Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

White supremacy is terrorism.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Second rate reporter says what?

T R E 4 5 O N

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

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

Republicans in disarray!

Not all heroes wear capes.

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

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Election Year Open Thread: Onward to Nevada

Election Year Open Thread: Onward to Nevada

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It’s on February 22, which is a Saturday, and ‘concerns are (already) being raised‘.

Some of you probably remember the less-than-salutatory 2016 caucuses in Nevada… at least when the term chair-throwing is mentioned.

Opening salvo, last night:

I don’t know much about Nevada politics (Jon Ralston is an expert), but IIRC, the Culinary Union is justly proud of its ‘Cadillac’ healthcare plan. The union fought really hard and risked a lot to get that plan, because a lot of the members work part-time jobs, often more than one; there’s a lot of second-income workers and ‘retirees’ who keep working specifically to hang onto those medical benefits. You can read the mailer in the tweet below, and it’s clear that not messing with their healthcare is a high priority with the CU for *every* Democratic candidate. It’s not exactly favorable towards Warren’s proposal, either:


… The Culinary Union’s leaflet does not name Warren or Sanders or cite Medicare for All, but it reflects some of the arguments both candidates have made.

The leaflet says some politicians promise “you will get more money for wages from the company if you give up Culinary Health Insurance,” but those politicians “have never sat at our bargaining table or been on a 24/7 6 years, 4 months and 10 days strike line,” a reference to an action taken by Culinary and other unions in 1991 against the Frontier Hotel and Casino that became one of the longest labor strikes in U.S. history.

“We will not hand over our healthcare for promises,” the leaflet said…

Sanders’ and Warren’s campaigns declined to comment.

The issue has been at the forefront of town halls that the union has held in Las Vegas with the candidates, including Warren and Sanders, and many union members and leaders made it clear they don’t want to give up their health plans.

(I haven’t seen Warren supporters complaining about this flyer yet, but feel free to let me know if I missed anything.)

Predictably, the Sanders supporters reacted to this mailer as they react to every ‘attack’ on their candidate. Some of them (the highest-ranking, most public figures) are arguing that it’s not really important, because after all President Sanders won’t be able to do what he’s campaigning on doing. The other half, well…


(“Ryan Grim is an American author, former Washington, D.C. bureau chief for HuffPost and The Intercept, and a progressive political commentator for The Young Turks”, per Wikipedia.)

ETA: In case you thought I was exaggerating…

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  2. 2.

    Another Scott

    Repost from downstairs:

    No one should attack @Culinary226 and its members for fighting hard for themselves and their families. Like them, I want to see every American get high-quality and affordable health care—and I’m committed to working with them to achieve that goal. https://t.co/onVqAcZRoB— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 13, 2020

    Exactly right.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  3. 3.

    Barbara

    I recently read In Hoffa’s Shadow and learned that unions (Teamsters as well as others) financed most of the hotels and casinos that were built in Las Vegas before the late 60s. Banks were too leery of gambling.

  4. 4.

    PsiFighter37

    OT, you say? Had a 1.5-hour call while I am on the road for work travel with my wife about daycare v. nanny. I basically gave in – we are doing daycare right now, but I have heard so much complaining from her over the past few weeks of daycare (which we have done for all of 6(!!!) weeks) that I effectively threw up my hands. We never had these kinds of pointed discussions before a kid showed up, but I’m worried / resigned that this becomes the norm for the next 17+ years.

    Raising a kid ain’t easy for sure, but there is zero doubt that the quality of my marriage is not what it used to be, and I sort of doubt it will ever get back to what it was.

    PF37 +5, alone on the road and mildly inebriated

  5. 5.

    FelonyGovt

    This is what happens to a campaign that treats workers as abstract cutouts rather than real people with specific concerns.

  9. 9.

    FelonyGovt

    @PsiFighter37: Having kids changes a marriage for sure. Parenting decisions are important and you may not always agree on what’s best. But @Barbara: is right. It will get better (and easier). Hang in there.

  10. 10.

    dr. bloor

    I am informed by one Twitterer that the CU folks are “class traitors.”

    Bernie’s about to get a lesson in real workers’ revolutions, and he’s going to get it good and hard.

  11. 11.

    Anne Laurie

    @PsiFighter37: Hang in there.  The people I trust on these matters have said that their marriages, post-kids, are never the same — but they can get even better, if you both give it time & attention.  (They also say that neither partner should make irrevocable decisions during the first 18 months, cuz you’re both too sleep-deprived & jumpy about all the changes to make good choices.)

