pm

    @clay: I get that, but it’s sort of circular: knowing who won, you can go back and say, “must have been more charismatic.” That’s what makes me suspicious about it as a heuristic. It’s fixing the data around the hypothesis.

    In a more general sense, though, old-pro types are NOT faring well: Humphrey, Mondale, Dole, Gore, Kerry, McCain, Hillary. I think that’s the through-line both sides are learning to avoid. The old pros who won are LBJ, Nixon, and George H.W. Bush. IMHO the common thread for Democrats who won is youth, optimism, and character (in a public sense if not a private sense). That explains Kennedy (character is questionable I suppose but it was a different media landscape then), Carter, Bill Clinton (more on the youth and optimism part than the character part), and Obama. Carter has no charisma, he’s just a good guy. Clinton I don’t find charismatic, but he’s certainly earnest.

    The upside is that my list of qualities is easier to come by than “charisma.” Gillibrand would pass the test, as would the Castros, Tim Kaine, Chris Murphy, etc. A lot of them are kinda boring, but they’re decent, committed, intelligent people, and I think that’s going to go a long way against Trump, and it’s gone a long way before. (Hillary and Gore are quintessentially this type BUT they got smeared for scandal and couldn’t shake it because they’d been around too long and it became a sort of patina on them.) I suppose Warren is sort of a Carter type. She’s older than ideal. Sanders is too idiosyncratic and I don’t know what to make of him. Closest example would be Goldwater. Of the emerging contenders, I think only Boöker is charismatic per se.

  156. 156.

    Ksmiami

    August 11, 2017 at 6:23 pm

    @rikyrah: then we use kidcare as part of the democratic party’s pro life stance. See I want to crush the GOP with their own weapons and split off the Catholic vote…

  157. 157.

    Ksmiami

    August 11, 2017 at 6:30 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: the whole point with kidCare is to both improve the next generation, create a relatively low risk pool and challenge the GOP lie that they r the pro-life party. Imagine the ads? The Republicans hate kids, moms and puppies… see I’m not afraid of reframing the arguments

  158. 158.

    Ruckus

    August 11, 2017 at 7:45 pm

    This may be a dead thread but I’ve seen several topics covered.
    1. Medicare is not in any way free. We pay into it for decades then when we are old enough if you need it you pay a monthly cost, 3 yrs ago it was $110/month, and 20% copays. If you are on a limited budget, Medicare is far from free. How would Medicare for All differ?
    2. A fixed low profit system can work but needs extreme regulation. That may not work here. How do we get rid of the for profit system and what about all those people in it now who would lose jobs?
    3. Single payer, unless done correctly will still have huge medical costs, those have to change along side to make it reasonable.
    4. Universal health care, like the VA. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, a lot of people would hate it. I know, I use it very regularly. Like today. The waiting, for appointments, the limited bed space for emergencies, the limited days your clinic has residents and attending physicians for more than routine issues, the limited number of appointments for routine care, the number of facilities available, the number of hospitals available, the locations for those…… All of these can be fixed but the fact that it would have to be the federal government doing the work and all of us paying for it, I just don’t see that playing well in huge swaths of this country. We may have gone too far down the road with profitable healthcare to reverse course.
    How many countries our population size or even close have universal or single payer healthcare?

  159. 159.

    J R in WV

    August 11, 2017 at 9:39 pm

    @retr2327:

    I don’t believe that it’s necessary to drive all profit out of it either. In short, smart and effective regulation is mandatory.

    I think making a profit from people’s misfortune (cancer, heart failure, renal failure, etc, etc) is morally evil and wrong. I’m not saying doctors and other health care professionals should not make a very good living.

    I’m saying managers and executives who spend their days figuring out how to squeeze another few hundred dollars from patients suffering from terrible diseases are evil and have no moral part in health care. Like that guy, Martin Shkreli, who was just convicted for stock fraud, they are all immoral, evil scum, no other way to discuss it.

  160. 160.

    Burnspbesq

    August 12, 2017 at 12:08 pm

    a market-driven system will never achieve affordable, universal coverage

    The people of Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland would like a word with you, Betty.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - dmkingto - SF Bay Area Scenes 3
Image by dmkingto (6/18/25)

Recent Comments

  • Belafon on All the News That’s Fit To Print Open Thread (Jun 18, 2025 @ 1:10pm)
  • Mr. Bemused Senior on All the News That’s Fit To Print Open Thread (Jun 18, 2025 @ 1:10pm)
  • Belafon on On The Road – something fabulous – No Kings! Glendale CA (Jun 18, 2025 @ 1:08pm)
  • Nilnoc on All the News That’s Fit To Print Open Thread (Jun 18, 2025 @ 1:07pm)
  • Baud on All the News That’s Fit To Print Open Thread (Jun 18, 2025 @ 1:06pm)

Personality Crisis Podcast (Cole, DougJ, mistermix)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
No Kings Protests June 14 2025

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!