ACA Repeal/Replace: Progressives Face Moral Dilemma

[Eric the Green]

(03-24-2017, 02:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 02:03 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 01:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 06:52 AM)Odin Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 03:07 AM)Galen Wrote: It appears that the Freedom Caucus has a good chance of sinking Obamacare lite, or as I like to think of it Ryancare.  It looks like after eight years of falling on their sword for Boehner they have decided not to with Ryan.  I so much like Rand Paul better now that he is not running for president.

It's fun seeing the GOP fuck themselves over with their own infighting, it will be so ironic that it is the Tea Party wackos who end up saving the ACA. Your side had 7 years, SEVEN YEARS, to come up with a decent alternative plan and work out a compromise between the different factions in your party, but nope.

The GOP is the dog that caught the mail truck, and now the truck has run over the dog.

It's even funner knowing that the Obamacare is going to eventually collapse which is going to screw blue voters (a failure which will result in the loss of healthcare coverage for those who are currently covered by Obamacare ) like yourself worse than those who already have healthcare.

Obamacare is collapsing in the red states that don't accept medicaid support, which is fine because red states don't support Obamacare anyway. In states like CA that do, Obamacare will probably still work, unless Republicans find another way to cut the rug out from under it.

But it could collapse, which it would not have, if Hillary and the Democrats had won, because then we might have had some real adjustments and reforms to make it work. Republicans, of course, don't want that; they want a "free enterprise" version. But what they have cobbled together doesn't go far enough in the direction of "freedom," which kinser described here. So all Republicans can't agree on just how to repeal and "replace" Obamacare.

The real answer, a single payer approach, is on the horizon if people finally get fed up with these half-assed approaches that mollify the insurance industry, which is an unnecessary middleman that drives the cost and lack of coverage which has caused our healthcare system to fail, and thus led to the recent and current attempts to reform it.

Obamacare is collapsing in my state too. It's probably collapsing in your state as well. I dunno, maybe going backwards is actually better for the Democrats associated with blue America considering how they appear to be unable to keep up with red America.

Well, vice versa on that of course. The red states generally are behind blue states in every conceivable way. But it remains to be seen whether Obamacare will collapse in blue states. Since the law is still in effect, it will still protect Americans from some insurance industry abuses. But with Trump in power, the mandate is not being enforced, and the law in general may not be fully enforced on the federal level. So it could collapse. On the other hand, our CA exchange, called "covered california," is still advertising and apparently doing OK. I could see a possible proliferation of lawsuits by patient representatives if the Trump folks do not enforce the law's provisions. Of course, Trump himself had said he is not opposed to some of Obamacare's provisions, so he might enforce them.

I could see how hard-line conservatives who opposed Ryancare could find hope in a collapse of Obamacare due to lack of enforcement by Trump and rising premiums, with insurance companies continuing to pull out,especially in many red and purple states. It could be to a large extent a reversion to the failed free enterprise status quo that prevailed before Obamacare. But Obamacare was a Republican plan to begin with, asked for by business as well as by patients and doctors. The status quo reversion, if it happens, might not be too popular.

He might have better luck with his tax cut. We'll see.

[Classic-Xer]

(03-24-2017, 03:03 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 02:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 02:03 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 01:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 06:52 AM)Odin Wrote: It's fun seeing the GOP fuck themselves over with their own infighting, it will be so ironic that it is the Tea Party wackos who end up saving the ACA. Your side had 7 years, SEVEN YEARS, to come up with a decent alternative plan and work out a compromise between the different factions in your party, but nope.

The GOP is the dog that caught the mail truck, and now the truck has run over the dog.

It's even funner knowing that the Obamacare is going to eventually collapse which is going to screw blue voters (a failure which will result in the loss of healthcare coverage for those who are currently covered by Obamacare ) like yourself worse than those who already have healthcare.

Obamacare is collapsing in the red states that don't accept medicaid support, which is fine because red states don't support Obamacare anyway. In states like CA that do, Obamacare will probably still work, unless Republicans find another way to cut the rug out from under it.

But it could collapse, which it would not have, if Hillary and the Democrats had won, because then we might have had some real adjustments and reforms to make it work. Republicans, of course, don't want that; they want a "free enterprise" version. But what they have cobbled together doesn't go far enough in the direction of "freedom," which kinser described here. So all Republicans can't agree on just how to repeal and "replace" Obamacare.

The real answer, a single payer approach, is on the horizon if people finally get fed up with these half-assed approaches that mollify the insurance industry, which is an unnecessary middleman that drives the cost and lack of coverage which has caused our healthcare system to fail, and thus led to the recent and current attempts to reform it.

Obamacare is collapsing in my state too. It's probably collapsing in your state as well. I dunno, maybe going backwards is actually better for the Democrats associated with blue America considering how they appear to be unable to keep up with red America.