  12. 12.

    PsiFighter37

    @FelonyGovt: I hope so. My wife approaches parenting (so far) with the same rigidity and planning that she applies to her work – so when anything goes off-kilter, it’s a big deal. Switching from daycare to nanny after 1.5 months feels way too fast. I basically told her that a) she owns this decision, and b) if it doesn’t work to her liking, she needs to work through it (as opposed to the cut-and-run approach being taken here).

    And I have a 6AM flight to wake up for. Fuck me.

  14. 14.

    Barbara

    @Anne Laurie: There was a point in the first 18 months when I realized I had three major obligations, kid, husband and work, but could only possibly satisfy the demands of two. And yet somehow I learned over time to put the equivalent of twice as much stuff in the same amount of storage.

  15. 15.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    That’s hilarious.

    Grimm and the Bernie cult bash everyone who doesn’t think M4A is possible and now they’re saying they were just kidding and never meant it.

  16. 16.

    guachi

    I posted this down below but I rarely post and I’m fed up with interlopers into the Democratic party so I’m posting it again:

    I donated $50 to Klobuchar last week and $50 to Warren today. I sold my rental house that was dragging my finances down and I finally have some money. I’m donating to doomed campaigns but I won’t ever donate to Sanders and I have no reason to donate to Bloomberg.

    I’m a Democrat. I’ve been one since I was 9. I’m not donating to someone who doesn’t care about the party (and I don’t think Sanders or Bloomberg do in the slightest).

    If I have to, I’ll donate to Biden, too.

  17. 17.

    Dan B

    A union guy / Facebook “friend” loves Bernie and posts endless digs at Pete.  He posted a rant by the head of the Flight Attendants Union who says M4A or bust.  I pointed out that the Nevada Culinary Union didn’t like it at all, for their own reasons.  And that the unions ought to figure out how to address each other’s issues…. before Bloomberg or Billionaires Inc does.  Flight attendant says it’s great if you lose your job or want to change jobs.

    I’m afraid to look at my front page now.

  23. 23.

    dr. bloor

    @PsiFighter37:

    Raising a kid ain’t easy for sure, but there is zero doubt that the quality of my marriage is not what it used to be, and I sort of doubt it will ever get back to what it was.

    The good news is that if you can pull this off–and it will be more like 12 years rather than 17, as the kid will be a common enemy as an adolescent—your marriage can be better than ever.  The sense of shared pride and accomplishment in seeing your heir in a mortarboard and laughing his/her head off with friends heals A Lot of injuries.

    Try not to overvalue specific decisions as you go–there won’t be that many that have the potential to make a big difference.  Nanny?  Daycare?  The better Daycare?  Whatever.  Just don’t lock the kid in a closet for years on end.  Think Big Picture.

  24. 24.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    There are people screaming “scab” in the replies. To a union.

    Yup. I was wondering if the Rose Emoji goons were gonna go after the union and I wasn’t disappointed. Unbelievable. Not a good look for “democratic socialists”

  25. 25.

    Kent

    Well, Klobuchar actually gets the best summary of all the candidates in that union flier.  Heh.

    I love how the idiots are backpedaling on M4A as soon as it might cost them actual votes.  Where’s your fucking convictions?  What else on Bernie’s platform is just throw-away nonsense that hey have no real intention of implementing?

    All of it maybe?

  26. 26.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Why don’t we just introduce a parallel public health system, where private insurance still exists for those that want it? Or hell, is it possible to grandfather in the “Cadillac” healthcare plans these unions enjoy?

  29. 29.

    jonas

    @PsiFighter37: Yeah, it gets better, but after 2 or 3 kids and you realize the stuff you freaked out about with the first one (OMG! The babysitter let her run around with wet socks for 2 hours!! Notify Child Welfare Authorities!!) really doesn’t matter. There are things to worry about and there are things to totally let slide, especially when it comes to daycare and stuff. Unfortunately, the only book that tells you that is called “Parenting Experience, Vol. 1” and it’s not a book.

  32. 32.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Why A “Public Option” Isn’t Enough

    At one point, the meaning of “Medicare For All” was quite clear. Under Medicare For All, every American, instead of having to navigate the tangled and inefficient marketplace of for-profit health insurance corporations, would simply be enrolled in Medicare. Instead of people paying premiums and copays to an insurance company, they would pay taxes, and those taxes would be used to pay providers. As Dr. Abdul El-Sayed wrote in this magazine, Medicare For All is “single-payer healthcare that would provide cradle-to-grave government-supported healthcare for all Americans.”

