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[TheOfficeMut]

If the DNC wasn't full of chicken shit centrists we'd be working towards a first world healthcare solution.

You're so narrow minded and incapable of recognizing why we are in the situation we are in. Let's not blame the people that voted for the current clownshow, noooooo.

 

[Kill3r7]

The ACA isn't the problem. The problem is the lack of a public option, the failure of Republican state governments to accept the medicaid expansion, and the penalty for not having insurance is too small( however, it can't be increased because of point number 2 resulting in low income households being penalized for being poor ).

If Republican's actually cared about a better healthcare plan, they'd do the following.

1) Legalize marijuana federally.
2) Create a national sales sin tax on Alcohol, Cigarettes, Marijuana, and other tobacco products.
3) Use the revenue to pump money into the exchanges and medicaid expansion.

If they want further revenue:

1) Legalize prostitution.
2) Require strippers to be recognized as employees of the strip clubs. As such, they fall under minimum wage rules.
3) Make prostitution subject to the national sales sin tax which again pumps money into healthcare.

This will all happen with time. It is a natural progression. Unfortunately right now it is too much off progress for baby boomers to ever agree to it.

 

[PrivateWHudson]

And maybe they won't and in the meantime millions lose care

This is hard to argue since I don't know the exact details, but those "millions" are probably not even using their care right now. Anyone in that zone between having a gold/platinum plan and being on Medicare/Medicaid and are just hoping they don't get sick, just the same as not having insurance at all. Anything serious is bankruptcy either way.

 

[LaNaranja]

$8 billion? Didn't we just have a thread about the military building a single boat for $13 billion.

 

[DUFFMCWALIN]

The ACA isn't the problem. The problem is the lack of a public option, the failure of Republican state governments to accept the medicaid expansion, and the penalty for not having insurance is too small( however, it can't be increased because of point number 2 resulting in low income households being penalized for being poor ).

If Republican's actually cared about a better healthcare plan, they'd do the following.

1) Legalize marijuana federally.
2) Create a national sales sin tax on Alcohol, Cigarettes, Marijuana, and other tobacco products.
3) Use the revenue to pump money into the exchanges and medicaid expansion.

If they want further revenue:

1) Legalize prostitution.
2) Require strippers to be recognized as employees of the strip clubs. As such, they fall under minimum wage rules.
3) Make prostitution subject to the national sales sin tax which again pumps money into healthcare.

This all sounds good and logical.




Which means it won't happen in our lifetimes.

 

[DontBeThatGuy]

If the DNC wasn't full of chicken shit centrists we'd be working towards a first world healthcare solution.

Some of y'all are just stuck on repeat mode.

 

[Spiritreaver]

This is hard to argue since I don't know the exact details, but those "millions" are probably not even using their care right now. Anyone in that zone between having a gold/platinum plan and being on Medicare/Medicaid and are just hoping they don't get sick, just the same as not having insurance at all. Anything serious is bankruptcy either way.

I am using mine, right now. You wanna pay for my Pradaxa?

Glad to see you'd rather have me die of a blood clot for the greater good of progressive ideals. Thanks for having my back.

 

[excelsiorlef]

This is hard to argue since I don't know the exact details, but those "millions" are probably not even using their care right now. Anyone in that zone between having a gold/platinum plan and being on Medicare/Medicaid and are just hoping they don't get sick, just the same as not having insurance at all. Anything serious is bankruptcy either way.

Blowing it up will hurt people end of story

 

[Kurdel]

The federal government is supposed to help the Obamacare markets succeeded.

Cutting off their air supply to accelerate their death was bound to blow up in their face.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

You know what else is going to rile their base more, as we've seen? Losing their healthcare. I think just about everyone knows that the way Obamacare is structured is not ideal, this isn't news, but until Republicans can come up with an alternative that doesn't fuck over millions of people, they are stuck. They can shout out to their base, 'see, see,' but when their alternative is, 'you are going to lose any healthcare you have to begin with,' it doesn't matter. It's the ultimate quagmire.

Agreed. And you know what else with rile up their base?

ANYTHING THE REPUBLICANS LIE TO THE BASE ABOUT.

Which is like breathing to Republicans in office. Constant and inherent to their daily existence.

 

[StopMakingSense]

This is what I've been saying the whole time about Trumps threats to withhold payments.

 

[Suikoguy]

The ACA isn't the problem. The problem is the lack of a public option, the failure of Republican state governments to accept the medicaid expansion, and the penalty for not having insurance is too small( however, it can't be increased because of point number 2 resulting in low income households being penalized for being poor ).

If Republican's actually cared about a better healthcare plan, they'd do the following.

1) Legalize marijuana federally.
2) Create a national sales sin tax on Alcohol, Cigarettes, Marijuana, and other tobacco products.
3) Use the revenue to pump money into the exchanges and medicaid expansion.