Well, vice versa on that of course. The red states generally are behind blue states in every conceivable way. But it remains to be seen whether Obamacare will collapse in blue states. Since the law is still in effect, it will still protect Americans from some insurance industry abuses. But with Trump in power, the mandate is not being enforced, and the law in general may not be fully enforced on the federal level. So it could collapse. On the other hand, our CA exchange, called "covered california," is still advertising and apparently doing OK. I could see a possible proliferation of lawsuits by patient representatives if the Trump folks do not enforce the law's provisions. Of course, Trump himself had said he is not opposed to some of Obamacare's provisions, so he might enforce them.

I could see how hard-line conservatives who opposed Ryancare could find hope in a collapse of Obamacare due to lack of enforcement by Trump and rising premiums, with insurance companies continuing to pull out,especially in many red and purple states. It could be to a large extent a reversion to the failed free enterprise status quo that prevailed before Obamacare. But Obamacare was a Republican plan to begin with, asked for by business as well as by patients and doctors. The status quo reversion, if it happens, might not be too popular.

Minnesota wants to get rid of its exchange and dump its responsibility to manage it on the plate of the federal government.

[Kinser79]

The thing I don't think Eric realizes is that if Obamacare collapses in Red States and Purple States then it will collapse in the Blue States too. Maybe later than otherwise but it will collapse. It depends how much cash the states are willing to pump into a failing system--indeed a system that some think may have been designed to fail. The goal being to mess up private sector so much that people would clamor for a clearly inferior system as Crowder's video clearly demonstrates.

What's funny is all of this could be avoided simply by requiring people to buy their own damn insurance.

[Bob Butler 54]

Kinser

I am doubtful about arresting automation. That genie is out of the bottle.

I looked at the chart, but I find such diagrams say a lot more about the people who share the diagrams than it does about reality. There are an awful lot of extreme partisan boxes. The new media does allow various groups of extreme partisans to create alternate realities, tell each other what they want to hear, and brew up a mix of vile stereotypes aimed at those they disagree with. Granted, such groups can sometimes brew up good ideas that might be adopted by a larger consensus.

Eric also offered one of his charts, with very different boxes, and I didn’t dive into it as a diagram of reality either. I’m afraid I browse looking for anything new or constructive, but dismiss for the most part.

Our current system of representative democracy normally works with two dominant parties. This might change. This might at least temporarily already have changed.

At the moment, we arguably have three parties. The Republicans have split into establishment and tea party wings, and we still have Democrats. Two of the three have to work together to get much done. The health care issue illustrates that this might not be easy. You might be correct that the current situation isn’t just red - blue just now. We may need a third color. At least, that is my primary perspective. I have three important boxes on my diagram just now, pretty close to the three you identified. All the others are noise with various degrees of meaningfulness.

In a recent interview with the Times, your father explained that he works on an intuitive level. He makes statements that he feels are true, and isn’t too worried about facts. It worked for him for the most part during his tycoon days. It got him through the campaign.

This distance from factual reality was shared by his tea party predecessor, Sarah Palin. One gets a feeling that one can see Russia from the top of a wall that Mexico will pay for. I see this as being fey in the sense of being otherworldly, that things are not entirely of this world. I can see how these intuitions have an emotional or poetic truth behind them that a good sized part of the population certainly appreciates.

But I’m not sure one should try to govern based on fey intuition. I’m also still doubtful of your father’s people skills.

While Hillary has her flaws and a ton of baggage, she does have persistence and a knowledge of how the Congress works. She wouldn’t have given up anywhere near this soon. She understood the difficulties, and was prepared for a long patient siege. Trump? If at first you don’t succeed, give up and point fingers. I suspect he knew full well he wasn’t going to put together what he promised, providing better coverage for more people for less cost. That was always a ridiculous empty promise. I suspect he got what he wanted. He put the issue on the shelf with some plausible ability to blame others for his failed promise.

Me? The Republicans have the House, Senate and Presidency. For the moment, everything is their fault.

Or the Republicans might have those three things if they were a united party. At the moment, the Tea Party has the White House. Nobody has either branch of Congress.

Trying to isolate the red - blue divide, I see three complementary conflicts in values.

The Democrats remember the time America was Great. From FDR through JFK, big government did big things. LBJ took tax and spend too far. The impression of corruption and inefficiency built. Nixon went off the gold standard, which might have been right in the long term, but created stagflation until the economists figured out how floating currencies worked. Meanwhile, we had the Fall of Saigon, Watergate, the Oil Crisis, the Hostage Crisis which collectively generated the National Malaise. Reagan declared that government wasn’t the solution, it was the problem. This all resulted in the red unravelling values. Cut taxes and assume that the government won’t solve any problem. If the government gets involved, this will only make things worse.