    But as Democrats have realized how well the phrase “Medicare For All” polls with voters, its meaning has been deliberately muddied.

    I found this piece on the first google search on the first page and I stopped reading when I read the bolded part.

    Also, TIL that the public option combined with private health insurance is also known as “two-tier healthcare”, and many wealthy industrialized nations have it

  33. 33.

    patroclus

    It’s not just the culinary union – it’s everyone who has a Cadillac private health insurance plan (or even those that don’t but like what they have anyway).  Eliminating private health insurance is something that even many countries that have public health systems don’t do.  In the U.K., with the NHS, if you want to go to a private dentist and pay for it, you can do it.  Even Canada’s highly-praised system, in many provinces doesn’t eliminate private options.  But Sanders’s plan does and (presumably) Warren’s as well.  I’m not sure why some people refuse to see this.  Moreover, Medicare isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination – there are co-pays, limits and deductibles.  Sanders’s MFA program isn’t the existing Medicare system – it’s a utopian version that supposedly is a Cadillac plan for all.  Kudos to the culinary union for pointing this out, but it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.

  34. 34.

    jl

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    ” Or hell, is it possible to grandfather in the “Cadillac” healthcare plans these unions enjoy? ”

    Yes. Would be easy to reproduce current good union health care plans in an improved ACA, with some aspects of Dutch or Swiss system. Suppose an improved ACA required every insurer had to provide an identical minimum benefit. Supplemental insurance policies can be sold on a separate less regulated market. Whatever union benefit is not included in minimum mandatory benefit can be included in a supplemental policy, with some legislated or regulated grandfathering in to guarantee same coverage in new versus old union plan.

    I don’t see why some union plans couldn’t be grandfathered into an M4A program.

    I’d like to know whether any of the presidential candidates have discussed these concerns (which I think are mistaken) with the unions.

  35. 35.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Actually Medicare, as other commenters noted above, does involve private insurance.  What’s being described in the first paragraph if more like Medicaid For All.  But even then, Medicaid(as it’s practiced here in California as MediCal) is administered by a private insurance company.

  37. 37.

    Shalimar

    So Warren’s mask came off and we found out she really is a nice, empathetic person?  What am I missing?

  38. 38.

    Belafon

    @patroclus: We’re definitely not looking for perfect, just better than what we have now. And the two systems we have that are better over all are Medicare and the VA.

  39. 39.

    Belafon

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: In high school you take the door off the bedroom.

    Mostly joking aside, my advice for new parents is generally:

    1. You don’t need a changing table.
    2. Onesies.
    3. Try your best.
    4. Don’t take it personally when they push back.
  40. 40.

    Harish Mandyam

    Medicare right now allows for private insurance participation (Medicare Advantage and Supplemental).  It’s probable that any M4A plan that gets through Congress keeps something like that around.

    As for Bernie’s plan, I glanced at the M4A bill he introduced, and it does eliminate Advantage and Supplemental and it does ban private insurance, but only for covered services.  That should mean that Culinary could have a plan for non-covered services.  From the summary: “Additionally, private health insurers and employers may only offer coverage that is supplemental to, and not duplicative of, benefits provided under the program.”  And Sec. 107(b) of the bill says “Nothing in this Act shall be construed as prohibiting the sale of health insurance coverage for any additional benefits not covered by this Act, including additional benefits that an employer may provide to employees or their dependents, or to former employees or their dependents.”

    It isn’t clear to me how existing union contracts would need to be altered in order to comply with this, and what that process would look like, which is a valid issue.  But I think Culinary is engaging in a bit of hyperbole here.

    It appears that Culinary acts as a medical provider as well.  The bill doesn’t ban private medical providers, so they can continue to do that.  I think (not sure) that providers under the bill would have to take anyone under M4A, which would mean that Culinary couldn’t restrict it’s provision only to union members (for M4A-covered services).  If so, that may be another one of their gripes, but they didn’t really make that clear.

    PS – I’m supporting Warren.

    https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1129/text#toc-id9284868594934585837028a98cfaec3b

  41. 41.

    jl

    @patroclus: Sanders and Warren’s plans both include supplemental private insurance.

    Sanders can’t help being an ideologue, so in interviews he has consistently pissed on the private supplemental insurance provision in his plan. Why on earth he would do that, I have no clue.

