2016 US Presidential Elections | Trump Wins

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Red Dreams said:
They are banking on the 'socialist' stigma. But he has not run away from it, instead explaining what he means and many..not just the young have embraced what he is saying. His policies are all what most people want. Fairness for ordinary people.
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Who are you talking about ? Sanders or Trump ?
 
Raoul said:
I actually respect Graham for endorsing Bush. Let's face it, if Trump became President it would probably result in some global meltdown, either by war, economics, or civil disobedience. Bush, like him or not, is the least bad option in the Republican field assuming a Republican actually won.
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Must disagree. Bush will just get us into another war. He is not as dumb as his brother but his advisors will be the same. Graham is another warmonger. You can see why they get on.

Trump is simply a businessman. He would not want a global meltdown. He will be a center right President. imo he will be a lot more preferable to say a Romney.

He says an awful lot of crap...but sometimes what he really thinks comes out.

He simply will pivot from all the racist stuff. I'm not saying the others believe it too. They are happy to use all the racists and crazies when they can control them is all.

Don't trust any of em.
 
I don't see Sanders as having a chance. He's not a great campaigner like Obama and would get crushed in a general election against someone like Cruz. Hillary for better or worse is the only Dem ticket that has a chance of winning.
 
Red Dreams said:
They are banking on the 'socialist' stigma. But he has not run away from it, instead explaining what he means and many..not just the young have embraced what he is saying. His policies are all what most people want. Fairness for ordinary people.
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I agree. But there are still so many people in the US who see socialist as communist lite and who would never ever vote for someone who identifies as socialist. There are millions of middle class Americans who would benefit from some socialist policies but all they see it as is the government taking their money to give to moochers who are too lazy to work.

However, the big problem in the US for me is that the Presidential election is a one off election where you vote for your commander in chief. But if your commander in chief doesn't have a majority in the houses, he can be hamstrung for most of his or her term. Say what you want about Irish or English governments, but at least when the public elect a party, they have their mandate and they can implement the policies that got them elected. Whether they actually do that or not is another issue. But Bernie Sanders is running with some policies that should be very popular with most Americans, but even if he were to get elected, if the Republicans still have a majority in the houses, then he'll struggle to get anything through.
 
Raoul said:
I don't see Sanders as having a chance. He's not a great campaigner like Obama and would get crushed in a general election against someone like Cruz. Hillary for better or worse is the only Dem ticket that has a chance of winning.
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I can see what you mean. I have thought about that too. But that 'fear' of failure is what actually makes us fail. Hillary will not be a transformational President. She will be Bush lite. She has blood on her hands for that vote to go to war. And I abhor her attitude of entitlement to be President because her husband was. If she is the nominee of course I will hold my nose and vote for her. That is the tragedy of our system. That people like this may well be our choice.

But she has nothing in common with ordinary people. I was thinking about what she said to Richardson "He cannot win". You need to believe in what is right And do it. Its not about calculations. People are running to Sanders because they can see he actually Cares about ordinary people. And people run to Trump because he is echoing the thoughts in the darkest recesses of their mind. Their fears and hatreds. It really will be a choice between good and evil. Not saying everyone who votes for Trump is evil...but whether we are willing to give in to our fears or hold on to our hopes.

I have never caucused before. but I will this time...and vote for Sanders.
 
Red Dreams said:
I can see what you mean. I have thought about that too. But that 'fear' of failure is what actually makes us fail. Hillary will not be a transformational President. She will be Bush lite. She has blood on her hands for that vote to go to war. And I abhor her attitude of entitlement to be President because her husband was. If she is the nominee of course I will hold my nose and vote for her. That is the tragedy of our system. That people like this may well be our choice.

But she has nothing in common with ordinary people. I was thinking about what she said to Richardson "He cannot win". You need to believe in what is right And do it. Its not about calculations. People are running to Sanders because they can see he actually Cares about ordinary people. And people run to Trump because he is echoing the thoughts in the darkest recesses of their mind. Their fears and hatreds. It really will be a choice between good and evil. Not saying everyone who votes for Trump is evil...but whether we are willing to give in to our fears or hold on to our hopes.

I have never caucused before. but I will this time...and vote for Sanders.
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Good man! Give him a vote for me too.
 
