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PoliGAF 2017 |OT2| Well, maybe McMaster isn't a traitor.

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S

Sharpeye

Member
The meals on Wheels cut is getting a lot of flack it seems. Screwing over seniors and vets so blatantly, does Trump and the GOP realize they are messing with people who vote for them? It's like there asking to be voted out in the midterms.
 
E

excelsiorlef

Member
Valhelm said:
Pigeon, you never explained how Chapo is problematic except for their association with Nick Mullen. If that's all your evidence, then I don't believe it's appropriate to call Chapo Trap House a bigoted podcast, especially considering how ferocious their advocacy against the GOP has been.
Click to expand...

It's not just association it's defense... that article you linked was her just making excuses for his ironic bigotry and twitter insults (the one towards Melissa McEwan isn't even a fucking joke it's just cruelty and trivializes rape). Like she couldn't even really bother to condemn the words or actions really just called them jokes.

Furthermore we can then tie this into what I quoted out of the artical that was posted earlier critical of these folks:

Chapo's response to the ”ironic" bullying dynamic it has sparked has been accordingly equivocal. On episode 11, ”Cranking the Donkey" (May 22, 2016), Menaker responds to complaints that some men of the Twitter left were harassing women, acknowledging that on the internet women regularly received communications that were ”at best annoying, and at worst frightening." But he stops short of suggesting that men have an obligation to intervene against such abuse. Christman objects to liberal women who had crafted a ”narrative" of abuse, claiming that the internet is a ”shit tornado" with a ”mass of totally uncontrollable, unknowable people — you have no idea who anybody is, they can do whatever the fuck they want, and this narrative of these directed attacks ... there's something comforting about that." Menaker added that ”Twitter and the internet and shit doesn't matter ... I really don't think they have any real-world effects other than distraction and just staving off the feeling of impending death, basically."
Click to expand...

Are they raving bigots? Probably not, are they going to be helpful in social justice and minority issues? I have my doubts.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
Valhelm said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't your preference just abandoning social democratic policies until racist detractors die off or change their mind due to contact with people of color?
Click to expand...

?????

I've never suggested this, or anything even remotely similar to this. Why do you lie about me?
 
P

pigeon

Banned
Valhelm said:
Pigeon, you never explained how Chapo is problematic except for their association with Nick Mullen. If that's all your evidence, then I don't believe it's appropriate to call Chapo Trap House a bigoted podcast, especially considering how ferocious their advocacy against the GOP has been.
Click to expand...

I really don't care what you believe is appropriate or not. You're not the arbiter of what's sexist and what isn't! It's clear from your whole line of argument about this issue that your interest is not in trying to think about social justice, but in trying to absolve and defend a podcast you like because it bothers you that people are suggesting it's sexist. I'm not invested in playing that game with you. Ultimately you're going to believe the things you want to believe.
 
K

Kemal86

Member
In 7 weeks I will finish my masters degree. in Library & Information Science. If this budget passes, and eliminates federal support for public libraries...shit. shit shit shit shit shit.

Crazy part is people I currently work with in the library of one of the top/largest public universities in the nation actually voted for this monster.
 
S

soul creator

Member
kirblar said:
Neither will ever work because people already have employer-sponsored health care.
Click to expand...

Then you come up with a simple message to organize around about the massive drawbacks of that (which people with employer-sponsored health care can certainly relate with) and focus on the rather straightforward positives (like, it solves pretty much every problem people have with health insurance) of the alternative, and you minimize the flaws of your program (taxes, losing some employees at health insurance companies, maybe some increased wait times?). And as a national plan that directly builds on an already popular program, Medicare, it already has a built-in branding advantage over smaller state-based plans (and of course, the actual finances of health insurance work out much better for a federal program, compared to a state-based one).