    Warren’s plan grandfathers in union plans during the proposed transition period, retains any special clinics and and medical groups that specifically provide care to union plans, and also proposes a program to maintain current union health care coverage in a supplemental insurance market, with special provisions for union and other worker sponsored employment based plans.

    If I were union leadership, I would be worried about Sanders’ plan since he seems to hold his own proposal to have supplemental private policies in contempt.

    I have to wonder why they’d, AFAIK, by implication, oppose Warren’s too.

  42. 42.

    Llelldorin

    @PsiFighter37: It gets better as the kids get older, honestly. Frustrating as teenagers can be, there’s absolutely no comparison between that and the insane amount of work that younger kids take. (Also, at some point you sort of give up on doing things perfectly, and relax into “OK, everyone’s still alive, so I guess we’re good.”)

  43. 43.

    dr. bloor

    @jl: Well, in Sanders’s case, it’s because he doesn’t grasp or care about details.  He’s an ideologue, and can’t be bothered with such arcana.

  44. 44.

    patroclus

    @Belafon: The culinary union, with their negotiated Cadillac plan, disagrees.  As do others with good private insurance plans.  They don’t want a lesser-providing Medicare or VA; they want what they have or better.  Medicare is certainly better than many plans and no plan at all, but it isn’t the gold standard of health coverage.  Pretending that it is is foolish.

    The best solution is to improve Medicare and to offer it to those who want it, but to also allow other plans to exist.

  45. 45.

    MisterForkbeard

    @PsiFighter37: Yeah. We mad some decisions early on that really helped: day care pretty early on, accepted that our house would be a lot messier, we ordered in a lot more because we didnt have time to cook, etc.

    Gotta be flexible and realize that plans and standards and so on will need to change. We have a 3 and 5 year old and we had a really rough first 5 months and then we solidified up and got back into our groove.

    It’s a partnership, etc.

  46. 46.

    Kent

    @Belafon: Long time teacher and parent of three here.

    Three basic rules for parenting (or teaching) at any age:

    1.  Don’t explain too much.  They don’t ALWAYS need to know why
    2. Don’t give in
    3. Don’t get angry

    Those three rules will get you through just about any situation.

    Also give choices but only the choices YOU are willing to live with.  Ask:  “Do you want peas, or do you want corn” not “do you want vegetables”   Do you want to take your bath BEFORE dinner?  Or do you want to take your bath AFTER dinner.  Then after dinner when it’s bath time the conversation is:  “I’m sorry honey but THIS is when YOU decided that you wanted to take your bath.

  47. 47.

    jl

    @dr. bloor: I think it’s more than that. I’ve heard Sanders in interviews talk about his M4A plan. When asked about concerns of, for example, those who have better than average union plans, he practically spit out something like “Yeah… people can get private insurance policies for extra stuff….  oohhh, I dunno… plastic surgery… stuff like that…”

    Fergawdsake, man, WTF, with talk like that about your own damned plan. He talks like it’s in his plan because people who know about the subject told him to put the damn thing in there, and he felt he had to, or something…

  48. 48.

    patroclus

    @jl: Good to know that Warren’s plan isn’t really MFA and that she would allow supplemental (and arguably better) plans to continue to exist.  She should make that clearer by dropping the MFA label.  Sanders too if it applies.

  49. 49.

    jl

    @patroclus: “The best solution is to improve Medicare and to offer it to those who want it, but to also allow other plans to exist.”

    I agree. The problem is that for a stable system, the private plans will have to be much more strictly regulated, otherwise they will pick off the healthier people in the voluntary public plans.

    Harris was the only candidate I know of who specifically addressed this issue at least in some interviews she did before she dropped out.

    The big problem I have with the centrist ‘improve ACA’ bunch is not that their proposals are inherently unworkable, it is that, save for ex-candidate Harris, they are so vague in how the public and private systems would be integrated, that it is impossible to know whether their proposals for public option, and related ideas will be workable.

    Though, Klobochar is better than the other centrists, which is one reason she is my favorite centrist.

  50. 50.

    Kent

    @patroclus: They are not stupid and they are correct.   Any future M4A that could conceivably ever pass Congress will be weakened endlessly in the negotiating process in the guise of cost-cutting and deal-cutting.  Reproductive health care, for example, always seems to be on the chopping block.  And Dems desperate to bring the thing to a final vote will go along with a lot of half measures with the idea that they can do the fixits later, but later never comes.  There will be some future Senator Lieberman who will grandstand and make things shittier because he is in the pockets of some special interest.