If they want further revenue:

1) Legalize prostitution.
2) Require strippers to be recognized as employees of the strip clubs. As such, they fall under minimum wage rules.
3) Make prostitution subject to the national sales sin tax which again pumps money into healthcare.

I'm for this, especially as a first step. There are other drugs that can be legalized without significant problems. Others that need their schedule changed so they can be used as pharmacology.

But, you need to earmark at least some of the funds from such taxes towards addiction support and mental health.

Lastly, alcohol and cigarette taxes are reaching a point where additional taxes may cause more black market activity than increased revenue.

 

[PrivateWHudson]

I am using mine, right now. You wanna pay for my Pradaxa?

Glad to see you'd rather have me die of a blood clot for the greater good of progressive ideals. Thanks for having my back.

Would you be so kind as to share the details of you insurance plan and the costs of that medication?

Blowing it up will hurt people end of story

And keeping it the same is hurting people.

 

[Xe4]

Good. I mean it sucks that the government is basically paying insurance companies, as when the government pays any companies, but this will keep the marketplaces solvent, which is only a good thing.

 

[PrivateWHudson]

Good. I mean it sucks that the government is basically paying insurance companies, as when the government pays any companies, but this will keep the marketplaces solvent, which is only a good thing.

Blowing up just the exchanges would be bad, but I'm all in on blowing up the entire health insurance industry.

 

[Nerdkiller]

One of the important reasons they got the insurers on board first w/ the ACA negotiations - it insured that when the Dems no longer had control of any of the processes that the industry would not be trying to tear it down alongside the GOP.

Yup.

The main reason Republicans are quickly choking on their proposed repeal of Obamacare is that it was so well constructed for this moment.

The AMA, doctors & nurses orgs, AARP, hospitals & others oppose Obamacare repeal in large part because they're stakeholders in it. Paradoxically, the inclusion of institutional stakeholders is what caused some who identify as "on the left" to oppose Obamacare in 2009. Nothing short of government-administered "single payer" was acceptable to those Obamacare opponents as it was being legislated.

Interestingly, the state of Vermont - with support of its governor - tried to enact single payer, titled "Medicare for All" but balked after its true costs became evident: an 11.5% increase in state payroll tax plus premiums as high as 9.5% of a person's income. While *I* could and would justify such high initial costs for single payer health care, most consumers & voters would quickly reject 'em. The sad truth is that had "Obamacare" been "single payer" the *easiest* thing for the GOP right now would be to dismantle it.

What makes it so difficult for the GOP to repeal Obamacare now is that, again, it gave stakes to many institutional sectors. Purists oppose sharing power with sectors that already have it because, they say, it perpetuates existing unfairness. However, you know what else perpetuates existing unfairness? Not having a workable plan or a durable coalition to defend change once enacted!

The defense & protection of Obamacare is not an academic or ideological exercise for 20 million of us whose lives it saved. If it is going to continue to keep us alive, that's because it was constructed carefully in a way to resist today's GOP challenge to it! Likewise, Obamacare was constructed with "booby-traps" that, if it were to be repealed, would bring swift electoral death of the GOP. Its "repeal" would lead to an unintended "replace," the replacement of the GOP Congress as soon as 2018. That's how well it's designed.

Remember also that presidents Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton & Bush II all called for health care! But only a community organizer, Barack Obama, was able to organize its passage after more than a half century of failed attempts. Today some of the same "purity progressives" who opposed ACA for its lack of public option or single payer are among its loud defenders. In 2012 some called for primarying president Obama because Obamacare, they said, didn't go far enough. Well, now they know better!

The construction of Obamacare and the "coalition of stakeholders" that now defends it was political genius. The GOP is in trouble. The GOP is damned if it repeals, and damned if it fails to repeal Obamacare. That's exactly how the plan was intended back in 2009! So, #ThanksObama for designing health care in a way that anticipated attacks upon it. That's what organizing does! End memo.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

What we're doing now isn't working, so why not. Is there a whole lot of difference between no insurance, and paying a ton of money for an insurance you don't use because the deductible is too high? It's already broken, period.

So you're okay with potentially millions dying for an entirely hypothetical hope.

That's monstrous, and you should be ashamed of yourself for being as willing to kill the sick and the poor as much as the Republicans.

Fucking disgusting.

 

[Bsigg12]

Blowing up just the exchanges would be bad, but I'm all in on blowing up the entire health insurance industry.

And doing what? Just magically making costs lower and giving everyone better coverage?

 

[PrivateWHudson]

So you're okay with potentially millions dying for an entirely hypothetical hope.

That's monstrous, and you should be ashamed of yourself for being as willing to kill the sick and the poor as much as the Republicans.

Fucking disgusting.

