It’s the level of hatred I am so confused about. It’s just so beyond the realm of what is reasonable. I mean, I hate Dick Cheney, I think the guy is an asshole, and sinister, but I’m not going to throw darts at his photo.
I think I’ve reached a point where I don’t expect so much from American politics. I’m not even sure Bernie could’ve made much headway against the legislature-- Obama had a Democratic majority and still couldn’t get us a real national health care system, we got this cobbled-together compromise. I don’t expect a President to make things better, I just want someone in the White House who won’t make things worse.
I’m a little surprised that people are actually disappointed/surprised with the outcome, thus far, of this election cycle. Where is the healthy cynicism?
I’m in my 50s. This is the very first campaign season in which I actually sent money to a candidate. I actually got to vote for a presidential candidate with enthusiasm. It’s an experience I’ve never had in 50 years and I won’t soon forget it. It’s almost like we’re making progress or something.
OF course, The Orange One has been largely blackballed by Wall Street and international financiers… as for the foreign funding part, well, that’s an open question now, isn’t it?
I think it’s more the fact that she wouldn’t know the truth if it hit her in the face. And I say that as a guy who is going to have to vote for her come November.
It’s part of the circle of argument. First they say “all white” and some black folks show up then it’s “all men” and some women show up and then it’s “you’re all uninformed” and someone then bothers to illustrate the differences that they see between the candidates.
At that point instead of just saying “Ok, but this is about compromise” which would be a fair and pretty unassailable argument where you could reach a conclusion of “Ok, I’ll compromise” or “Nope, that specific stance is something I value too highly on a moral and ethical level to ever endorse.” Instead the argument gets recycled to “bigotry/misogyny/ignorance”.
And yes, it’s being pushed as a narrative and has been since the first time anyone brought up any valid complaints against Sec Clinton.
I think things aren’t nearly as black and white as you describe, though I’m afraid I don’t have time for this today so we’ll just need to agree to disagree.
I do think you might want to consider that at this point there is no house that’s clean. There certainly are Clintonists playing unfair games in the way they’re framing/arguing. At the same time Bernie or Busters have not proved themselves as paragons of clear-minded intellectual honesty or fairness in framing issues either. Once that dynamic of belligerents is set, where winning matters more than communication for some partisans on both sides, it’s a disaster for building bridges or developing any mutual understanding, and everyone’s going to be pissed and bearing grievances at each other.
This is really getting into the weeds, but it sounds like you’re lamenting not one bill, but a series that you anticipated passing incrementally, boiling the GOP opposition frog. That seems like a stretch, and probably did to lawmakers at the time, who saw they would have one shot. And they were right.
Those of us who were working with Medicare and Medicaid programs at the time were of a very different opinion. The Public Option was easy until the ACA came out, now it’s almost impossible to get momentum behind.
The Public Option could’ve been for ANY group, just so we had expanded Medicare (not Medicaid), once we were at that point then it was just a matter of growing the program …which was predictable because the costs are invariably lower.
This was a pretty well thought out and extrapolated view of things and the ACA honestly is a messy hodgepodge by comparison that only provides a small amount of value…and the value it provides is exactly what the Public Option would have targeted.
This isn’t some casual set of thoughts on my side, it was literally where my life and passions and those who I respected were overlapping, and the cost and health benefits fell neatly into my area of expertise.
That’s clearly a nonsense argument no one is saying. I’m a Bernie supporter. I will continue to support his goals by voting for the candidate he is pleading we put in office.
Many of the “Bernie or Bust” crew ARE misogynists, because anyone who says “I’d rather have Trump than let b**** take office” never really cared about his message or ideology to begin with.
I concede your expertise, I’m out of my depth. But if it were so easy, it would have been done. But the healthcare industrial complex surely opposed it, no? Which is the whole reason the frankenstein that is ACA exists?
[quote=“gellfex, post:135, topic:82140”]
I concede your expertise, I’m out of my depth. But if it were so easy, it would have been done. [/quote]
That’s why ‘option’ is in there, it really helps fight some of the anti-marketing, because you’re right…and you nailed the opposition…along with insurance companies and extremely well reimbursed doctors
As a full health plan it wouldn’t have won from the get-go, no, but I don’t think anybody took that possibility seriously. Instead the hope was to first use it to fill the gaps between Medicare and Medicaid (Dual Eligible populations, Childless Adults, that sort of thing) while cutting down on the administration costs (it’s way less smooth a process than you’d hope). Then it’s just a matter of spiderwebbing out. Block Grants would be easy targets because of the obvious financial incentives, but there’s also health homes and such. Any group we can get onto Medicare is a win for the good guys, and once there’s enough then there’s more support for the ‘hey, why can’t we have that too?’ from the general populace.
The big pushback comes from the worry that we’d do some degree of socialization, and in all honesty it wouldn’t hurt. Sure, we have some doctors who are rolling in cash, but there’s a huge chunk of our support population among the nurses and physicians that are in debt and being forced to focus on making more money when they’re supposed to be focused on the patient.
Adherence to neoliberal policies, mostly, both in the foreign and economic arenas. Significant blood on her hands, a la Kissinger (whom she met for a little “lovefest”) from the Honduras coup, among others. And getting caught blatantly lying to everyone, several times now.
That’s a powerful argument for Trump, tbh. Republicans will go even more batshit if HRC is elected, ensuring their stranglehold on Congress will remain in place for as long as she’s around. Whereas Trump will likely energize the Dem base, like GWB did post-Iraq. Remember how the Dem majority vanished as soon as Obama got in? This will be even worse. And of course, HRC will use that as an excuse to push right-wing legislation as “the only possible compromise”.
Clinton and Trump are not the only candidates by far.
Nor do you need worry about voting for the President,
the Electoral College are the ones who actually vote.