The core expression of this aspect of the divide might be JFK’s claim that we would bear any burden, pay any price, met any hardship… to assure the survival and the success of liberty, as opposed to Reagan’s proposal that government is not the solution to our problems, it is the problem.

A second values distinction is between the desire for rugged individualism and independence among the red population as opposed to strong communities supporting those in need among the blue. These are both understandable and even admirable, at least to me. We are at the point now, though, that many who buy into either the red or blue virtues almost automatically demonize the opposite set of virtues.

I can see the need for another perspective to develop. We talked a bit ago of the old economy of scarcity and the need for a new economy of plenty. Automation is creating too much stuff without large numbers of employees on the farm or manning the assembly lines. As software advances, more of the service sector will be hit as well. The old economy featured enough jobs to engage the work force full time, with many to most receiving benefits.

An economy of plenty might have fewer hours worked per week, living wages for those working the fewer hours, and perhaps earlier retirement.

Some Republicans push to keep minimum wages down, minimize benefits, decrease retirement benefits, and delay retirement. These might all be profitable for industry and employers. It is not the direction we need to go for a successful economy of plenty.

The Democrats are generally pushing in the right direction for the future economy, but I’ve seen no signs of an organized perspective. What do I mean by organized? In the most simple form, take the amount of work that needs to be done, divide by the number of people looking for work, thus calculate the number of hours each has to put in to get the work done, and set the minimum wage so someone working that number of hours has a living wage. Both parties are assuming the old economy is sacred. They are fighting to tweak things to benefit this constituency or that. They are not objectively standing back to see what should be done.

I see today’s health care and tax policy questions as preliminary rumblings of the old / new economy transition. The problem is in a nation where there is enough to go around, how do we distribute so everyone gets at least a reasonable minimum? Helping the healthy and wealthy with lower medical costs while cutting out many among the poor is not movement in the right direction. Tax cuts for the wealthy is not movement in the right direction. The dominant old ethos is to push for what is best for one’s own constituency, the heck with the folks lower down on the ladder. Eventually, if the new economy its to become real, a new ethos of inclusion will have to develop.

As we’ve discussed, energy and climate change are going to be problems. They are already part of the red - blue divide. Again, the Democrats are leaning in the direction the future has got to eventually go. Again, the best they can do currently is baby steps. They haven’t got near the influence to do what eventually has to be done, and your father wants to take several banana twirls backwards. I’ve long anticipated that global warming denialists are going to get far more anger from the next generation of prophets than the GIs ever got from the hippies. For the moment, though, complacency is holding firm.

I understand your selfishness. You want to advocate for those who will make you the most comfortable in your limited time on the planet. Après nous, le déluge? Those younger than you might not be able to take such a cynical selfish attitude. At some point idealistic working together for the common good is no longer dreamy woo woo. It becomes a matter of critical practical import. If you’ve got to stop Hitler, you stop Hitler. Churchill made some wonderful speeches, but was it really idealistic woo woo that had people wading onto the beach on D Day? The GIs and to a lesser extent the Boomers understand crisis, and that understanding is what made America great. Sometimes you have to get off one’s rear and get stuff done that needs to be done. Idealism can be practical, necessary and immediate.

Do the younger generations have that understanding? Do they understand that you go into crisis mode when you have no choice but to confront a crisis? Do they think people will get up off their inflatable mattresses floating in a pool just because a generational alignment has finally fallen into place?

There are many angles to look at it from, but the Democrats still have some vague shadow of the old crisis ideals while the Republicans seem enamored of the unravelling. If I truly believed in S&H, it would be inevitable that the crisis will come, that urgency and effort will again be aroused. That time hasn’t come yet. There are times when I think it might never come, that the pendulum might swing forever. There are some problems, though, that will in time force something.

There are thus many angles and perspectives from which the red - blue divide can be looked at. Some might be moved off center stage, such as some culture war stuff. Other perspectives might become more important, such as the need for a new economy of inclusion. Perhaps the red - blue labels have enough baggage associated with them that new labels allowing different perspectives might be useful.

But the red establishment, red tea party, blue divide is the angle we're stuck at just now.

[Kinser79]

Bob,

WRT to charts:  You should consider the source.  Eric's charts are naturally going to support his perverse version of reality mine are going to support mine.  The chart I offered conforms to my basic understanding of reality, and according to it I would be registered at 2, -2 point with a general trend over time of Down and to the Right.

I doubt I will ever get down to being an AnCap as their views are both utopian and extreme, even my libertairan scores which are quite strong are muted by my understanding that humans by nature are incapable of not concentrating power and resources.  Even at their most primitive social and economic development levels.  To this point in history all developments in economic production and politics has been toward the concentration of more and more resources and power into the hands of fewer and fewer people. A lot of this is driven by the tribal instinct.

