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PoliGAF 2017 |OT3| 13 Treasons Why

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A

ArkhamFantasy

Member
Me in 2015: Lets go Bernie! He's the only one i care about!
Me in 2016: Ok well, Hillary is the next best thing!
Me now: I dont care who runs just please win
 
T

Third Strike

Member
Aaron Strife said:
I think the difference is that NY, being a bigger economy would be more equipped to support such a plan. Plus the state is rich as hell.

I think it's also far more important for a bigger state like NY or Cali to be the one to launch something like this for it to start a nationwide movement. I think of how gay marriage in NY sort of kick-started the momentum for that movement. You get something done there, people will pay attention to it.
Click to expand...

Maybe NY and Cali could team up for Single Payer. I wonder if they're legally able to? If they are, than maybe other states can join in the future.
 
A

AntraxSuicide

Banned
Third Strike said:
Maybe NY and Cali could team up for Single Payer. I wonder if they're legally able to? If they are, than maybe other states can join in the future.
Click to expand...

States aren't supposed to enter agreements with each other to keep states from wrecking each other, but I'd be down for a blue state healthcare network.
 
D

Diablos

Member
AntraxSuicide said:
States aren't supposed to enter agreements with each other to keep states from wrecking each other, but I'd be down for a blue state healthcare network.
Click to expand...

Okay so what I mean is can big states plus rich people like Bill Gates and a bunch of others pump money into it

I know it sounds silly but it would be so cool if this could somehow be pulled off
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
And Minnesota.

I could imagine a single-payer network in New York, New Jersey and New England in the future. Delaware, Maryland and D.C. could join as well.

Then Virginia goes all blue and jumps on board. etc. etc.

California, Oregon and Washington can start on the other coast and we'll meet in the middle.
 
A

AntraxSuicide

Banned
Paging Meta.

Looking at Virginia v. Tennessee, the GOP could actually accidentally create the ability to do such a compact between states if they give all healthcare power to the states. The Court seemed to argue that unless the states were taking some power from the federal govt, compacts were not subject to Congressional approval.
 
J

JP_

Banned
Teggy said:
I would have no problem with 4chan being shut down. This goes well beyond free speech.

https://mobile.twitter.com/broderick/status/860417948539920385

And surprise now Wikileaks is getting involved with some kind of data drop they got from 4chan.
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The left needs to step up their cyberwarfare game. It sounds a little ridiculous, but we are at war -- we need to recognize that it's no longer an honest political debate, this is an armed conflict that has moved into the virtual space. 2016 hacks were Pearl Harbor and the left never bothered with a response. Now the right is launching attacks in France and elsewher and it just seems like the left is going to continue to do nothing but maybe increase their defenses. Like a physical war, simply increasing defense won't suffice -- we need to accept the idea that in order to survive this, we have to fight back in some way. And this isn't merely US vs Russia -- this is a broader left vs right that goes beyond nations. It doesn't matter how pathetic these basement dwellers are -- it's working.
 
O

Ogodei

Member
JP_ said:
The left needs to step up their cyberwarfare game. It sounds a little ridiculous, but we are at war -- we need to recognize that it's no longer an honest political debate, this is an armed conflict that has moved into the virtual space. 2016 hacks were Pearl Harbor and the left never bothered with a response. Now the right is launching attacks in France and elsewher and it just seems like the left is going to continue to do nothing but maybe increase their defenses. Like a physical war, simply increasing defense won't suffice -- we need to accept the idea that in order to survive this, we have to fight back in some way. And this isn't merely US vs Russia -- this is a broader left vs right that goes beyond nations. It doesn't matter how pathetic these basement dwellers are -- it's working.
Click to expand...

The idea's been there, like how Rick Santorum's name got google-bombed into becoming an indescribably dirty word.

Problem with being on team good is that they don't like dirty tricks.
 
L

LostMyNarbles

Member
cartoon_soldier said:
Didn't single payer fail in Vermont?
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It did, but that was because of a proposed massive pay-roll tax increase to cover the costs of Healthcare. I presume the idea is that states like NY or California earn a lot more money and so they could better absorb the cost of creating a single payer system.
 
K

kirblar

Member
LostMyNarbles said:
It did, but that was because of a proposed massive pay-roll tax increase to cover the costs of Healthcare. I presume the idea is that states like NY or California earn a lot more money and so they could better absorb the cost of creating a single payer system.
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It's not going to be any better there. The same issues remain.
 
J

JP_

Banned
Switching to single payer now would probably be super expensive at first until it can start using that leverage to bring down actual healthcare costs. But US could also start moving in that direction before single payer is implemented, sort of like Germany where they have lots of private health insurance companies, but negotiating prices isn't really their responsibility -- that's handled on a national level by the gov.

