2020 General Election Thread

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TheCatt
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2020 General Election Thread

Post by TheCatt »

"From the moment we passed that signature legislation (Obamacare), Mike called it a disgrace." — former Vice President Joe Biden
Bloomberg said exactly that in a speech at Dartmouth College a few months after the Affordable Care Act passed in March 2010. This claim rates True.

In a video of the speech we reviewed, Bloomberg was unsparing. "We passed a health care bill that does absolutely nothing to fix the big health care problems in this country. It is just a disgrace," he said. "The president, in all fairness, started out by pointing out what the big problems were, but then turned it over to Congress, which didn't pay any attention to any of those big problems and just created another program that's going to cost a lot of money."

Those aren’t standalone remarks. As recently as 2014, Bloomberg called the law "really dysfunctional" during remarks to a financial industry trade group.
Biden attacks Bloomberg, but Bloomberg is 100% right.

Meanwhile...
Sanders has received the most donations of any Democratic candidate from the entire health care sector, which includes the pharmaceutical industry, health insurance industry, hospitals/nursing homes and health professionals.
I wonder why?
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

TheCatt wrote: Biden attacks Bloomberg, but Bloomberg is 100% right.
Now who is this Biden fellow you're talking about? Is he running for president?
TheCatt wrote: I wonder why?
Great question. I've never understood people who vote to cut off their own legs.
Troy wrote: There seems to be a lot of Sanders support in California, as you would probably expect. He legitimately seems to be on a roll with endorsements and polling. The youth and diversity of the crowd at his speech this week in my new hometown was impressive.
He's very popular with young people, as his line of politics should be: Idealistic, but unrealistic.

CNN had some polling numbers up somewhere after the debate that essentially showed nobody was comfortable voting for a socialist. Not the Rs, Is, or Ds...
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Post by GORDON »

So.............. what stops a hospital from opening up with the idea, "We're not playing this game. Cash for services, we're not touching any insurance plans." Then their shit is actually priced to what the market can bear.

I have a feeling the answer is the AMA, but that's just a hunch. They may have a monopoly on medicine, in the USA.
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Post by Cakedaddy »

If hospitals stopped taking insurance, they wouldn't get paid any more and they would go out of business. People can't afford their own health care costs.
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Post by GORDON »

I disagree. Costs are jacked up BECAUSE of insurance.
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TheCatt
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Post by TheCatt »

GORDON wrote: I disagree. Costs are jacked up BECAUSE of insurance.
Even without the surcharge, I would guess 65% of people cannot afford medical care.
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Post by GORDON »

Used to be able to, before people stopped understanding what "insurance" was for. Prices haven't been natural since... the 70s?
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Post by TheCatt »

GORDON wrote: Used to be able to, before people stopped understanding what "insurance" was for. Prices haven't been natural since... the 70s?
We also have MRIs, stents, and a bunch of other devices that didn't exist back then that we can use/do.

Healthcare spending in the US is $10k/person. Even if we drop it down to the Canadia/European average, it's $6k/person/year. 60% of Americans don't have $1,000 for an emergency.

I don't think 65% is an unreasonable estimate.
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Post by GORDON »

.......... all I'm saying is that "insurance" has caused medical costs to be abnormally high. Do you disagree?
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Post by Leisher »

Cakedaddy wrote: If hospitals stopped taking insurance, they wouldn't get paid any more and they would go out of business.
This is true, but there are family doctors around the country who give services for things other than cash. They know people can't afford things, so they let them pay via means they have. That can be livestock, produce, labor, etc.
GORDON wrote: .......... all I'm saying is that "insurance" has caused medical costs to be abnormally high. Do you disagree?
I agree.
TheCatt wrote: Healthcare spending in the US is $10k/person. Even if we drop it down to the Canadia/European average, it's $6k/person/year. 60% of Americans don't have $1,000 for an emergency.
Totally different topic, but is this a new trend or has it always been this way? Have a large percentage of Americans always been behind the 8 ball with money or has corporate greed driven prices for everything up so much that people have less disposable income? OR are people worse with their money than ever before? How many of that 60% have cable, new cars, new clothes, etc.?

Back to healthcare, I still need someone to explain to me why giving healthcare to those who can't afford it HAS to include taking it away from those who can.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

Sanders seems to move farther left than AOC on Medicare for All.

Also, do we really believe this has a chance of ever happening? A multibillion (trillion?) dollar industry is just going to allow politicians to shut it down?

They're either going to be making money in the deal or the politicians pushing it are going to lose re-elections...or worse. Right? No way does that much money not act to protect itself.

Warren continues hammering Bloomberg's sexual harassment of female employees.
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Post by GORDON »

Insurance can still exist, but without the government cash infusion it would be forced to be MUCH more efficient.
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Post by TheCatt »

GORDON wrote: Insurance can still exist, but without the government cash infusion it would be forced to be MUCH more efficient.
And, yet, wholly government "cash infused" programs are much more efficent than ours.
Leisher wrote: but is this a new trend or has it always been this way?
Remember when people could go to college on minimum wage? Or buy a house with an average of 3-5 years of income? Things have changed. Also, people used to just die when they had cancer or heart disease, now we treat them (exaggerating for simplicity).
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Post by TheCatt »

GOP Super PAC spends to promote liberal NC Senate candidate.
The largest super PAC that supports Republican Senate candidates will say in a filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) late Thursday it spent millions of dollars to boost a liberal Democratic candidate running for the right to face Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) in November.

The Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC run by close allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), will reveal in the FEC filings that it was behind a secretive new group created earlier this month that has spent millions on television advertising ahead of the March 3 Democratic primary, The Hill has learned.

Those advertisements touted state Sen. Erica Smith (D), a candidate who has raised about $210,000 for her campaign. Smith is the more liberal candidate in the field, openly embracing "Medicare for All" and the Green New Deal.

She is also an African American candidate running in a state with a primary on Super Tuesday, a day when the bulk of the North Carolina's Democratic presidential primary electorate will be African American.

But she is not the favorite of national Democrats, who back former state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D) as their strongest potential nominee against Tillis.

The FEC reports will show the Senate Leadership Fund spent about $3 million on television and radio spots boosting Smith, funneled through a group calling itself the Faith and Power PAC. The filings show the entirety of the Faith and Power PAC's contributions came from the Senate Leadership Fund.
Just to get a Liberal Black candidate to try and run against.

Cal's actually a friend of mine from high school. So I'd like to see him win, regardless of party. He's relatively conservative as Democrats go (served in the military and all that). Good guy from the home of BBQ.
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Post by GORDON »

TheCatt wrote:
GORDON wrote: Insurance can still exist, but without the government cash infusion it would be forced to be MUCH more efficient.
And, yet, wholly government "cash infused" programs are much more efficent than ours.
.
Yeah but other countries aren't propping up the insurance company middle men to provide the health care.
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Post by Leisher »

TheCatt wrote: Remember when people could go to college on minimum wage? Or buy a house with an average of 3-5 years of income? Things have changed. Also, people used to just die when they had cancer or heart disease, now we treat them (exaggerating for simplicity).
I do, but should the government be fixing the issue by eliminating entire industries? I don't believe so.
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Post by TheCatt »

Image
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Post by Leisher »

I have no context for this, but it came through my FB feed via Jayne Cobb.

It's interesting. (I don't know why the Trump tweet is there too. I assume because he retweeted it?)
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
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Post by Troy »

"fuck you Iowa"

"It wasn't Iowa"

- Nevada DNC
https://news3lv.com/news/local/it-wasnt ... ter-caucus
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Post by TheCatt »

Sanders v Trump, eh? Sigh.
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