WRT to the Parties:  I would say that having a two party system is going to be the status quo until such time as we change to some other method than FPTP voting.  That being said, both parties in the US have traditionally been coalitions of political groups, ideologies, and so forth.

I would argue that the split in the GOP will result in time in the following result.  The Tea Party and Trump Wings will merge into a new GOP while the Neo-Con establishment GOP factions will be absorbed by the Democrats.

WRT intuition verses intellectualism:  I would say that Trump's intuition has served him well as both a business person and will serve him well as President.  Remember he owns hundreds of businesses, only four of which have gone bankrupt for a failure rate that is far lower than the broad average failure rate in business.

You are of course free to doubt him.  I don't think anything I can say, or anyone else can say, will change your mind on Daddy.  I think your views are driven by your values, much like my views are driven by my values.  I also feel that we're probably driven by a differing set of values.  Mine have always tended toward the Jacksonian side of the spectrum if we are to use US history as context to describe those values.

WRT HRC:  I would argue that she was destined to lose.  If you recall people were talking about her running in 2016 back in 2012 after Obama got re-elected.  I said she wouldn't win.  My reason for making that statement at that time was historical precedent.  At no time has a candidate who lost the primaries of their own party later gone on to be president with one exception (1976--Ronald Reagan who was running against the incumbent president in a non-gop year).

HRC is no Ronald Reagan.  Seriously I was saying back in 2012 that she'd never be President.  In 2008 I was telling my elderly relatives that if she was nominated I was going to vote for whomever the GOP offered.  I found her to be repugnant even back then.

We could argue about her baggage and her experience but we would get nowhere fast.  She wasn't electable, indeed without cheating she would probably not even gotten the nomination as Sanders (who I believe is the other, Whig GC) would have likely been nominated (probably after more than a few ballots).

Add to the historical precedence and the fact that she ran an incredibly weak campaign, and also appears to be in poor health (I think she is [again I grew up around hospitals, doctors and nurses so I have an advantage here], but for obvious reasons I don't have access to her medical records) and you have a recipe for a loss.


You can bring up the popular vote if you like, but doing so is pointless.  I happen to think the electoral college works for a large country like the US even today.  Without it every election would center on the top five cities and no one else would get any attention--which is a recipe for disaster in the best of times never mind a 4T.  As my BF explained it to his class, the EC and the election of the President is much like the world series.  It doesn't matter how many runs you score, what matters is how many games you win.  When we elect the president we don't have a single election, rather we have 51 elections (the States + DC).

WRT Values:  I think you're creating a false dichotomy between individualism and strong communities, individuals compose communities. 

Blue values these days focus on differences and multiculturalism.  Diversity weakens communities as Putnam has exposed.  Furthermore given the unstable nature of communities in America to start with we are left only with individualism.  As far as communities go, I'd probably help my neighbors out (in fact did so after digging out from Hurricane Matthew) but outside of dealing with immediate disasters I'm not overly concerned with what they do provided they do not interfere with what I want to do.  I could go into a long winded example here but I think it would detract from my point rather than add to it.

WRT Economic policy:  I would argue that if you want to push wages down the best way to do that is to have unlimited immigration.  A trait shared by the Dim-ocrats and the NeoLiberal/NeoConservative wing of the GOP (the part I think that is going to break off and join the Dims).  Let us assume that automation is inevitable, for what reason then is there a need to import large numbers of people into the country?  There isn't.  The US is under no obligation to take in anyone for any reason who isn't already a citizen.  The same goes for the countries of Europe.

Given that there is a push toward an economy of abundance, and a push toward automation of nearly all labor I see no reason to import an underclass except for one potential reason--a nefarious one at that.  To establish a permanent monopoly on a dependent class for the Blues.  Yes, it is a conspiracy, and no it is not a theory--it is happening right now.

WRT Selfishness:  I would argue that all humans are inherently selfish.  It is part of our animalistic natures to be selfish.  What selflessness I have is as limited as everyone else's.  I'd be willing to sacrifice myself for my kid, or my niece/nephew or even my boyfriend or my sister (not so much my brother-in-law though).  Out of side of that I really have no reason to sacrifice myself for others.  The same is true for most other people.

In the past we've discussed how humans are tribal in nature.  I have my tribe, you have yours, but I am not about to sacrifice my tribe's safety, security, and happiness for yours.  Is that unethical?  It could be.  It could not be.  Depends on perspective here.  Over all I would say that generations that perform selfless actions do so in the view that it is in their selfish tribal interests.  People did not stop Hitler and Nazi Germany based on ideology (not even the Soviets) or on some idealistic woo (Americans and British).  People stopped Hitler and Nazi Germany because both were an existential threat to their tribe. 