RexHamilton said:
I agree. But there are still so many people in the US who see socialist as communist lite and who would never ever vote for someone who identifies as socialist. There are millions of middle class Americans who would benefit from some socialist policies but all they see it as is the government taking their money to give to moochers who are too lazy to work.

However, the big problem in the US for me is that the Presidential election is a one off election where you vote for your commander in chief. But if your commander in chief doesn't have a majority in the houses, he can be hamstrung for most of his or her term. Say what you want about Irish or English governments, but at least when the public elect a party, they have their mandate and they can implement the policies that got them elected. Whether they actually do that or not is another issue. But Bernie Sanders is running with some policies that should be very popular with most Americans, but even if he were to get elected, if the Republicans still have a majority in the houses, then he'll struggle to get anything through.
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The general elections will bare open what each candidate thinks. In the end we must believe and do what is right.
 
Raoul said:
The appropriate thing for GOP politicians to do is call Trump out - Bush, Graham, and Jindal have been spot on in that regard and deserve respect for their pi
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It is just nonsense. If he calls him out on racism, xenophobia and fear-mongering he also would have to call out Cruz and Rubio (well strictly speaking he´d have to call out all GOP candidates including himself). The rest of his speech is just nonsense. No, Trump doesn't endanger American soldiers and he is also not empowering "the enemy". It is a typical political smear campaign run on the lowest possible level.
 
PedroMendez said:
It is just nonsense. If he calls him out on racism, xenophobia and fear-mongering he also would have to call out Cruz and Rubio (well strictly speaking he´d have to call out all GOP candidates including himself). The rest of his speech is just nonsense. No, Trump doesn't endanger American soldiers and he is also not empowering "the enemy". It is a typical political smear campaign run on the lowest possible level.
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Trump is the leader though - and its not just those things he needs to be called out on. Cruz and Rubio are speaking a normal language on those topics compared to Trump.
 
Of course he needs to be called out on all sorts of things. The whole party needs an intervention.....but I don´t respect someone for doing it selectively sole for political gain. He seems to get along with bigots and racists just fine, when their name isn´t Trump.
 
Just watching the State of the Union.
What's the etiquette/storr around standing ovations (and clapping in general). Sometimes everyone does, sometimes no one does, sometimes some stand...etc etc
 
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/01/16/1470707/-Robert-Reich-Responses-to-Bernie-Skeptics

Six Responses to Bernie Skeptics:

1. “He’d never beat Trump or Cruz in a general election.”

Wrong. According to the latest polls, Bernie is the strongest Democratic candidate in the general election, defeating both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in hypothetical matchups. (The latest Real Clear Politics averages of all polls shows Bernie beating Trump by a larger margin than Hillary beats Trump, and Bernie beating Cruz while Hillary loses to Cruz.)

2. “He couldn’t get any of his ideas implemented because Congress would reject them.”

If both house of Congress remain in Republican hands, no Democrat will be able to get much legislation through Congress, and will have to rely instead on executive orders and regulations. But there’s a higher likelihood of kicking Republicans out if Bernie’s “political revolution” continues to surge around America, bringing with it millions of young people and other voters, and keeping them politically engaged.

3. “America would never elect a socialist.”

P-l-e-a-s-e. America’s most successful and beloved government programs are social insurance – Social Security and Medicare. A highway is a shared social expenditure, as is the military and public parks and schools. The problem is we now have excessive socialism for the rich (bailouts of Wall Street, subsidies for Big Ag and Big Pharma, monopolization by cable companies and giant health insurers, giant tax-deductible CEO pay packages) – all of which Bernie wants to end or prevent.

4. “His single-payer healthcare proposal would cost so much it would require raising taxes on the middle class.”

This is a duplicitous argument. Single-payer systems in other rich nations have proven cheaper than private for-profit health insurers because they don’t spend huge sums on advertising, marketing, executive pay, and billing. So even if the Sanders single-payer plan did require some higher taxes, Americans would come out way ahead because they’d save far more than that on health insurance.

5. “His plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean colleges would run by government rules.”