I'd prefer single payer but the big problem with American healthcare isn't our insurance model, it's our total lack of pricing regulations for drugs, medical devices, medical services, etc -- insurance costs keep going up because those underlying healthcare costs keep going up unabated. For whatever reason, that never seems to be directly addressed.
 
O

Ogodei

Member
If you're completely swamping private insurance, though, then payroll tax hikes should be a net zero, though i guess that depends on how closely the salary:benefits ratio tracks with payroll tax rates.

Say if payroll tax was 15% and your health benefits were 33% of your gross salary, then an 18% hike in payroll tax would mean that nothing changed, the money just goes to the government instead of the insurance company, and if your insurance was partially employee funded (e.g. employee had to pay 20% of monthly premium), it's a net win for the employee who gets that money in their pocket.

But that depends, like i said.
 
K

kirblar

Member
JP_ said:
Switching to single payer now would probably be super expensive at first until it can start using that leverage to bring down actual healthcare costs. But US could also start moving in that direction before single payer is implemented, sort of like Germany where they have lots of private health insurance companies, but negotiating prices isn't really their responsibility -- that's handled on a national level by the gov.

I'd prefer single payer but the big problem with American healthcare isn't our insurance model, it's our total lack of pricing regulations. For whatever reason, that never seems to be directly addressed.
Click to expand...
It's not just super expensive, it's replicating a bunch of existing infrastructure while destroying a bunch of existing infrastructure. Going to single payer off of our current structure is a bad idea for the same reason going to the metric system for our roads would be as well.
 
J

JP_

Banned
Ogodei said:
If you're completely swamping private insurance, though, then payroll tax hikes should be a net zero, though i guess that depends on how closely the salary:benefits ratio tracks with payroll tax rates.

Say if payroll tax was 15% and your health benefits were 33% of your gross salary, then an 18% hike in payroll tax would mean that nothing changed, the money just goes to the government instead of the insurance company, and if your insurance was partially employee funded (e.g. employee had to pay 20% of monthly premium), it's a net win for the employee who gets that money in their pocket.

But that depends, like i said.
Click to expand...

That's similar to Bernie's tax plan and people on gaf were still like "OMG I CANT AFFORD THAT TAX INCREASE!!!1"
 
C

Carpe Libertatem

Member
Ogodei said:
If you're completely swamping private insurance, though, then payroll tax hikes should be a net zero, though i guess that depends on how closely the salary:benefits ratio tracks with payroll tax rates.

Say if payroll tax was 15% and your health benefits were 33% of your gross salary, then an 18% hike in payroll tax would mean that nothing changed, the money just goes to the government instead of the insurance company, and if your insurance was partially employee funded (e.g. employee had to pay 20% of monthly premium), it's a net win for the employee who gets that money in their pocket.

But that depends, like i said.
Click to expand...

What happens if employers don't actually increase wages, even if they no longer have to provide health insurance
 
O

Ogodei

Member
Carpe Libertatem said:
What happens if employers don't actually increase wages, even if they no longer have to provide health insurance
Click to expand...

They don't have to increase wages. The payroll tax is paid by the employer, and most of the cost of health insurance is paid by the employer. If the higher payroll tax is roughly equal to the per capita cost of health insurance, then the employer's burden stays the same, so there's no temptation to take lowered costs and use them as shareholder dividends.

The wages stay the same too, presumably, but the burden on the employee lessens if they had to pay part of their premium.
 
S

shinra-bansho

Member
Payroll taxes actual incidence is not entirely on the employer, regardless of the legal incidence. Why would you assume reduced cost would be passed on to employees and not other stakeholders, (including customers.)
 
C

Carpe Libertatem

Member
Ogodei said:
They don't have to increase wages. The payroll tax is paid by the employer, and most of the cost of health insurance is paid by the employer. If the higher payroll tax is roughly equal to the per capita cost of health insurance, then the employer's burden stays the same, so there's no temptation to take lowered costs and use them as shareholder dividends.

The wages stay the same too, presumably, but the burden on the employee lessens if they had to pay part of their premium.
Click to expand...

Uh, if employers don't increase wages to compensate for an increased tax, people will be getting paid less?

Unless you're thinking employers will increase the pre-tax wage so that the post-tax wage is equal to what it was before. Which, I'm not sure I believe that.
 
K

kirblar

Member
People don't have any realization of just how much money their employers are spending on their health care.
Carpe Libertatem said:
Uh, if employers don't increase wages to compensate for an increased tax, people will be getting paid less?