    If Cadillac health care is what they want, then they should fight to keep it.   There is no guarantee that they would ever get future raises commensurate with the costs of the health care that they are loosing and they would likely face new taxes under M4A so lose, lose.  Shittier health care that they are paying more to get while their employers pocket the savings.

    The idea that we are talking about Bernie or Warren’s plans as if that is what would ultimately be implemented after the sausage-making process is laughable.  The President actually controls no part of the process until the final decision to sign or veto the results.  It’s called separation of powers and too few people understand it. The 60th most liberal Senator has more control than the President and in the current congress that would be Rand Paul.  He is who the unions will depend on to make sure some future M4A is as good or better than their current plans.

  51. 51.

    hitchhiker

    After 2015/16 I just cannot take any of the pundits seriously. They don’t know any more than I do. Not one of them predicted Amy’s showing in NH. Now they want us to think they know what it means, but that’s just because they have to fill airtime.

    Also, as long as Sanders is alive, the internet will be overrun with Berners insisting that he’s getting treated unfairly. At some point some of them will realize they sound just like trump (who is ALWAYS treated unfairly) and shut up about it … but to me tonight that’s the single most irritating thing about his campaign.

    He’s just an old white dude, FFS. When he came to Congress, there were 24 women representatives. Twenty-four. Half the population, 5% of the representation. But OMG, Bernie has been so screwed. He never gets a break. The deck is just stacked against him, while he bravely soldiers on.

    Ugh.

  52. 52.

    opiejeanne

    @Llelldorin: No one’s currently* bleeding, no one has lost an eye, so it’s all good.

    I really liked my kids more and more as they grew out of babyhood and toddlerdom, when you could have conversations with them. I loved them as teenagers, except for the two years my son turned into an absolute shit, age 13 and 14. On his 15th birthday it was like a switch was flipped and he was his old sweet self again.

     

    *There was lots of bleeding. Kids fall off of playground equipment, do stupid stunts with wagons and bicycles, bang their heads against windowsills and furniture. We didn’t have a coffee table until all three were past their 5th birthday.

  53. 53.

    opiejeanne

    @Kent: I would add rule #4: don’t let the kid(s) divide you from your partner, don’t let them play you against each other. Check with your partner if your kid says, “Mom says it’s ok”. It’s usually not.

  54. 54.

    jl

    @patroclus: I do not know of a a social insurance type system anywhere in any industrialized economy that does not include an option for supplemental insurance  That includes what I think is the most M4A plan that ever existed, Australia. Recently Australian conservative governments forced inclusion of competing private insurance for basic coverage, many believe in order to undermine the system. But, so far, the hybrid system seems to be working.

    And the Swiss system, which is supposed to completely private, has huge carve outs for directly provided for completely publicly funded, or extremely heavily publicly financed care. That includes care up to age 25 for independent young adults, pregnancy and deliver, quite a bit of primary pediatric care in schools (health examinations, for example). And the Dutch and Swiss private insurance systems have a supplemental insurance market on top of the highly regulated market for the uniform basic minimum plan.

    One of the problems with health care debate in the US is that stereotypes systems in a very cartoonish, ignorant, and misleading way. IMHO.

  55. 55.

    Kent

    @opiejeanne: That’s a another good one, yes.  Never get divided.  Unless you intentionally want to be.  “Don’t tell mom” in a conspiratorial voice when you stop for ice cream can be fun too.  But only if mom actually knows.

  56. 56.

    Mandalay

    @jl:

    I have to wonder why they’d, AFAIK, by implication, oppose Warren’s too.

    If this Vox article is still accurate (it’s about 3 months old), this may be what they don’t like:

    Only later, in her third year in the White House, does Warren say she would pursue Medicare-for-all legislation that would actually prohibit private health insurance, as would be required for the single-payer program that she says she, like Bernie Sanders, wants.

    With Bernie’s plan they get executed at sunrise. With her plan they sit on death row for three years, and then they get executed.

  57. 57.

    Kent

    @jl: And the discussions always seem to happen in a vacuum here, as if no other country has ever tried to sort through this issue an come up with solutions.  It’s like we are trying to invent the automobile from scratch without ever taking a peek at how the Germans, Japanese, and Koreans are doing it.

  59. 59.

    FlipYrWhig

    @jl: Sanders is gruff and impatient and convinced he knows best about every fucking thing.  These qualities, which are *his best qualities*–and, let me just add, yikes?–make him absolutely incapable of explaining anything.

  60. 60.

    jl

    As a Warren supporter, and in the times that try supporters souls, still a contributor, even though things look bleak right now, maybe this union flap over health reform will be an opening for her.

