U.S. Politics: Russian Around

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Swordfish said:

Um... Maybe never?  I don't know what this has to do with anything.

 

And I don't even know what your argument really is.

Is it never UHC?

Is it never under the Republican Party?

I have no idea.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Oh, come on. You have to dream a little bigger.

1. Let's have UHC and make sure abortion, maternal care and women's health issues like pap smears aren't covered at all. 
2. Or let's never ever cover any kind of birth control.
3. Or let's never ever cover any kind of mental health coverage, or even worse require that anyone who has ever seen any mental health care must have it reported and has rights like gun rights and voting rights potentially taken away.
4. Maybe we won't treat anyone with a certain BMI threshold due to their lifestyle choices.
5. Or maybe we won't treat anyone who gets issues from being homosexual, real or perceived.
6. Or we won't do any genetic screening, ever.
7. Or we won't support any kind of health insurance for anyone with genetic ailments of any kind.

Etc, etc. 

Seems like your mind and mine work the same way.  And I could see this going back and forth depending on which party ekes out a victory you know for a couple of decades before something gets entrenched.

[Swordfish]

2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

And I don't even know what your argument really is.

Is it never UHC?

Is it never under the Republican Party?

I have no idea.

Basically, that I have no moral objection to UHC, but that there are significant practical concerns, given the political makeup of the US, which should be PARTICULARLY obvious at the moment.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Swordfish said:

Basically, that I have no moral objection to UHC, but that there are significant practical concerns, given the political makeup of the US, which should be PARTICULARLY obvious at the moment.

For me I'd have see what the proposed legislation would look like. I guess I could imagine some cases where it would be so screwed up, I might oppose it.

But, long term, we do have to fix our healthcare system. Both for ethical reasons and for financial ones.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Seems like your mind and mine work the same way.  And I could see this going back and forth depending on which party ekes out a victory you know for a couple of decades before something gets entrenched.

Yep. It'll go on for a while.

At the same time, I think that private companies utterly suck at this as well, and suck far more than the government does as they have entirely the wrong incentives for insurance/care. I would rather we have a fairly meh system that at least benefits a good chunk of people than I would having no system with completely horrible private care options that are simply unavailable for most people.

I also think that we have to get rid of the employer-based system, because that's the worst of all worlds - tying people to their jobs because of the health insurance AND not having any choice in what they get AND not having any regulation on what the insurance is. It's the best game in town and it's horrible. 

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Mlle. Zabzie said:

I firmly believe that the long-term orthodoxy of the Republican Party, though it will continue to pay lip service to "free markets" for a while, is actually inexorably shifting to more and more centralized control (to be fair, I think Democrats are and have been going the same direction, but for different reasons).  

Well whatever the Republican Party is going to, its pretty clear they can't get healthcare right.

And there is no evidence at this juncture they are really committed to UHC. So that is going to probably have to wait 4 or 8 years or whatever. 

[Swordfish]

8 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

For me I'd have see what the proposed legislation would look like. I guess I could imagine some cases where it would be so screwed up, I might oppose it.

But, long term, we do have to fix our healthcare system. Both for ethical reasons and for financial ones.

I think ti really comes down to how comfortable you are creating a healthcare monopoly controlled by the federal government knowing in advance that it could eventually fall into the hands of someone like Trump(or worse.  There's no guarantee, after all, that the next guy will be better), and that if it did, you'd have no other options.

That, to me, is just not something I can get behind, strictly from a pragmatic standpoint.  And I think the potential  financial benefits and savings are generally drastically over stated, given the same concerns about partisanship and bureaucracy.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well whatever the Republican Party is going to, its pretty clear they can't get healthcare right.

And there is no evidence at this juncture they are really committed to UHC. 

No, they are not.  But in the medium term, my fear is that they will wake up and realize it is a great way to further their social agenda.  Parties change, and we are in a sea change for what it means to be a Republican.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Mlle. Zabzie said:

No, they are not.  But in the medium term, my fear is that they will wake up and realize it is a great way to further their social agenda.  Parties change, and we are in a sea change for what it means to be a Republican.

I assume what you mean here is that it will become more like European right wing party. We'll have to wait and see on that, I guess.

Though, its a bit of bummer that the Democratic Party, evidently, in it's policy considerations has to worry about what the Republican Party will screw up later, even though said policy would be good without that consideration.

I guess Republicans against UHC can just say,"We're against UHC cause we'll screw it up later!!!" And that would probably be their most credible argument against it.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Welp, purge at Justice is going down.  Sessions just asked for the resignation of the remaining 46 US Attorneys, including, interestingly, Preet Bharara.  I mean, it usually happens, but Bharara was specifically assured by Trump that his job was safe.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Swordfish said:

I think ti really comes down to how comfortable you are creating a healthcare monopoly controlled by the federal government knowing in advance that it could eventually fall into the hands of someone like Trump(or worse.  There's no guarantee, after all, that the next guy will be better), and that if it did, you'd have no other options.

That, to me, is just not something I can get behind, strictly from a pragmatic standpoint.  And I think the potential  financial benefits and savings are generally drastically over stated, given the smae concerns about partisanship and bureaucracy.