WRT S&H Theory:  I would argue that S&H theory works much like the Assmovian Psychohistory of the Foundation series.  It works because over the course of time actions and reactions to events and the course of history create generations and thus create more events and history.  It actually operates best when fewer people know about it.

I would argue that part of the problem with the current 4T is not that we're not having a 4T, but rather that unlike 4Ts in other saecula, 4Ts in Mega-Unravelings tend to not have overt existential threats to the tribe (and by extension nation).  What was the major war of the Glorious Revolution?  There wasn't one.

The point of this 4T is to set the stage for the saculum in which everything about the current order breaks down and the ideologies that arise out of the next 2T will establish a new economic and political paradigm.

Does this conform to classic S&H? Probably not.  My own theories and hypotheses are based on a bit of a hodgepodge.  I would also say that humanity can be divided into several ages ranging over the course of mega-saecula the whole Warrior, Intellectual, Acquisator, Laborer-cum-Acquisator stages that Ravi Batra explained in The Great Depression of 1990.

https://www.amazon.com/GREAT-DEPRESSION-...0440201683

[Bob Butler 54]

Kinser

Well, I did consider the source of the charts.  I consider both you and Eric to be extreme partisans of very different flavors.  Your two sets of charts are to me much better as illustrations of how you two view the world than as illustrations of the world.

The Tea Party / Palin / Trump faction coming to cleanly dominate the GOP is a plausible result.  Perhaps the most likely.  I don’t know how many politicians out there, though, that can effectively sell the Palin / Trump style of intuitive fey thinking.  I’m not sure how long before the three groups come back to two.

I’m not interested in replaying the Clinton - Trump election.  I just think her style of dedicated persistent negotiation would have strung out much longer than his brief effort.  She kept pushing on health care for well over a year as her Husband’s health care point person, as did Obama when he finally pushed his plan through.  I’ve got a notion that if anyone wants to get anywhere with an issue as complex and partisan as health care, they should be ready to spend a lot longer than a few months on it.  I suspect Trump will have more issues as complex and partisan.  Among his other personality problems, does he have the patience and dedication?

Hmm.  I definitely agree humans can be tribal, are tribal by nature.  However, there doesn’t seem to be a limit on the size of the tribe.  Humans are also symbolic, and shared world views are part of the tribal bond.  Part of the loyalty mechanism that unites the tribe can be the woo.  People who share political world views on how the world works tend to get caught up in the intense emotional tribal bonds.  One’s own woo seems solid, logical, True, sane, fact based, etc.  The other guy’s woo has less pleasant words associated with it.  I mean, when I call your father’s approach intuitive and fey, that’s polite by the standards of dissing hostile values.  There are certainly others on the forum ready to use harsher language for it.  The tribal bond mechanism is part of the stubborn inability to perceive the sense behind the other guy’s world view.

But, yes, a lot of the issues on the table are not yet perceived as existential threats.  Woo aside, I don’t know that we will have a regeneracy and true crisis until they are perceived as existential threats.  Somehow, when that happens, a Jefferson, a Lincoln or a Churchill will suddenly show up with the language skills needed for some really great woo.  If the problems aren’t perceived as existential yet, their language skills aren’t yet recognized and appreciated.  

I suspect the new inclusive economy and global warming are going to develop into such threats.  In the meantime, it is still possible to keeps one’s eyes closed and pretend nothing needs to be done yet.

I’ll just play at being Cassandra, gifted by the gods, perhaps, to see something of the future.  Cursed by the gods in that no one believed her.

Asimov.  Spell my name with just one ’S’.  

I’m not in a position to complain about hodgepodge mixed theories.  My own are spliced together as well.

[Bob Butler 54]

I guess we might ask what's next.  A week or three of finger pointing seems inevitable.  The White House has given up.  During the campaign, the question was whether to repeal and replace, or whether to tune up and stabilize.  Repeal and replace seems to be gone, but few think it Obamacare can be left as it is.

I think the Democrats want something that will work for most everybody.  Some Republicans want to make life easier for the wealthy and healthy, and object philosophically to certain aspects.  Is there room to dicker?  I'd like to see the Democrats put together a fix it proposal, then really listen to what it would take to get enough Republicans to vote for something that works.

Then see if Trump throws around veto threats.

The blame game is creative.  One way of looking at it is that the Democrats did as they promised and to a great extent make their base happy.  The Republicans did neither.  One can wave one's hands and pretend that in a fey world loss is victory, but who delivered on their promises?