And if the only other party's plan on the table is effectively Paul Ryan's/Trump's "we will make all insurance shittier, including your employee-provided insurance", then that's an actual visible policy contrast people will have to consider during an election. And it's on a major policy that affects everyone, young/old, poor/rich, white/black, Dem/Rep, and isn't something that can be easily ignored. After all, everyone here uses the "there's only two places to go" argument when it comes to our voting system, so take advantage of that. That's how Republicans can get more and more absurd every year and still get a guaranteed 40-45% of the vote no matter what. Because hey, if you identify as conservative, that's your only option.

Another benefit is that there's already a bill to organize around. I've heard a ton about "we just need to build on the ACA and make it better so we eventually become like Switzerland one day" (though Switzerland is still more expensive than other countries), but other bills to cover everyone and cut costs don't seem to exist (and if they do exist, the DNC doesn't seem to be organizing around that either). And since we're now in 2017, and Republicans have put forward a bill, they can't just snipe from the sidelines like in 2010 and pretend they have some awesome bill ready to go. So the political environment has changed.

Now, maybe when actually legislating this potentially gets compromised down. And of course, insurance companies will go nuts. And right-wingers will of course go nuts, though it puts them in the spot of actually having to very visibly argue against Medicare. But it at least offers a straightforward vision to campaign on. "We want to cover every American at a cheaper cost than what we're all paying now. This bill does that."
well, unless you're super rich, I guess
. It's a straightforward message, and it's likely the CBO would confirm that. And compromising down from Medicare for All may be...Medicare for some (lowering Medicare age, public option, etc.), which is much better than compromising down from a vaguely defined public option.

And if Obama is serious about the "put forward a better bill, and I will support it" line he mentioned, then maybe he can use his inspirational rhetoric to help get the base motivated over it. He's out of office now, so he no longer needs to pander to insurance companies. And since grassroots energy is often behind Medicare for All, grassroots energy + inspirational Obama sounds like a good combination to me (though of course, that could potentially be a drawback since he also motivates the right-wing base!)

At the very least, what we shouldn't do is continue with the submerged state and offering confusing policies that people don't even realize come from the government due to large programs that are intentionally designed in an obscure way in order to pander to private interests whose goals conflict with the goals of actual people. Since that definitely hasn't worked, electorally, the past 7 years.
 
C

CygnusXS

will gain confidence one day
Kemal86 said:
In 7 weeks I will finish my masters degree. in Library & Information Science. If this budget passes, and eliminates federal support for public libraries...shit. shit shit shit shit shit.

Crazy part is people I currently work with in the library of one of the top/largest public universities in the nation actually voted for this monster.
Click to expand...

Come to Canada! We need some brain gain.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
soul creator said:
Then you come up with a simple message to organize around about the massive drawbacks of that (which people with employer-sponsored health care can certainly relate with) and focus on the rather straightforward positives (like, it solves pretty much every problem people have with health insurance) of the alternative, and you minimize the flaws of your program (taxes, losing some employees at health insurance companies, maybe some increased wait times?). And as a national plan that directly builds on an already popular program, Medicare, it already has a built-in branding advantage over smaller state-based plans (and of course, the actual finances of health insurance work out much better for a federal program, compared to a state-based one).

And if the only other party's plan on the table is effectively Paul Ryan's/Trump's "we will make all insurance shittier, including your employee-provided insurance", then that's an actual visible policy contrast people will have to consider during an election. And it's on a major policy that affects everyone, young/old, poor/rich, white/black, Dem/Rep, and isn't something that can be easily ignored. After all, everyone here uses the "there's only two places to go" argument when it comes to our voting system, so take advantage of that. That's how Republicans can get more and more absurd every year and still get a guaranteed 40-45% of the vote no matter what. Because hey, if you identify as conservative, that's your only option.

Another benefit is that there's already a bill to organize around. I've heard a ton about "we just need to build on the ACA and make it better so we eventually become like Switzerland one day" (though Switzerland is still more expensive than other countries), but other bills to cover everyone and cut costs don't seem to exist (and if they do exist, the DNC doesn't seem to be organizing around that either). And since we're now in 2017, and Republicans have put forward a bill, they can't just snipe from the sidelines like in 2010 and pretend they have some awesome bill ready to go. So the political environment has changed.

