A Serious Question
And one you’ll never get corporate-humping journalists to ask corporate-humping Democrats: Why are proposals from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders called “unrealistic” when the favorite centrist candidate, punch-drunk Joe Biden, is basing his campaign on the oh-so-realistic claim that Republicans will have an epiphany? That’s a fuck-ton less realistic than the idea that we can get universal health care if we fight for it.
If the problem with big proposals is that Republicans will fight them, why don’t “pragmatic” tools like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar have to explain how their inch-at-a-time plans will avoid the same fate? It’s not as if Obama was proposing progressive ideas — they were centrist and designed to appeal to Republicans, and none of them voted for those ideas.
In short, the media is putting its thumbs on the scale again, and not in favor of liberals. As Eric Boehlert pointed out last week, reporters can’t stop asking Wall Street people about Elizabeth Warren and printing their dire warnings. Why? Are we supposed to be surprised to learn that corporate poobahs and hedge-fund fucksticks won’t vote for a liberal? Since when is that news?
It is the same unspoken media conspiracy that treated Trump as a serious candidate.
I’ve decided that an ex fake troop and mediocre, scandal-plagued mayor of a small city who is unliked by all persons of color whose name I didn’t know till I saw an Iowa poll last month is good actually.
Politics, folks.
https://youtu.be/lLcpcytUnWU
This one, as well.
https://youtu.be/edicDsSwYpk
“Why are proposals from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders called “unrealistic””? Senator Sanders proposes spending $34 trillion on Medicare for All, and another $16 trillion on his climate change proposals, $50 trillion over ten years. Senator Warren’s numbers are different, $52 trillion on Medicare for All but only $3 trillion on climate change, again, over ten years.
The gross domestic product of the United States was $20.9 trillion in 2018, so those two fine candidates are proposing spending between 2½ and 3 times an entire year’s GDP on just two programs.
Or, look at it another way: total federal outlays for FY2019 were $4.45 trillion. Both Senators are planning on spending more than the entire federal budget on those two programs.
Yeah, I can see why some people think that’s “unreasonable.”
Two problems here. The sentence continues with “when.” The point is that pretending Republicans will suddenly cooperate with a Democratic president is no more realistic than leftist proposals. It’s a comparison.
You, additionally, have used it as an excuse to take leave of your mathematical senses. The US economy is, as you point out, about $21 trillion a year, and one-sixth of it is spent on health care. Last year the total was $3.65 trillion. When something is one-sixth of the annual GDP, then OF COURSE it’s going to swallow years’ worth of the budget. The federal budget will also grow, because we’d be federalizing what’s now in private hands. What’s now paid to insurance companies would go to the government instead. You’re freaking out about numbers that already exist. It’s just that some of that is now profit.
The point is that we could lower that number significantly if we didn’t have “competition” to insure people, and instead just insured them. It’s the main reason no other industrialized country spends more than about 60% of what we do.
LOL! I’m trying to remember: what formerly private industry has ever become more efficient and less expensive when it was taken over by the government?
Two things will happen if Medicare for All is enacted:
1 – The quality of health care will drop if the profit motive is removed, because that is what has happened in every other system; and
2 – The costs of health care will increase, because the government always inflates costs.
Japan has a single-payer system . . . and people of means and influence still buy additional private insurance policies and resort to ‘influence’ to get decent care. Canada has a single-payer system, and the median wait for treatment by a specialist is 21.2 weeks, or well over a season! You can be referred to a specialist in the spring, and not get to see him until autumn.
This is what he government-paid health care systems do: they delay treatments, they stretch out appointments, in attempts to do what hey have to do, which is cut costs. Remember the VA Hospital scandal of a few years ago? We were doing the very same thing, stretching out appointments and treatments, to push some into the next fiscal year and, going unsaid, hoping that some of the patients would kick the bucket in the meantime.
Poor chap.
You can wait a long time in this country for a specialist, too. My wife typically has to wait 3 months for an appointment for her RA specialist. But she sees her neurosurgeon right away. That knee replacement is low on the priority list, a brain aneurysm is a good bit higher.
We have a single-payer system in this country, too, and people of means buy supplemental insurance for things it doesnt’ cover. You are under some delusion that “free” health care is being talked about. Edumacate yourself, pal.
You’re badly misinformed on health care in other countries. Other countries have no profit motive and better health-care outcomes. These are simply data-driven facts. Your argument is built on the myth of government not doing anything right. I realize this is a core belief for you folks — never let an opportunity to slag others go by — but it has little basis in reality. In the real world, capital tends toward monopoly because monopoly is the most efficient way to deliver things (see the electrical grid for an example; see the boondoggle of deregulation of the sector for evidence of the private sector FUBARing something).
In other countries, people are triaged by the seriousness of their condition. They are triaged in this country, too, only the private sector — as you note, profit-driven — are the ones that approve or disallow treatments based not on need but on profit.
So, again, learn what you’re talking about instead of taking your uninformed biases out for a walk here.
While you’re at it, suppose you list the industries that were taken over by the government, period.
Why does every country with single payer have substantially less cost and better outcomes? That’s weird.
(Also it’s funny how the “success” or “failure” are put in the wrong terms. It’s a smart move.)
To paraphrase Roseanne Rosanadanna, he belongs in Kentucky.
@REV: Paul Krugman wrote about this yesterday. He meets people who think the US has the No. 1 health care system in the world. These folks are so blinded by their American exceptionalism they just assume we rank highly at things we don’t.
OTOH, I think what folks like this really believe is that health care in this country is just fine IF YOU’RE WHITE.
Great video out of the UK campaign season got retweeted by Bernie today.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1201968538895958018
These are actual people.
How much will Medicare for All save? I suppose you saw it. That George Mason Koch Brothers school estimated it. Actually in the same paper the $34 trillion figure comes from.
I mean you cited the Mercatus Center study so I won’t embarrass you but linking to it. The people here may be interested in the cost reduction part that the Koch brothers folks calculated.
It’s interesting!
This example illustrates what I think of every time Dana drops macroeconomics on us.
https://youtu.be/L7f9DVdEC7E
Personally, I love to see it.
We could also stop spending so much on offensive “defense”! We’re spending over a trillion on “upgrading” our nuclear arsenal.
Remember the “peace dividend”? Good times.