    I think she is the one candidate who probably actually understands the issues involved.

    After Warren became a leading candidate, then there was the issue of how she could differentiate herself from Sanders. I think she easily could have gotten the idea ‘out there’ by spotlighting her corporate reform proposals. And she could have been the explainer and debunker in chief regarding all the misleading sloganeering on health care reform.

    But maybe that was too much to expect for someone during their first run in a national race. Both would have been like walking to a crooked poker game and turning the card table upside down. On corporate reform, no way that question would come up in any of those dog and pony show debates the corporate news celebrities put on. She’d have to force the subject. And the billionaires would hate her worse than Sanders.

    On health care she would have to stand there and say everyone else on the stage was wrong, or babbling nonsense about stuff they didn’t understand at all. And, probably have to challenge the questions very directly.

    Maybe this is her opening to do that, and would be worth her run, even if she doesn’t make it to the convention.

  61. 61.

    TS (the original)

    @patroclus:

    Eliminating private health insurance is something that even many countries that have public health systems don’t do

    I doubt PHI will ever be eliminated but if Australia is any indication, over the years it will become more and more for the wealthy only. At the minute in Oz it is subsidized by the government (30% + of premiums are paid by the government) and people are still dropping out & relying on the public health system.  When something isn’t compulsory, the young & fit opt out & rely on the public (medicare) system and the private system more and more is maintained by the older sicker people & this is not sustainable.

    I believe President Obama had the right philosophy with medicaid for the poorer members of society & compulsory insurance for the rest. This would slowly evolve into the equivalent of medicare for all over a number of years as the cost of private insurance became more & more.

    The difference with US and the rest however, is the tying of  health insurance to employment, this adds a dimension that most other countries do not have.

  62. 62.

    Redshift

    @hitchhiker:

    Also, as long as Sanders is alive, the internet will be overrun with Berners insisting that he’s getting treated unfairly. 

    I think it’s optimistic to believe it will only continue as long as he’s alive.

  64. 64.

    TS (the original)

    @jl:

    Recently Australian conservative governments forced inclusion of competing private insurance for basic coverage, many believe in order to undermine the system. But, so far, the hybrid system seems to be working.

    It’s working to make premiums rise by 5%+ every year & young & healthy people are dropping out as the premiums rise – so no, it’s not a great success – yet it was for the first 30 years when most of the insurance companies were non-profit.

  65. 65.

    Joey Maloney

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I think it was a Heinlein character who said that all teenaged boys should be nailed into a barrel and feed through the bunghole. Then when they turn 18 you have a decision to make: either let them out …or hammer in the bung.

    Except for the sexism I endorse this child-rearing strategy.

  66. 66.

    jl

    @Mandalay: It would prohibit private insurance for basic mandatory coverage. As I noted above, Warren has extensive provisions for preserving benefits over and above the minimum required coverage, and to protect specialized union benefits for work related health problems.

    So, if the unions are against it, probably because they don’t trust her to deliver. But if the unions have competent health care economists, they must be telling them that the centrists’ plans are so vague, that they are really nothing at all but slogans. So, also, maybe some kind of loss aversion on the unions part.

  68. 68.

    jl

    @TS (the original): OK, thanks for the info. I was worried about whether the new model conservative Australian M4A would be stable, or for how long. I’ll go check on recent developments.

    I think people do not appreciate that a stable system with competing private and public plans, that serve the same population, and can actually deliver the same actual benefits (as in doctor visits, drugs etc. in real life versus on paper) must be designed very carefully.

    So, Mayor Pete yelling ‘free choice!’ and “I think people know how to make their own choices best’ doesn’t cut it.

    AFAIK, Harris was the only one to start talking about the issue in a way the average voter could understand, but she dropped out soon after that.

  69. 69.

    Redshift

    @jl: Yeah, I feel like the “no private insurance” bit started out as the fairly common single-payer idea that basic health coverage is provided by the government, and you can buy supplemental coverage if you want it and can afford it, but once the rhetoric went to “this is all the fault of the evil insurance industry,” well, if they’re cartoon villains of course you can’t keep them as part of it.

    Sigh. You’d think a “movement” that sees all problems as economic would grasp that the reason insurance companies act in ways that seem evil is because they have economic incentives to do so, not because they’re just bad people.

  71. 71.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @jl: The problem from the union’s perspective is they fought hard for the benefits and took wage concessions to get them, if they lose even a portion of that, they’re not going to be compensated for the wages they negotiated for even the basic healthcare.