One, a 5 or 6% reduction in spending as a share of GDP doesn't seem small to me.

Also, yes Trump, is a buffoon. But, even he has a hard time just changing healthcare overnight, as we are now seeing. And suppose he tried to tinker with employer sponsored healthcare. He'd get major push back on that I'd imagine.

[Swordfish]

4 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

One, a 5 or 6% reduction in spending as a share of GDP doesn't seem small to me.

 

i don't know what you mean.

Quote

Also, yes Trump, is a buffoon. But, even he has hard time just changing healthcare overnight, as we are now seeing. And suppose he tried to tinker with employer sponsored healthcare. He'd get major pushback on that I'd imagine.

He certainly COULD make changes relatively quickly.  But quick changes are not the only risks.  Incremental changes can be equally problematic.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

33 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

I'm not worried about individual abuses.  I'm worried about bureaucratic and political disasters.  And the whole conversation started with an oversimplified notion that basically boiled down to 'well, if no one was making any profits, then that money could go to care and wouldn't that be wonderful.'  So my initial point was, it's just not that simple.

 

40 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

I'm less concerned with citizens abusing the system than the government making decisions that I would find morally odious about what to cover (though what I find morally odious might be completely different than what someone across the aisle thinks).  I could also see the system in the wrong hands limiting doctors' ability to practice (e.g., "you cannot practice for the UHC if you have admitting privileges in a facility that performs abortions or admits doctors that performs abortions" as an example).  I could see collections that go to the UHC being doubly scored for budget purposes in ways that are not helpful.  And that's only from a couple of seconds thinking about it.

Fair enough. I thought you were talking about patient abuses too, which are extremely uncommon. Obviously there could and probably would be abuses from the governmental side, especially in our current political climate, so I think Swordfish is ultimately correct that it probably isn't worth pursuing right now (though we'd be foolish not to try and eventually get to a rational form of UHC). 

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Swordfish said:

i don't know what you mean.

European countries average about 11%  of Healthcare Spending/GDP whereas the US does about 17%. This is not a small potential savings.

Just now, Swordfish said:

He certainly COULD make changes relatively quickly.  But quick changes are not the only risks.  Incremental changes can be equally problematic.

Yeah maybe. But it seems to me this is just saying we shouldn't try to do anything because somebody like Trump may screw it up later. I mean might as get rid of the FED because Trump will appoint a Buffoon there. And the Department of Energy too. And the State Department and the Department of Defense and all the military services. And other Federal agencies as well.

If were worried about electing a string of buffoons like Trump we're really in deep trouble, and we probably ought to talk about election reform in some manner.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

European countries average about 11%  of Healthcare Spending/GDP whereas the US does about 17%. This is not a small potential savings.

Yeah maybe. But it seems to me this is just saying we shouldn't try to do anything because somebody like Trump may screw it up later. I mean might as get rid of the FED because Trump will appoint a Buffoon there. And the Department of Energy too. And the State Department and the Department of Defense and all the military services. And other Federal agencies as well.

If were worried about electing a string of buffoons like Trump we're really in deep trouble, and we probably ought to talk about election reform in some manner.

Look, the buffoons in charge are going after the New Deal Third Rail.  All bets are off.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Look, the buffoons in charge are going after the New Deal Third Rail.  All bets are off.

And that battle hasn't been fought nor finished yet. This is a potential area, where the Republican party might just get shellacked. And rightly so.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Welp, purge at Justice is going down.  Sessions just asked for the resignation of the remaining 46 US Attorneys, including, interestingly, Preet Bharara.  I mean, it usually happens, but Bharara was specifically assured by Trump that his job was safe.

Congressman King was pretty blunt on this issue, calling for a purge of all Obama-era appointees from the federal government:

https://trofire.com/2017/03/10/gop-congressman-calls-purge-obama-era-political-appointees/

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 minute ago, OldGimletEye said:

And that battle hasn't been fought nor finished yet. This is a potential area, where the Republican party might just get shellacked. And rightly so.

Says the old orthodoxy.  I'm not so sure about that.  There are plenty of people my age or younger who are quite convinced that they will never see a dime from the system (I really won't - I'm not saying that's WRONG, but it's not how the system was sold).  The boomer believers are dwindling as a voting bloc.  So I'm not sure it's as much of a third rail as other stuff any more.  It isn't good policy, and it's dumb, but I don't think it's as impossible as it was 20 years ago.

[Martell Spy]

The Man Who Wants to Unmake the West
Europeans are starting to worry that Steve Bannon has the EU in his cross hairs. Here’s how the White House could genuinely help pull it apart.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/trump-steve-bannon-destroy-eu-european-union-214889

[Kalbear]

Here's a good example of how the government could screw up healthcare - requiring mandatory genetic testing.

And I suspect @Swordfishand other libertarian types would argue that yes, ANY government control of anything is bad because it could go into the wrong hands, so arguing 'well, what about this government part' is not going to work. Their viewpoint is that inevitably the government will be run by someone completely horrible (and likely will be for a long time), so instead of ever fixing the way you get said horrible people into and out of office we'll fix it so that the government can barely do anything, and instead put our trust in the unelected corporations.