Now, maybe when actually legislating this potentially gets compromised down. And of course, insurance companies will go nuts. And right-wingers will of course go nuts, though it puts them in the spot of actually having to very visibly argue against Medicare. But it at least offers a straightforward vision to campaign on. "We want to cover every American at a cheaper cost than what we're all paying now. This bill does that."
well, unless you're super rich, I guess
. It's a straightforward message, and it's likely the CBO would confirm that. And compromising down from Medicare for All may be...Medicare for some (lowering Medicare age, public option, etc.), which is much better than compromising down from a vaguely defined public option.

And if Obama is serious about the "put forward a better bill, and I will support it" line he mentioned, then maybe he can use his inspirational rhetoric to help get the base motivated over it. He's out of office now, so he no longer needs to pander to insurance companies. And since grassroots energy is often behind Medicare for All, grassroots energy + inspirational Obama sounds like a good combination to me (though of course, that could potentially be a drawback since he also motivates the right-wing base!)

At the very least, what we shouldn't do is continue with the submerged state and offering confusing policies that people don't even realize come from the government due to large programs that are intentionally designed in an obscure way in order to pander to private interests whose goals conflict with the goals of actual people. Since that definitely hasn't worked, electorally, the past 7 years.
Click to expand...

This is an excellent post and makes a strong argument.

The one point I want to comment on is saying "insurance companies will go nuts." This doesn't seem that different from saying that green energy is important but "coal companies will go nuts," or that globalization will make everybody richer but "big manufacturers will go nuts." Those industries employ people! 9% of Americans are employed in the healthcare sector. They're going to have strong opinions about eliminating private insurance by killing the employer-sponsored tax break!

Now, maybe you can argue that this disruption is fine because of the general increase in well-being. Certainly I've made similar arguments before! But one of the things I'm learning post-election is that America's social welfare systems are simply not strong enough to nationalize losses the way we nationalize gains. Those losses are going to be concentrated and severe, and we need to think about explicitly mitigating them.

Also, as noted, racists hate healthcare for all, but we probably can't win racists anyway, so may as well advocate for racial justice and also universal healthcare.
 
D

Doc Holliday

SPOILER: Columbus finds America
the gop have the right idea on one thing, never compromise on the first deal.

I wish Obama would have opened with single payer and then negotiate down after that. This Gop bill is so fucking crazy that any changes will look like a huge compromise.

I hope the Democrats don't fall for this shit.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
shinra-bansho said:
You don't need to eliminate private insurance to control healthcare costs.
Click to expand...

Removing the employer-provided health insurance tax break essentially eliminates private insurance in America. 70% of Americans would either lose their plan or face hundreds of dollars more a month to keep it.
 
A

AntraxSuicide

Banned
pigeon said:
The one point I want to comment on is saying "insurance companies will go nuts." This doesn't seem that different from saying that green energy is important but "coal companies will go nuts," or that globalization will make everybody richer but "big manufacturers will go nuts." Those industries employ people! 9% of Americans are employed in the healthcare sector. They're going to have strong opinions about eliminating private insurance by killing the employer-sponsored tax break!
Click to expand...

shinra-bansho said:
You don't need to eliminate private insurance to control healthcare costs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, isn't one of the strongest benefits of a public option that the gov't just acts as an affordable private insurance company (and uses that position to dominate negotiations on things like drug pricing and whatnot)? You don't put 10% of the population out of work because you actually employ additional people and leave the private ones alone.
 
S

sphagnum

Banned
pigeon said:
Removing the employer-provided health insurance tax break essentially eliminates private insurance in America. 70% of Americans would either lose their plan or face hundreds of dollars more a month to keep it.
Click to expand...

Never allow a crisis to go to waste.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
sphagnum said:
Never allow a crisis to go to waste.
Click to expand...