[pbrower2a]

The current Crisis has an economic basis: the end of the dominance of manufacturing in the economy. The trend existed long ago by political standards of time -- in the 1970s. As kids we Boomers were told to reject factory work because such work was mindless and doomed. The Best and Brightest took that advice from GIs seriously, and stayed clear of manufacturing. The people who ended up with manufacturing jobs were the ones who messed up their lives with inapt pregnancies and minor criminal offenses or were simply dullards. The quality of manufacturing thus declined. From electronics to cars, the good stuff started to be Made In Japan... and the quality of American manufacturing went into a tailspin.

Truth be told, the factory was the most reliable way out of poverty. Some of us who took the advice to stay clear of the factory did very well. That happens. There always were people who worked outside of the economic norm of making stuff to sell. Skilled trades. Creative activities. Administration. Well-paid professions from law and medicine to accountancy and teaching, and the new and (for a while) glamorous activity in computers. Agriculture -- if the farm was substantial and your family owned it. Selling, of course. But much of the clerical and (retail) sales work paid horribly.

Generation X was unabashedly more materialistic -- and arguably more realistic. It was interested more in the money, especially as the reality of rising rents and energy costs told them that making stuff was necessary for creating the material basis of prosperity, or at lest some genteel poverty. But as a share of employment, manufacturing would decline even if it got better.

Smaller dwellings are the norm in America for almost anyone in urban America -- and much of Suburbia has become urban. More of the American economy is economic rent -- easy money for owners of assets -- which is not good for economic equality. People can't buy as much stuff as they used to, let alone keep it without finding life unmanageable.

We have some opportunity with infrastructure to repair and replace water mains, sewers, and transit, making them better at great expense. Maybe the greedy dream of transforming freeways into profit-gouging toll roads might appeal to some of the most rapacious plutocrats who invest a little now and rake in billions.

"Profit, profit over everything/Damn the public/give 'em the shaft! We don't need excessive government/all we need is plenty of graft!"

The dream of the economic Right is a nightmare for us all. That's before I even discuss the Religious Right. That's where we are stuck in 2017.

[Eric the Green]

It is up to a few blue states to make some progress on health care, by passing a single payer plan. Those who want to be covered can then move to one of these states, or at least trumpet its success. Real reform nationally will have to wait until the voters learn to do the right thing and dump Drump and the Republicans. That could happen in 2022-2024, if not sooner. The Republicans are only interested in reducing, cutting back or eliminating reform and boosting the old free enterprise approach instead, which is to say to put our health care into the hands of greedy wolves. Meanwhile we are stuck with Obamacare, or what's left of it.

Some like Bob would say, oh Eric is just an extreme partisan. OK fine, I'll accept the label. But guess which party moved to the extreme? Obamacare was a Republican plan; even though I favor single payer, I favored its passage. That's not extreme. Obamacare was a compromise.

Give up on any hope of national reform for now. It is only possible if and when the voters come to their senses.

[Kinser79]

Bob,

I would have a hard time calling myself a partisan.  I'm beholden to neither the Dim-ocrats nor the Repugnicans.  By and large I find the establishments of both Parties to be awful.  Eric on the other hand is very partisan--probably for the Greens or some other type of nonsense.  Seriously if you listen to the guy long enough you come to determine that if he indeed does have a political ideology at all, he's a watermelon.

The Tea Party/Trump faction is coming to dominate the Party.  Indeed Ryan had to pull his Obamacare Light bill because he simply didn't have the votes to get it out of the House (never mind the fact that it was DOA in the Senate).  As for bending the party to the intuative style of Trump I'm not sure that is required.  What is required a rebranding of the GOP as the party of Classical Liberalism, General Social Conservatism, and economic liberty.  Those three vectors are of prime importance to Xers and Zeds.  Millies may still orbit a bit around the Dims but that remains to be seen.

Essentially taking those positions leaves the Dims the dullards, the reactionaries, the NeoLiberals and the NeoCons.  In short they are and will be the losers for the next saeculum.

As to Clinton--I think her presidency would have been a disaster, and that's assuming she would have made it to 2020 (as I posted previously I'm not convinced she's in good health).  Indeed when everyone recognizes that part of the problem is the Washington Establishment running someone who is the very definition of that establishment indicates that the party in question is out of ideas.

As to tribes:  The largest possible tribe to date is in fact the nation which can have millions of individuals.  That being said the average individual only really cares about 20-30 other individuals tops.

As to threats, yes I would say an existential threat is required for a civic generation to become a hero generation.  That's about all I'll say about threats in general.  The new economic formulation and climate change though are slow moving threats and unlikely to inspire much passion apart from a few Prophet Gen wackos. 

Humans still have a relatively primitive brain structure and as such we're still going to have to contend with flight or fight responses--economic change and climate change simply don't trigger that mechanism.

As to Obamacare 2.0 since you brought it up.  As I said previously Ryan didn't have the votes.  Had he brought the bill to the floor it would have died and likely resulted in a push for a vote of no confidence.  The fact of the matter is he can't control the house as it stands and he probably should be replaced soon.  If he brings a clean repeal to the floor it would pass and be signed within a week.