  72. 72.

    Mandalay

    @jl:

    if the unions are against it, probably because they don’t trust her to deliver

    I checked on her web site (which reflects what you had posted earlier), and her wording is surely vague enough to make unions queasy:

    ..for unions that seek specialized wraparound coverage and individuals with specialized needs, a private market could still exist. In addition, we can allow private employer coverage that reflects the outcome of a collective bargaining agreement to be grandfathered into the new system to ensure that these workers receive the full benefit of their bargain before moving to the new system. But the point of Medicare for All is to cut out the middleman.

    There’s nothing in that vague and non-committal language to reassure the unions. I’m not on their side on this issue, but I fully understand why they feel uneasy with Warren’s plan.

  73. 73.

    jl

    @Mandalay:  I reviewed the plan before I made my comment. Warren has three sections on health care, and I forget which one contains her detailed plans for union and similar plans, but they are in there.

    Allowing unions to retain insurance relationship with, or run and manage, specialized medical providers for their workers is described, and so is a process to retain current coverage through special  supplemental insurance plans

    You might not think that the provisions are adequate, but there is more about unions in her plan than you quoted.

  74. 74.

    tobie

    @jl: I still like DeLauro/Schakowsky’s Medicare for America plan best. It makes an improved version of Medicare the default option for anyone who doesn’t receive employer sponsored coverage / group plan. CHIP, Medicaid and Medicare will all be consolidated in Medicare, which should reduce administrative costs while increasing market share. For those on group plans, you can switch to Medicare with your employer subsidy. Employers can also chose Medicare as the group plan. Newborns will automaticaly be put on Medicare. This puts the burden on group insurers. Either meet the standards of improved Medicare at a lower price or lose business.

  75. 75.

    TS (the original)

    @jl:

    I think people do not appreciate that a stable system with competing private and public plans, that serve the same population, and can actually deliver the same actual benefits (as in doctor visits, drugs etc. in real life versus on paper) must be designed very carefully.

    And I believe the original Oz system was so designed. People who had no insurance, got medical care, those who wanted to keep their insurance did so. Problems began to arise when doctors argued (with good cause) with the government was not paying enough – and our system did not & does not allow for “gap” insurance for doctor’s fees so while my health insurance 100% covers hospital fees, I often have to pay a gap (co-pay) for doctor fees. Despite I have hospital insurance, most of my medical (doctors, non-hospital) expenses are part of the public health system & I pay a co-pay.

    Our system for prescription drugs is completely separate, although there is a maximum co-pay for any prescription which at the moment is around $40 (for approved medications). This reduces when you have paid a certain amount per year (known as a safety net).

    It really is complicated!!

  76. 76.

    piratedan

    part of the issue for all of this, is that the media demands, even mandates that all policy must fit into the size of a bumper sticker or less than 10 second sound bite.  Therefore reducing everything to a lowest common denominator status for the low information voter who does a drive by of attention status on their way to watching Wheel of Fortune or The Bachelor.

    I really enjoy reading the debate and interpretation of what these policies and plans actually mean when it comes to our candidates in these threads, I don’t agree with every take but I appreciate the discussion taking place.  Many of them are thoughtful or at least illuminating in breaking down details of plans (for those that have posted them for human consumption) its only a crying fucking shame that we do so here in the blogosphere and not on TV in an attempt to educate everyone about what is actually being discussed and the pros and cons.

     

    so in short, ty jackalteriat and take a long moment to note while there are real differences in opinion about which plan is better, sustainable, implementable… the other side is offering cuts to Social Security and Healthcare as their solution.

  77. 77.

    Mandalay

    @jl: OK. To be clear, I don’t like the grandfathering, or any special provisions being made for the unions at all! I’m just trying to see things from their perspective. As someone posted earlier, they paid a heavy price to secure their Cadillac plans, and they will not be compensated for that if M4A passed.

    I don’t have a good answer for them on that, and nor does any politician (AFAIK), but there is surely a larger issue at stake:

    But even good union healthcare plans don’t get coverage for all of your family, and it sure doesn’t cover your community. Once your kids turn 26, they’re uncovered. A unionized worker can still go bankrupt trying to cover healthcare costs of an adult child. You can have “great” coverage for yourself and watch your sick sister’s health decline. Your plan might be decent, but she won’t get proper medical attention, and there’s little you can do about it. Your neighbors, if they’re lucky enough to have owned their home, may lose it once they are saddled with tens of thousands in debt because they did go to the hospital without insurance.