If the whole health insurance industry crumbled, people wouldn't die, it would have to be replaced with something better. The whole country not having insurance all at once would bring us together like any other national disaster. Health providers would have to bring costs down and government would have to step up with financing and regulations. Lots of CEOs and shareholders would be cut off from their ridiculous profits. Employers would have to take the money they use to subsidize premiums and pay employees more, or hand it over as a tax to help pay for care.

 

[uncelestial]

Yes, to get to single payer, or a true free market. Either will do, but with the real cost of premiums and deductibles hidden from those not looking, and insurance lobbies pulling strings, we are fucked for the foreseeable future.

Bruh, if you're rooting for a health system collapse on the belief that Trump and the GOP Congress will institute single payer you are fucking dreaming.

 

[Kurdel]

If the whole health insurance industry crumbled, people wouldn't die, it would have to be replaced with something better. The whole country not having insurance all at once would bring us together like any other national disaster. Health providers would have to bring costs down and government would have to step up with financing and regulations. Lots of CEOs and shareholders would be cut off from their ridiculous profits.

You live in a fantasy world, holy shit there are 0 chances things would be fast, easy or deathless.

I mean, have you seem the last decade of healthcare debates? What on earth would give you this kind if optimism?

 

[EdibleKnife]

If the whole health insurance industry crumbled, people wouldn't die, it would have to be replaced with something better.

Unless that happened literally within one day, people would die.

 

[SkyOdin]

If the whole health insurance industry crumbled, people wouldn't die, it would have to be replaced with something better. The whole country not having insurance all at once would bring us together like any other national disaster. Health providers would have to bring costs down and government would have to step up with financing and regulations. Lots of CEOs and shareholders would be cut off from their ridiculous profits.

We don't need to break things and burn everything down in order to have change. If you want to see a change, just work towards that. No need for this purposeless desire to see everything burn first.

The idea that if things suddenly got worse everyone would rally behind your vision of the future is just a fantasy. It's mere wishful thinking peddled by would-be revolutionaries. The cold reality is that the outcome of revolution can neither be predicted nor controlled. Once you burn a system down, there is never a guarantee that it will be replaced by what you want.

 

[rjinaz]

Bruh, if you're rooting for a health system collapse on the belief that Trump and the GOP Congress will institute single payer you are fucking dreaming.

This is in part how we got Trump. The "burn it all down, then things will get better" way of thinking. Not with Republicans in power. They will remain untouched by whatever shit my hit the fan.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

If the whole health insurance industry crumbled, people wouldn't die, it would have to be replaced with something better. The whole country not having insurance all at once would bring us together like any other national disaster. Health providers would have to bring costs down and government would have to step up with financing and regulations. Lots of CEOs and shareholders would be cut off from their ridiculous profits. Employers would have to take the money they use to subsidize premiums and pay employees more, or hand it over as a tax to help pay for care.

This is remarkably naive.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Would you be so kind as to share the details of you insurance plan and the costs of that medication?



And keeping it the same is hurting people.

Hence why it's not perfect but more are harmed by blowing it up than by keeping it.

If the whole health insurance industry crumbled, people wouldn't die, it would have to be replaced with something better. The whole country not having insurance all at once would bring us together like any other national disaster. Health providers would have to bring costs down and government would have to step up with financing and regulations. Lots of CEOs and shareholders would be cut off from their ridiculous profits. Employers would have to take the money they use to subsidize premiums and pay employees more, or hand it over as a tax to help pay for care.

Who is in charge now?

What alternate reality are you posting from.

This is pie in the sky nonsense.

You are actively calling for harm in dreams of a utopia when what you'll get is millions who suffer.

 

[tuxfool]

If the whole health insurance industry crumbled, people wouldn't die, it would have to be replaced with something better. The whole country not having insurance all at once would bring us together like any other national disaster. Health providers would have to bring costs down and government would have to step up with financing and regulations. Lots of CEOs and shareholders would be cut off from their ridiculous profits. Employers would have to take the money they use to subsidize premiums and pay employees more, or hand it over as a tax to help pay for care.

Note that you're also talking about causing chaos in 20% of the economy. If things were to blow up as you suggest, not only would people relying on those services get hurt, but you'd be liable to crash the economy.

 

[PrivateWHudson]

Bruh, if you're rooting for a health system collapse on the belief that Trump and the GOP Congress will institute single payer you are fucking dreaming.

I don't expect the GOP congress to do anything. But I'd rather everyone in the same boat, for better or worse.

 

[excelsiorlef]

I don't expect the GOP congress to do anything. But I'd rather everyone in the same boat, for better or worse.

Wtf...

What is wrong with you?

 

[Armaros]

I'd prefer to see them implode. Unfortunately this won't fully happen until insurance is decoupled from employers.

So you would rather millions lose insurance then.