Baloney. Three-quarters of college students today already attend public universities financed largely by state governments, and they’re not run by government rules. The real problem is too many young people still can’t afford a college education. The move toward free public higher education that began in the 1950s with the G.I. Bill and extended into the 1960s came to an abrupt stop in the 1980s. We must restart it.

6. “He’s too old.”

Untrue. He’s in great health. Have you seen how agile and forceful he is as he campaigns around the country? These days, 70s are the new 60s. (He’s younger than four of the nine Supreme Court justices.) In any event, the issue isn't age; it's having the right values. FDR was paralyzed and JFK had Crohn's disease, but they were great presidents because they stood forcefully for the right things.

What do you think?
 
The current polls against a hypothetical Republican bit is pretty pointless. The rest of the points are all wrong imo. He wouldn't be able to beat Trump or Cruz, none of his ideas would ever get implemented, America will never elect a Socialist, single payer health care will never get implemented due to Republican domination of Congress, his class warfare wall street tax to pay for college won't happen for the same reasons, and he is too old.
 
Raoul said:
The current polls against a hypothetical Republican bit is pretty pointless. The rest of the points are all wrong imo. He wouldn't be able to beat Trump or Cruz,
, and he is too old.
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See, I get that you can dismiss the polls, not just the nationwide ones but also the IA/NH H2Hs. That's ok. But how you can confidently predict the opposite of the polls, especially against the 2 candidates vs whom he has the biggest leads, I don't understand.

And the age argument was successfully used against mcCain but is now a liability for Rubio because of Obama's unpopularity (and thus the desire to distrust fresh-faced new-hope types)
 
berbatrick said:
See, I get that you can dismiss the polls, not just the nationwide ones but also the IA/NH H2Hs. That's ok. But how you can confidently predict the opposite of the polls, especially against the 2 candidates vs whom he has the biggest leads, I don't understand.

And the age argument was successfully used against mcCain but is now a liability for Rubio because of Obama's unpopularity (and thus the desire to distrust fresh-faced new-hope types)
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I have no idea what you're talking about. My point is simply that the demographics don't line up for Sanders to have a chance at winning. The Presidency is basically a competition at winning 7-10 swing states and he would lose most of them.
 
Raoul said:
I have no idea what you're talking about. My point is simply that the demographics don't line up for Sanders to have a chance at winning. The Presidency is basically a competition at winning 7-10 swing states and he would lose most of them.
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You didn't mention demographics. Anyway. which part of the Obama coalition do you think he would struggle to get? (given that the profiles of those currently voting for him in the primaries/caucuses- independents, liberals, young, male, educated, white*) is similar?

*the african american vote switched to Obama only after he won Iowa.

IMO more than his socialism his biggest weakness is his open endorsement of Black lives matter. It will alienate some white working class voters (pro-union) who should be his most loyal backers. On the other hand, the socialist label was thrown around so much at Obama it would lose a little of its potency if they re-use it for the 3rd time (IMO).
 
berbatrick said:
You didn't mention demographics. Anyway. which part of the Obama coalition do you think he would struggle to get? (given that the profiles of those currently voting for him in the primaries/caucuses- independents, liberals, young, male, educated, white*) is similar?

*the african american vote switched to Obama only after he won Iowa.

IMO more than his socialism his biggest weakness is his open endorsement of Black lives matter. It will alienate some white working class voters (pro-union) who should be his most loyal backers. On the other hand, the socialist label was thrown around so much at Obama it would lose a little of its potency if they re-use it for the 3rd time (IMO).
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Blacks and Hispanics, which alone would doom him. Black voters went to Obama for obvious reasons. If ageing Socialist, Atheist Jews were a prominent demographic then I'd reckon Bernie would be in like flynn.
 
Raoul said:
Blacks and Hispanics, which alone would doom him. Black voters went to Obama for obvious reasons. If ageing Socialist, Atheist Jews were a prominent demographic then I'd reckon Bernie would be in like flynn.
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But Hillary is not Black (or Hispanic) (and not as explicit a supporter of BLM), and yet you don't expect her to struggle (to get the same 90%+ black votes Obama got)?
I thought you could have pointed out women, and I would have conceded that point, but then I realised the opponent is Trump :lol:
I think that those votes are a lock for the Democrats, especially if Trump (or Cruz) is the opponent*. I'm not sure if minorities are enough to win swing states though.