Ryan is part of the GOP establishment so expect there to be a lot of noise and fuss about the bill.  Don't expect much to be done about it.  If he wants to save his speakership he should move on to other issues.

As for Obamacare itself, it will collapse under its own weight anyway.  The problem is getting the Dims to own that collapse.

[Kinser79]

(03-25-2017, 11:47 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: It is up to a few blue states to make some progress on health care, by passing a single payer plan. Those who want to be covered can then move to one of these states, or at least trumpet its success. Real reform nationally will have to wait until the voters learn to do the right thing and dump Drump and the Republicans. That could happen in 2022-2024, if not sooner. The Republicans are only interested in reducing, cutting back or eliminating reform and boosting the old free enterprise approach instead, which is to say to put our health care into the hands of greedy wolves. Meanwhile we are stuck with Obamacare, or what's left of it.

Some like Bob would say, oh Eric is just an extreme partisan. OK fine, I'll accept the label. But guess which party moved to the extreme? Obamacare was a Republican plan; even though I favor single payer, I favored its passage. That's not extreme. Obamacare was a compromise.

Give up on any hope of national reform for now. It is only possible if and when the voters come to their senses.

If you want Blue State Single Payer (which is never going to happen), then you need a clean repeal of Obamacare too Eric.  Federal Law pre-empts state law just like state law pre-empts local ordinance.

That being said there isn't a government program that I don't want to cut or abolish except perhaps the military and the post office.

[Odin]

(03-24-2017, 01:05 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 06:52 AM)Odin Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 03:07 AM)Galen Wrote: It appears that the Freedom Caucus has a good chance of sinking Obamacare lite, or as I like to think of it Ryancare.  It looks like after eight years of falling on their sword for Boehner they have decided not to with Ryan.  I so much like Rand Paul better now that he is not running for president.

It's fun seeing the GOP fuck themselves over with their own infighting, it will be so ironic that it is the Tea Party wackos who end up saving the ACA. Your side had 7 years, SEVEN YEARS, to come up with a decent alternative plan and work out a compromise between the different factions in your party, but nope.

The GOP is the dog that caught the mail truck, and now the truck has run over the dog.

Actually the GOP has always had the solution all along.  REPEAL Obamacare.  End of discussion. 

Replacement is a different matter.  Myself I'm in favor of people buying their own damn insurance.  If people can be trusted to buy car insurance and home owners and renters insurance they can be trusted to buy health insurance.  In fact I'll go further and say that the tax structure that makes employer based health care a prudent choice in compensation packages should also be abolished.

A full repeal would have been killed by moderates scared of losing their seats in the midterms.

And you already know my opinion on healthcare and I'm not changing my mind on it.

[Odin]

(03-24-2017, 01:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: It's even funner knowing that the Obamacare is going to eventually collapse which is going to screw blue voters (a failure which will result in the loss of healthcare coverage for those who are currently covered by Obamacare ) like yourself worse than those who already have healthcare.

The ACA is not "collapsing", you have fallen for propaganda.

[Kinser79]

(03-25-2017, 02:07 PM)Odin Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 01:05 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 06:52 AM)Odin Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 03:07 AM)Galen Wrote: It appears that the Freedom Caucus has a good chance of sinking Obamacare lite, or as I like to think of it Ryancare.  It looks like after eight years of falling on their sword for Boehner they have decided not to with Ryan.  I so much like Rand Paul better now that he is not running for president.

It's fun seeing the GOP fuck themselves over with their own infighting, it will be so ironic that it is the Tea Party wackos who end up saving the ACA. Your side had 7 years, SEVEN YEARS, to come up with a decent alternative plan and work out a compromise between the different factions in your party, but nope.

The GOP is the dog that caught the mail truck, and now the truck has run over the dog.

Actually the GOP has always had the solution all along.  REPEAL Obamacare.  End of discussion. 

Replacement is a different matter.  Myself I'm in favor of people buying their own damn insurance.  If people can be trusted to buy car insurance and home owners and renters insurance they can be trusted to buy health insurance.  In fact I'll go further and say that the tax structure that makes employer based health care a prudent choice in compensation packages should also be abolished.

A full repeal would have been killed by moderates scared of losing their seats in the midterms.

And you already know my opinion on healthcare and I'm not changing my mind on it.

Moderate Republicans want a repeal too.  In fact not repealing is likely to cost them their seats as they'll be primaried.

Yes I know your position.  I'm not even attempting to get you to change it.  That would require a cephalanalectomy and I don't think we have a surgeon on the board.