In what alternate utopia universe do you come from where a collapse of such a mass industry would be fixed and reborn fast enough before millions that depend on health insurance would suffer?

 

[KHarvey16]

I don't expect the GOP congress to do anything. But I'd rather everyone in the same boat, for better or worse.

You're no better than the GOP on this. You have a goal in mind and couldn't give less of a shit about who it kills.

 

[Armaros]

I don't expect the GOP congress to do anything. But I'd rather everyone in the same boat, for better or worse.

so because Some people have higher premiums, you want to take away health insurance from a huge chunk of the country..

And you try to pretend you are not exactly like the GOP?

 

[PrivateWHudson]

You're no better than the GOP on this. You have a goal in mind and couldn't give less of a shit about who it kills.

The goal is better healthcare. If you see a different path, please share.

 

[excelsiorlef]

The goal is better healthcare. If you see a different path, please share.

Improve on ACA and build it towards UHC.

 

[KHarvey16]

The goal is better healthcare. If you see a different path, please share.

That's what the GOP says too. You both live in fantasy land.

 

[Conciliator]

$8 billion? Didn't we just have a thread about the military building a single boat for $13 billion.

to be fair, the boat was very large

 

[PrivateWHudson]

Improve on ACA and build it towards UHC.

So you think the GOP will do that? Interesting.

 

[KHarvey16]

So you think the GOP will do that? Interesting.

Interesting is that practical challenges are only a concern for you when addressing the arguments of others.

 

[PrivateWHudson]

Interesting is that practical challenges are only a concern for you concerning the arguments of others.

They brought up what the GOP is or isn't willing to do first. At least in my scenario, they would be forced to do something.

 

[excelsiorlef]

So you think the GOP will do that? Interesting.

No.

I think the Democrats will later and it'll be easier to do than blowing it up and millions won't suffer

 

[Armaros]

So you think the GOP will do that? Interesting.

So since the GOP won't improve healthcare, why should we let the current system fail if we don't have a better solution coming with this current congress?

You would spite millions out of health healthcare for your personal ideals?

None of your logic holds up to practical reality.

They brought up what the GOP is or isn't willing to do first. At least in my scenario, they would be forced to do something.

Forced to do what? You think the current GOP could be come up with something to replace the system that got destroyed? Or that they would want to?

Again your logical progression makes zero sense.

GOP won't do UHC -> let Markets fail -> GOP does something?

 

[excelsiorlef]

They brought up what the GOP is or isn't willing to do first. At least in my scenario, they would be forced to do something.

No they wouldn't... not in the way you want

Trump wants to blow it up so they can put in something worse literally that's what he and Congress almost just did. You're literally cheering him along.

 

[Turbo Killer]

If the whole health insurance industry crumbled, people wouldn't die, it would have to be replaced with something better. The whole country not having insurance all at once would bring us together like any other national disaster. Health providers would have to bring costs down and government would have to step up with financing and regulations. Lots of CEOs and shareholders would be cut off from their ridiculous profits. Employers would have to take the money they use to subsidize premiums and pay employees more, or hand it over as a tax to help pay for care.

Just like when the auto industry collapsed in this country, we all came together and fixed it by bailing them out or the airline industry after 9/11, lol.

 

[djkimothy]

Yup.

JFC, he communicated all that through twitter?

 

[PrivateWHudson]

No they wouldn't... not in the way you want

Trump wants to blow it up so they can put in something worse literally that's what he and Congress almost just did. You're literally cheering him along.

He wants to blow up the exchanges, not the idea of heath insurance. Health insurance not being a profit cow may be a good thing.

 

[kirblar]

I'm convinced a big reason people soured on S2 of Mr. Robot is that it took the "LETS BLOW EVERYTHING UP" power fantasy and immediately confronted people with the incredibly unpleasant fallout such an event would actually create.

 

[Prophaniti]

$8 billion? Didn't we just have a thread about the military building a single boat for $13 billion.

Which is fine considering it includes development cost.

 

[Armaros]

He wants to blow up the exchanges, not the idea of heath insurance. Health insurance not being a profit cow may be a good thing.

So how will most people on the exchanges get their healthcare then? After all the exchanges fail?

Wait for thIs mythical GOP plan?

 

[excelsiorlef]

He wants to blow up the exchanges, not the idea of heath insurance. Health insurance not being a profit cow may be a good thing.

...

Blowing up all of health care
a) Is Not going to happen
b) Has nothing to do with this story

 

[Conciliator]

I'm convinced a big reason people soured on S2 of Mr. Robot is that it took the "LETS BLOW EVERYTHING UP" power fantasy and immediately confronted people with the incredibly unpleasant fallout such an event would actually create.

i haven't watched S2 but the reason I soured on S1 is because it seems like they just

Spoiler

dumped a bucket of hot movie twists on a show I thought was largely about the characters.

/derailed