I mean, that's why I was so excited about the idea that the Republicans might get rid of it! In a world where the tax break magically doesn't exist and all the healthcare systems built around it aren't sitting around with millions of people depending on them, obviously we should immediately do single-payer. That's a slam dunk.
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
nintendoman58 said:
Can someone tell me if Trump's new 2018 budget is going to require 60 votes or not?

Also, when are these things voted on?
Click to expand...

October 1st the government shuts down, so typically September, unless they pass a small extension to fund the government a couple more months to give themselves more time.

Technically they're supposed to pass it by june, but there's nothing enforcing that and I think the earliest they ever pass things is like august. Doesn't stop criticisms from the minority party every time that june deadline passes by of course.
 
B

Bonen no Max'd

Banned
I will say I think the "but think of the insurance companies" are a silly argument coming from people who make light of people wanting their old manufacturing job back. At least the manufacturing people would be providing a useful service, whereas insurance companies mostly seem like leeches who benefit from a bad system.
 
E

excelsiorlef

Member
Bonen no Max'd said:
I will say I think the "but think of the insurance companies" are a silly argument coming from people who make light of people wanting their old manufacturing job back. At least the manufacturing people would be providing a useful service, whereas insurance companies mostly seem like leeches who benefit from a bad system.
Click to expand...

To be fair there's a difference between jobs already gone and jobs to be lost.


And those posts aren't about sympathies for the companies but the workers they currently employ.
 
S

shinra-bansho

Member
Bonen no Max'd said:
I will say I think the "but think of the insurance companies" are a silly argument coming from people who make light of people wanting their old manufacturing job back. At least the manufacturing people would be providing a useful service, whereas insurance companies mostly seem like leeches who benefit from a bad system.
Click to expand...
I'm not really partial to artificially sustaining either, but this makes no sense. How would old manufacturing be providing any more of a useful service by being propped up? They're not actually providing service at all. Just goods no one wants anyway.

Realistically, a lot of Americans have employer sponsored healthcare. A lot of them actually like it. When presented with the loss of that the touted plurality support for Medicare for all turns into plurality opposition. Similarly if they're informed their taxes will rise to pay for it.

It's nice to want things. But your country's basic mentality isn't equipped for such a change.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
Bonen no Max'd said:
I will say I think the "but think of the insurance companies" are a silly argument coming from people who make light of people wanting their old manufacturing job back. At least the manufacturing people would be providing a useful service, whereas insurance companies mostly seem like leeches who benefit from a bad system.
Click to expand...

I dunno, I think healthcare professionals keep people alive and healthy while manufacturing companies mostly want to waste money creating low-value objects at a deadweight loss.

I did address this point explicitly in the post I made!
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Kemal86 said:
In 7 weeks I will finish my masters degree. in Library & Information Science. If this budget passes, and eliminates federal support for public libraries...shit. shit shit shit shit shit.

Crazy part is people I currently work with in the library of one of the top/largest public universities in the nation actually voted for this monster.
Click to expand...
Cutting support for public libraries? The fuck is the mindset behind that?
 
A

AntraxSuicide

Banned
pigeon said:
I dunno, I think healthcare professionals keep people alive and healthy while manufacturing companies mostly want to waste money creating low-value objects at a deadweight loss.

I did address this point explicitly in the post I made!
Click to expand...

Yeah, implementation of the bureaucracy of healthcare doesn't mean those jobs are worthless. Manufacturing in 2017 is literally paying people to sweep the streets every day.
 
S

soul creator

Member
pigeon said:
This is an excellent post and makes a strong argument.

The one point I want to comment on is saying "insurance companies will go nuts." This doesn't seem that different from saying that green energy is important but "coal companies will go nuts," or that globalization will make everybody richer but "big manufacturers will go nuts." Those industries employ people! 9% of Americans are employed in the healthcare sector. They're going to have strong opinions about eliminating private insurance by killing the employer-sponsored tax break!