[Odin]

(03-24-2017, 02:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 01:55 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 01:48 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 01:05 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 06:52 AM)Odin Wrote: It's fun seeing the GOP fuck themselves over with their own infighting, it will be so ironic that it is the Tea Party wackos who end up saving the ACA. Your side had 7 years, SEVEN YEARS, to come up with a decent alternative plan and work out a compromise between the different factions in your party, but nope.

The GOP is the dog that caught the mail truck, and now the truck has run over the dog.

Actually the GOP has always had the solution all along.  REPEAL Obamacare.  End of discussion. 

Replacement is a different matter.  Myself I'm in favor of people buying their own damn insurance.  If people can be trusted to buy car insurance and home owners and renters insurance they can be trusted to buy health insurance.  In fact I'll go further and say that the tax structure that makes employer based health care a prudent choice in compensation packages should also be abolished.

I'm not picky about which way people are covered. I wonder how many smart Democrats who actually care about the needs of their voters are still left in the House. The way I see it, if the Democrats themselves (the ones who are supposed to care about the needs of voters like Odin) don't really care about Odin, why should we care about him. Be thankful that you weren't born to be an idiot.

Welcome back Classic; one of my favorite foils. And I know that you and kinser are two of my biggest fans here

Fortunately, the Democrats DO care about the needs of their voters; that's why they will oppose this stupid Ryancare bill. All it does is raise costs for older middle-aged people, and take away coverage (altogether for 24 million people, and less coverage for everyone else). Higher cost for less care. And, because people are not required to participate, costs will keep rising for everyone. Which is the purpose of the bill: to enrich insurance companies, because that is "free enterprise," and that is "American" (hence the meaningless name of the bill). Supporters of Ryan/Trump care love to call themselves "Americans," which means backward compared to all other "developed" peoples in the world.

That's right, costs will keep rising, insurance companies will continue dropping out and insurance coverage's will continue shrinking as the Democrats opt to do nothing to make themselves look good to their primary voters (contributors). Ain't going to bother me as much as someone like poor Odin. I luv when a liberal rich bitch like Pelosi or a spoiled fucker like Kerry do stupid things/pass stupid things that end up screwing poor idiots like Odin. The developed peoples of the world aren't quite as developed as the Americans of the world. The Americans of the world don't need a single payer system.

Dayton had an actual solution to some of the issues Minnsure has been having, the Republican legislature voted instead to give an enormous bailout/bribe to the insurance industry, instead. A public option will drive down costs, but it will also hurt the profits of the insurance industry, the hospitals, and the medical device manufacturers.

[Odin]

(03-24-2017, 03:03 PM)Galen Wrote: or perhaps how bad Canada's healthcare system is.

Oh look, more right-wing propaganda about Canada's healthcare system. Note to Galen, actual Canadians FUCKING DESPISE FUCKERS LIKE YOU LYING ABOUT THEM.

[Odin]

(03-24-2017, 07:29 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: The thing I don't think Eric realizes is that if Obamacare collapses in Red States and Purple States then it will collapse in the Blue States too.  Maybe later than otherwise but it will collapse.  It depends how much cash the states are willing to pump into a failing system--indeed a system that some think may have been designed to fail.  The goal being to mess up private sector so much that people would clamor for a clearly inferior system as Crowder's video clearly demonstrates.

What's funny is all of this could be avoided simply by requiring people to buy their own damn insurance.

LOL, "inferior system", you guys are so brainwashed and out of touch with reality it's pathetic. The vast majority of Canadians love their "inferior system".

[Kinser79]

(03-25-2017, 02:23 PM)Odin Wrote:

(03-24-2017, 07:29 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: The thing I don't think Eric realizes is that if Obamacare collapses in Red States and Purple States then it will collapse in the Blue States too.  Maybe later than otherwise but it will collapse.  It depends how much cash the states are willing to pump into a failing system--indeed a system that some think may have been designed to fail.  The goal being to mess up private sector so much that people would clamor for a clearly inferior system as Crowder's video clearly demonstrates.

What's funny is all of this could be avoided simply by requiring people to buy their own damn insurance.

LOL, "inferior system", you guys are so brainwashed and out of touch with reality it's pathetic. The vast majority of Canadians love their "inferior system".

Probably because they don't need it.  Just a word of advice...don't get sick in Canada on Sunday.  That was told to me today by a regular Snowbird.

But there I go again actually talking to people from the country in question.  I mean it isn't like Canadians would know anything about Canada.

[Odin]

(03-25-2017, 02:32 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: That was told to me today by a regular Snowbird.

Sure it was...

[Kinser79]

(03-25-2017, 02:44 PM)Odin Wrote:

(03-25-2017, 02:32 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: That was told to me today by a regular Snowbird.

Sure it was...

Hey just because you don't know any Canadians doesn't mean I don't.  Strange animals Canadians.  They seem to prefer our country to their own.