Also, there is an irony in that the argument against Sanders now is that he won't be able to rally the base well enough, when the 1st criticism of him (from @Ubik I think) was that rallying the base is a pointless strategy.

*Rubio is another story.
 
berbatrick said:
But Hillary is not Black (or Hispanic) (and not as explicit a supporter of BLM), and yet you don't expect her to struggle (to get the same 90%+ black votes Obama got)?
I thought you could have pointed out women, and I would have conceded that point, but then I realised the opponent is Trump :lol:
I think that those votes are a lock for the Democrats, especially if Trump (or Cruz) is the opponent*. I'm not sure if minorities are enough to win swing states though.

Also, there is an irony in that the argument against Sanders now is that he won't be able to rally the base well enough, when the 1st criticism of him (from @Ubik I think) was that rallying the base is a pointless strategy.

*Rubio is another story.
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Hillary and Bill have an excellent track record courting the black vote. There's a reason why Bill was jokingly referred to as America's first black President. Sanders doesn't have any such support except a few random black politicians who may back him. It would be an uphill struggle for him to get enough blacks and hispanics, which is a massive chunk of the core Dem base.
 
There is also the senior votes. The Dems carried it in 92,96,00,04,08 but have lost it since. A socialist candidate can never touch it.

Obama can and will campaign for Sanders if he becomes the nominee, but for obvious reasons AA won't see him as one of their own the same way they see Obama or Bill (ironically). And the Clintons have a national network of support from prominent black leaders (pastors, businessmen, politicians) that can be counted on to turn out the votes.

Political revolution sounds nice, but by every measure or research, the American society is reliably centre-right. I'm skeptical that in a mere 9 months from Iowa they can be persuaded to shrug age-old prejudices to vote for a socialist.
 
Honestly, I'm a sceptic with respect to his chances, both in the primary and the general, but turning out enough black voters is the least of the problems for the Democratic nominee who marched with MLK, especially when up against an explicitly racist clown.

Yes, he will lose senior citizens (though he's currently targeting them with social security ads).
 
Not to mention the fact that there will be an insane amount of money spent to tear Sanders down if he won the nomination, mainly by people who think he would threaten financial markets and dismantle foreign policy.
 
Red Dreams said:
I have never caucused before. but I will this time...and vote for Sanders.
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I like this a lot about the American political system. The avenues for citizen participation, which is, at its heart, what democracy is about. So - while I have to respectfully disagree with many of your positions on here - fair play for standing up, getting involved, and walking the walk for what you believe in good sir.
 
Raoul said:
Not to mention the fact that there will be an insane amount of money spent to tear Sanders down if he won the nomination, mainly by people who think he would threaten financial markets and dismantle foreign policy.
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What is this FBI Investigation on her all about. Thought the emails issue was cleared up by that Congressional investigation.
 
An interesting read. Not sold on it yet but the author did raise a plausible point.

If I asked you what most defines Donald Trump supporters, what would you say? They’re white? They’re poor? They’re uneducated?

You’d be wrong.

Story Continued Below

In fact, I’ve found a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump—and it’s not race, income or education levels: It’s authoritarianism.

That’s right, Trump’s electoral strength—and his staying power—have been buoyed, above all, by Americans with authoritarian inclinations. And because of the prevalence of authoritarians in the American electorate, among Democrats as well as Republicans, it’s very possible that Trump’s fan base will continue to grow.

My finding is the result of a national poll I conducted in the last five days of December under the auspices of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, sampling 1,800 registered voters across the country and the political spectrum. Running a standard statistical analysis, I found that education, income, gender, age, ideology and religiosity had no significant bearing on a Republican voter’s preferred candidate. Only two of the variables I looked at were statistically significant: authoritarianism, followed by fear of terrorism, though the former was far more significant than the latter.

Authoritarianism is not a new, untested concept in the American electorate. Since the rise of Nazi Germany, it has been one of the most widely studied ideas in social science. While its causes are still debated, the political behavior of authoritarians is not. Authoritarians obey. They rally to and follow strong leaders. And they respond aggressively to outsiders, especially when they feel threatened. From pledging to “make America great again” by building a wall on the border to promising to close mosques and ban Muslims from visiting the United States, Trump is playing directly to authoritarian inclinations.