Now, maybe you can argue that this disruption is fine because of the general increase in well-being. Certainly I've made similar arguments before! But one of the things I'm learning post-election is that America's social welfare systems are simply not strong enough to nationalize losses the way we nationalize gains. Those losses are going to be concentrated and severe, and we need to think about explicitly mitigating them.
Click to expand...

True enough. Though I always wonder, when we're talking about the average worker at a health insurance company (or any company, really), I wonder how many people don't really like their job but are only staying there...to keep health insurance, heh.

On a more serious note, the Democratic Party as a national organization routinely argues in support of other policies (globalization/free trade is the big one, like you've mentioned) that cause huge losses, and people nowadays often argue that it was an inevitability ("those jobs aren't coming back"). At the very least, there's now the benefit of "everyone has guaranteed health care, no matter what" as opposed to "cheaper consumer goods".

So I kind of hope that the type of people that consider Rust Belt workers a necessary sacrifice for their policy views aren't the same ones that are suddenly concerned about any policy that may harm health insurance employees!

(this could be a reflection of how our society views blue-collar vs. white-collar workers, but that's for a separate discussion I suppose)

All that said, something would definitely need to be done to address this, and HR 676 does call out specific funding for job placement, a grace period for maintaining benefits, etc. So it's at least been thought of in that specific bill being offered. Whether it's strong enough to account for any losses, I'm not sure.

And if Republicans try to make the case about "this will be too disruptive" then that's where you hammer them on all the disruptive shit they're attempting to pass, heh.

Also, as noted, racists hate healthcare for all, but we probably can't win racists anyway, so may as well advocate for racial justice and also universal healthcare.
Click to expand...

Agreed. And of course, it's not like policies such as the ACA somehow gets around that problem. So you might as well just go for what's right and figure out how to sell that, rather than worrying about them (obviously they're a problem we should deal with in other areas, but I don't think it's directly applicable to the healthcare debate). And in reference to 2016 Trump voters...they're still the minority, when it comes to the voting population. Things just happened to fall into place in 2016 that got them a win.

This doesn't mean that all Democratic/Independent voters and nonvoters are all pure-hearted socialists, but it does mean that the numbers aren't in favor of the hardcore racist Trump lover/Republican die-hard types. Everyone else just needs to be activated. I think a simpler message and policy that materially addresses people's needs helps with that. Or maybe it doesn't, but I'd rather try that than what we've been doing the past 8 years.

shinra-bansho said:
You don't need to eliminate private insurance to control healthcare costs.
Click to expand...

You don't need to do it to control costs in general, and you can certainly find ways to guarantee coverage with private insurance, but keeping private health insurance is the least efficient way of doing that (which is why places like Switzerland, while much better than the US, still tends to be more expensive than Canda/UK/etc.)

I guess that relates to another view I have...the legislation needed to maintain private insurance, and cut costs, requires directly harming their bottom line...and they're gonna fight that as well. And if you make the public option so much better than private insurance that it makes people want to switch to it, and try to cleverly manipulate our way into single-payer (as the argument usually goes)...they're gonna fight that as well. So when it comes to the "likely to pass" metric, I don't know if you get too many benefits from the other approaches. Which is why I tend to take the go big or go home view on this particular issue.

You might appeal to a few of the "I love having choice!" types I guess by maintaining private insurance, but I tend to think that's a relative minority. I personally think the "choice" of paying tons of deductibles, premiums, coinsurance, managing in-network and out of network doctors, surprise bills, etc. is somewhat overrated.
 
S

shinra-bansho

Member
I mean you tend to think that, and yet support plummets for the Medicare for All when people realise they have to give up their current plans, to get the same thing as everyone else, while they need to pay more taxes.

Also a private insurance industry operates in kangaroo land alongside a universal health system with government incentivisation of private cover above certain income levels. And the chart shows costs are lower than magical maple land.

I expect go big or go home means you're going nowhere.