    And if you lose your job and union membership, that cadillac coverage for you and your family is gone. It’s a daft system.

  78. 78.

    Origuy

    @Joey Maloney: It was Heinlein quoting Mark Twain, although the authenticity of the quote is disputed:
    When a child turns 12, he should be kept in a barrel and fed through the bunghole, until he reaches 16 … at which time you plug the bunghole.

  80. 80.

    jl

    @Mandalay: Overall I agree with you.

    Remember that I remain a Warren supporter, so just wanted to make sure everyone knew that She Has a Plan for That!

    The current system is a mess. Some vague political revolution that Sanders will summon from the vasty deep (but will it come?) is not the best plan.

    Maybe Warren could have pulled it off (or maybe a small chance she still can). But it would have required her to stand up the debate stage and the campaign stump and call BS on pretty much everyone in the media and all the other candidates. Maybe that was just too much to expect.

    If Sanders is elected, best hope is that he’ll use his M4A as a bargaining chip for some kind of good reform. His die hard fans will feel betrayed, but, ha ha! it will be too late.

    If elected Klobuchar only centrist who seems serious about policy, or at least willing to be honest about what her policy is.

    But I’m still giving to Warren.

  83. 83.

    Kent

    @Tim Wayne:This being an open thread, I’m going to suggest a post for one of you FPers. It’s a Bobo column, of all things.

    That was actually an astonishingly good article for David Brooks.  And it rings true.  My wife is Chilean and the extended family thing is still very much operational down there.  Sunday dinner with grandma is just expected.  Kids don’t leave home for college, they attend college nearby while living at home and don’t leave the house until marriage.  My  still single brother-in-law finally left home at about age 35 when he was a very successful investment banker with an international bank and could buy a high end condo with cash on hand.

    When we re-located, my wife insisted we buy a larger house than we needed because she wanted room for all the kids to return and revolve around the home and have room for our parents as well   She may not have exactly articulated Brook’s theme but she was implementing it.

  84. 84.

    frosty

    @PsiFighter37: Hang in there and keep talking to each other. And just wait until middle school. Oy! Along the way we dealt with dyslexia and ADHD, saw marriage counselors and therapists for the kids. The relationship changes constantly, try to roll with it.

    If it helps, both of mine are now in their 20s and are fine young men. I have no idea how that happened!

    frosty +5  over about 12 hours now

  86. 86.

    randy khan

    @Shalimar:

    So Warren’s mask came off and we found out she really is a nice, empathetic person?  What am I missing?

    Exactly what I thought.  But what I believe it’s supposed to mean is that she’s not a Committee Progressive(TM) because she is unwilling to trample a strong union to achieve a utopian goal.

  87. 87.

    AM in NC

    @PsiFighter37: Not to be a downer, but this May will mark 20 years of marriage for me, 17 of those with kids, and yes, everything changes.  Disagreement on how to raise the kids is the biggest source of conflict in our marriage. Honestly, If I had paid very close attention to how his family operates, I would have fled before we got married, because you never escape your family dynamics. And for most people, nothing is worth fighting over more than their children.

  88. 88.

    jonas

    @Kent: The way they did it is have their entire country bombed to smithereens in a World War and then rebuild everything, including universal health care, from the ground up. It helps when you’re starting from scratch.  Replacing a massive and entrenched private system with M4A or single payer in one fell swoop is something else entirely.

  89. 89.

    chopper

    @MisterForkbeard:

    right. the way i tell people who try to be stringent and orderly when it comes to raising kids is to paraphrase tyson – everybody’s got a plan until someone barfs into their mouth.

  90. 90.

    lee

    @PsiFighter37:

    resigned that this becomes the norm for the next 17+ years.

     

    After raising 2 (both are now in their 20’s), I can tell you most of the friction between you and your spouse is only going to be at the beginning getting things sorted out. Once that calms down the kids then enter their teenage years and they become the source of the friction.

  91. 91.

    WaterGirl

    @lee:

    Once that calms down the kids then enter their teenage years and they become the source of the friction.

    It’s tempting to add the refrain “You’re not helping!” that I use on my dogs at least 10 times a day. :-)

  92. 92.

    glory b

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Exactly. I talk to lots of union reps and employees and they say exactly this. They gave up a lot to get the benefit  plans they have.

    They see it this way: they won’t get the wages they gave up for the benefits, M4A ( in whatever iteration)will not cover as much, and they will pay more in taxes for it.

    So, in their view, they get less coverage, more taxes and the same wages.

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