Not all authoritarians are Republicans by any means; in national surveys since 1992, many authoritarians have also self-identified as independents and Democrats. And in the 2008 Democratic primary, the political scientist Marc Hetherington found that authoritarianism mattered more than income, ideology, gender, age and education in predicting whether voters preferred Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. But Hetherington has also found, based on 14 years of polling, that authoritarians have steadily moved from the Democratic to the Republican Party over time. He hypothesizes that the trend began decades ago, as Democrats embraced civil rights, gay rights, employment protections and other political positions valuing freedom and equality. In my poll results, authoritarianism was not a statistically significant factor in the Democratic primary race, at least not so far, but it does appear to be playing an important role on the Republican side. Indeed, 49 percent of likely Republican primary voters I surveyed score in the top quarter of the authoritarian scale—more than twice as many as Democratic voters.

Political pollsters have missed this key component of Trump’s support because they simply don’t include questions about authoritarianism in their polls. In addition to the typical battery of demographic, horse race, thermometer-scale and policy questions, my poll asked a set of four simple survey questions that political scientists have employed since 1992 to measure inclination toward authoritarianism. These questions pertain to child-rearing: whether it is more important for the voter to have a child who is respectful or independent; obedient or self-reliant; well-behaved or considerate; and well-mannered or curious. Respondents who pick the first option in each of these questions are strongly authoritarian.

Based on these questions, Trump was the only candidate—Republican or Democrat—whose support among authoritarians was statistically significant.

So what does this mean for the election? It doesn’t just help us understand what motivates Trump’s backers—it suggests that his support isn’t capped. In a statistical analysis of the polling results, I found that Trump has alreadycaptured 43 percent of Republican primary voters who are strong authoritarians, and 37 percent of Republican authoritarians overall. A majority of Republican authoritarians in my poll also strongly supported Trump’s proposals to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, prohibit Muslims from entering the United States, shutter mosques and establish a nationwide database that track Muslims.

And in a general election, Trump’s strongman rhetoric will surely appeal to some of the 39 percent of independents in my poll who identify as authoritarians and the 17 percent of self-identified Democrats who are strong authoritarians.

What’s more, the number of Americans worried about the threat of terrorism is growing. In 2011, Hetherington published research finding that non-authoritarians respond to the perception of threat by behaving more like authoritarians. More fear and more threats—of the kind we’ve seen recently in the San Bernardino and Paris terrorist attacks—mean more voters are susceptible to Trump’s message about protecting Americans. In my survey, 52 percent of those voters expressing the most fear that another terrorist attack will occur in the United States in the next 12 months were non-authoritarians—ripe targets for Trump’s message.

Take activated authoritarians from across the partisan spectrum and the growing cadre of threatened non-authoritarians, then add them to the base of Republican general election voters, and the potential electoral path to a Trump presidency becomes clearer.

So, those who say a Trump presidency “can’t happen here” should check their conventional wisdom at the door. The candidate has confounded conventional expectations this primary season because those expectations are based on an oversimplified caricature of the electorate in general and his supporters in particular. Conditions are ripe for an authoritarian leader to emerge. Trump is seizing the opportunity. And the institutions—from the Republican Party to the press—that are supposed to guard against what James Madison called “the infection of violent passions” among the people have either been cowed by Trump’s bluster or are asleep on the job.

It is time for those who would appeal to our better angels to take his insurgency seriously and stop dismissing his supporters as a small band of the dispossessed. Trump support is firmly rooted in American authoritarianism and, once awakened, it is a force to be reckoned with. That means it’s also time for political pollsters to take authoritarianism seriously and begin measuring it in their polls.
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http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533
 
So its between Sanders and Clinton for the dems right? No one able to stand up to Trump on the republican side?
 
Member 5225 said:
Just watching the State of the Union.
What's the etiquette/storr around standing ovations (and clapping in general). Sometimes everyone does, sometimes no one does, sometimes some stand...etc etc
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When you see half of them standing then it's usually partisan politics at play. When the pres speaks about how great the military is, they all stand up, for obvious reasons.
When only a few stand it's cos he's hit on a point that resonates strongly with a small group, but not everyone's as excited about it.