Unless you're thinking employers will increase the pre-tax wage so that the post-tax wage is equal to what it was before. Which, I'm not sure I believe that.
Click to expand...
(Because it won't happen!)
 
C

Carpe Libertatem

Member
I just don't have a lot of faith in employers doing the right thing for their employees in the world we live in right now. I think it's very easy to imagine a scenario where an employer gives little or no increases in wages in response to no longer having to provide health insurance. And that little increase would not offset the increase in taxes paid by the employee, resulting in less take home pay than before.
 
B

Bam Bam Baklava

Member
His numbers in Ras and Gallup have seen notable drops since the passing of this monstrosity. The irony is that people forgot the failure pretty quickly, but now the bill is hanging over them.
 
O

Ogodei

Member
Carpe Libertatem said:
Uh, if employers don't increase wages to compensate for an increased tax, people will be getting paid less?

Unless you're thinking employers will increase the pre-tax wage so that the post-tax wage is equal to what it was before. Which, I'm not sure I believe that.
Click to expand...

Because you don't need to do anything in the main, as long as the payroll tax hike is carefully calculated to offset the cost of health insurance.

Right now the employer pays out $4000/month for you. $400 goes to payroll tax, $600 is their share of your health insurance, $3000 gets passed on to you as gross pay. Then you pay about 25% in federal-state-local taxes, so $2250 is your takehome, then you pay about $100 for health insurance on your end.

If the share of payroll tax rises to $1000, but the health insurance drops to zero, everything stays the same, except you don't have to pay that $100. But there's no "savings" for the employer to pocket, and no attempt to raise gross wages anywhere in the process.
 
C

Carpe Libertatem

Member
Ogodei said:
Because you don't need to do anything in the main, as long as the payroll tax hike is carefully calculated to offset the cost of health insurance.

Right now the employer pays out $4000/month for you. $400 goes to payroll tax, $600 is their share of your health insurance, $3000 gets passed on to you as gross pay. Then you pay about 25% in federal-state-local taxes, so $2250 is your takehome, then you pay about $100 for health insurance on your end.

If the share of payroll tax rises to $1000, but the health insurance drops to zero, everything stays the same, except you don't have to pay that $100. But there's no "savings" for the employer to pocket, and no attempt to raise gross wages anywhere in the process.
Click to expand...

So, the wage in your circumstance would be 3400, since the 600 your employer pays for health insurance isn't part of the wage. It's part of the compensation, but not the wage.

If the payroll tax increases to 25% as you're saying, then the payroll tax is taking about $850 out instead of the $400 originally.

Unless the employer will increase the wage to $4000, which is what they were paying originally if you included their healthcare cost. I can buy there might be a little increase, but I very much doubt it bring this theoretical wage up to $4000.

I just think assuming the employer will do the right thing for their employee is a mistake.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
ArkhamFantasy said:
Only 2 points for taking away healthcare from 20+ million people and giving the money to the rich?
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It's a rolling three-day average.

That being said he probably has a floor of like 30% or so anyway, as much as I'd love to see him at like 5%. Good news for us is if he hits that floor before an election (either 2018 or 2020) the GOP is dead*
 
C

Carpe Libertatem

Member
J‏
@Minnysconsin
Couple friends of the pod hanging out this morning. @jonfavs @jonlovett @TVietor08

C_KE7cIUMAMZ_2L.jpg
Click to expand...

lol
 
P

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
That Hayes article is astounding and definitely an easy explainer for 2016.

Would just note he was what, 22 when he wrote that?
 
B

Bonen no Max'd

Banned
Single payer would've been a terrible fit for Vermont, aside from the political will available to do it. Vermont's small and has a tiny population and isn't particularly rich, which means a significant tax increase would lead to a lot of capital flight to nearby states and it wouldn't really have the population necessary to control prices that makes single payer so effective.

New York or California would, assuming sufficient political will (I know Brown doesn't like it but I don't know if he'd veto a bill that passed it), be much better fits for it because they have much larger populations and less to fear about capital flight if they increased taxes.
 
E

etrain911

Member
I don't know if this is a dumb idea or if Dems already do this, but hiring advertising firms and executives to do for them what they do for corporate brands might work wonders.
 
H

htttpwwwyahoocom

Member
totally random, but does it bother anyone else that Dem fundraising emails use O instead of 0?

e.g. this Rob Quist email I got today

"But we HAVE to hit Monday’s 25,OOO donation ad buy goal to get the job done."

also the fucking subject lines are the most spammy things ever
"✴️ HUMILIATING UPDATE"
 
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