Maybe that's actually the difference in philosophy. You so far as I can tell seem to think the average US citizen fundamentally wants to have the same coverage with everyone paying a share. I don't think that sort of optimism is really warranted.
 
A

AntraxSuicide

Banned
I like this post a lot.

soul creator said:
On a more serious note, the Democratic Party as a national organization routinely argues in support of other policies (globalization/free trade is the big one, like you've mentioned) that cause huge losses, and people nowadays often argue that it was an inevitability ("those jobs aren't coming back"). At the very least, there's now the benefit of "everyone has guaranteed health care, no matter what" as opposed to "cheaper consumer goods".

So I kind of hope that the type of people that consider Rust Belt workers a necessary sacrifice for their policy views aren't the same ones that are suddenly concerned about any policy that may harm health insurance employees!
Click to expand...

For me, this isn't quite a one-to-one comparison. Those manufacturing jobs are disappearing because of automation, and the rate is just related to the cost of the machines/software to do it. That's not something that actually gets solved unless you ban automation (my father-in-law suggested this with some conservative sources as something that they talk about), but then you get into the same problems as the people trying to ban GMOs (since depending on your definition, you could be banning like 70% of the thing you're talking about).

Health care bureaucrats and whatnot aren't in that position. Their jobs will exist in the future without your influence, and so those people can absolutely point at you and say "You took my job." If you can help them afterwards, then it's fine (as I think this is the only solution to manufacturing losses since those jobs are actually obsolete). But I don't read many proposals that do this. It's a lot more "At least you have health care" stuff, which isn't comforting when you're making like 30 million people unemployed.

Agreed. And of course, it's not like policies such as the ACA somehow gets around that problem. So you might as well just go for what's right and figure out how to sell that, rather than worrying about them (obviously they're a problem we should deal with in other areas, but I don't think it's directly applicable to the healthcare debate). And in reference to 2016 Trump voters...they're still the minority, when it comes to the voting population. Things just happened to fall into place in 2016 that got them a win.
Click to expand...

This part is something that hits for me at least since I'm a Mississippian. Unfortunately, a lot of what we're talking about might get kicked by the Courts into a states' rights thing as the ACA was, and that can really fuck over minorities in the South, for example. I mean, imagine an ACA where every state got the Medicaid expansion. The reasons why they didn't are still here, and if you can't get past the racists in the South for at least a few years, you'll leave behind a lot of people.

You don't need to do it to control costs in general, and you can certainly find ways to guarantee coverage with private insurance, but keeping private health insurance is the least efficient way of doing that (which is why places like Switzerland, while much better than the US, still tends to be more expensive than Canda/UK/etc.)

I guess that relates to another view I have...the legislation needed to maintain private insurance, and cut costs, requires directly harming their bottom line...and they're gonna fight that as well. And if you make the public option so much better than private insurance that it makes people want to switch to it, and try to cleverly manipulate our way into single-payer (as the argument usually goes)...they're gonna fight that as well. So when it comes to the "likely to pass" metric, I don't know if you get too many benefits from the other approaches. Which is why I tend to take the go big or go home view on this particular issue.

You might appeal to a few of the "I love having choice!" types I guess by maintaining private insurance, but I tend to think that's a relative minority. I personally think the "choice" of paying tons of deductibles, premiums, coinsurance, managing in-network and out of network doctors, surprise bills, etc. is somewhat overrated.
Click to expand...

That choice thing matters to more people in my opinion. It's like backwards compatibility, or multiplayer in an RPG; most people will never use it but they love to think they might. I think if you just open up Medicaid so that anyone not on it can buy into it for a cheap price, most people would take that option. A lot of the people who take that option will also be people that said they wanted their private insurance.

And of course that stuff sucks, but if people want the option in exchange for their votes, why not give it to them? It's not going to matter in the end as long as people have coverage.

Edit: Also shinra, it took me a lot longer than I'd like to admit to figure out you meant Australia and Canada.
 
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