It's the same at each SotU.
 
I'm not really clued up on the healthcare issue, can the US folks clarify the veracity of this piece?

Chelsea Clinton was Right: Everyone's Health Care is Threatened under Bernie's Plan
Recently, Chelsea Clinton got panned for saying that Bernie Sanders' health care plan - commonly heralded as 'Medicare for All' by the revolution-peddlers - would give Republican governors the opportunity to dismantle publicly funded health insurance for the poor and middle class, that is, Medicaid and the health insurance exchanges. Seems absurd to accuse a self-proclaimed socialist with a proclaimed demand for single-payer universal health insurance of trying to take away health care. Politifact rated Chelsea Clinton's claims 'mostly false.'

Politifact got it wrong. Bernie Sanders' plan does, in fact, allow for states to take away health care from the poor and middle-income, if not most everyone in a state. Although, that shouldn't be a surprise, given that Sanders' plan itself targets the economically disadvantaged for punishment. As Politifact notes, Sanders hasn't proposed a full health care plan for his presidential campaign, instead choosing to use a bill Sanders introduced in the Senate in 2013 without a single cosponsor, titled 'American Health Security Act of 2013' as the template.

Poltiifact notes it is in fact true that Sanders' plan repeals all health insurance funding from Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act Health Insurance exchanges. But he would channel the revenue instead to fund the single-payer system!

“The bill, the American Health Security Act of 2013, specifically strips insurance benefits from the Affordable Care Act, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Medicare and Medicaid. The bill also bans the sale of private health insurance that duplicates benefits provided by the government program. [...]

...but Sanders’ health care seeks to immediately replace all of these programs, as well as attempt to cover all those currently uninsured. That would be a federal-level change, rather than governors choosing to scrap those federal programs, and Sanders’ bill does make an effort to establish measures to circumvent the states that try to undermine the law.”
The problem is, what Sander's bill "seeks to" do and what it actually does are quite different. Since Politifact helpfully pointed us to Sanders' 2013 bill, I decided to read it. In short, it ends all funding to Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP an the ACA insurance provisions, directs it to this single-payer insurance program, raises additional revenue on the back of those who can least afford it, and charges states with the job of actually running it.

Each state, in theory, would have its own program that follows basic guidelines and the vast majority of the funding (80-90%) is provided by the federal government. Nonetheless, for states that refuse to run their own program, federal authorities - specifically, a Board - can do so instead. Sanders' bill would also ban the sale of private health insurance.

Still looking for the problem here, Spandan.

Here it is. Severability of enforcement of a law. In general, if courts find that one part of a law is unconstitutional or unenforceable, the rest of the law not affected by such ruling still remains in effect. Therefore, all that would be needed to dismantle all American health care - especially the public responsibility part of it - is for a single part, say, the the part that allows the federal authority to set up a state program if the state is responsible for even part of the funding to be struck down.

A state can easily submit a subpar plan, get rejected by the federal Board, in turn reject federal funding, sue the federal government for setting up a program and making it (the state) pay for it, and win. Sanders' bill requires that funding in no event be greater than 91% of expenses in a state (Sec. 604), and it requires that states pay for the expenditure that is above an estimate provided by the federal government, so that is not only a possibility, it is a likelihood.

Given the Supreme Court's decision to allow states to opt out of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion even though the federal government would cover 90% of the costs in perpetuity, courts would more than likely find that in fact, the federal government can't set up a program in a state if the state is at all responsible for the funding and refuses to accept it. Further, things don't even have to get to the Supreme Court. A single federal court - a single federal judge - can wreck havoc simply by refusing to stay their adverse decision as even temporary damage would be too large to repair.

If courts invalidate just that part of a hypothetical Sanders law, remember that the remainder of the bill would remain in effect. In other words, if the courts block a federal authority to set up a health insurance body in a state in which it is unwelcome, the defunding of Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, and ACA exchanges remain in full effect, leaving the residents of those states - including their elderly citizens - with only private insurance as an option for health coverage.

The other, though certainly not mutually exclusive, possibility is that courts strike down the ban on the sale of private insurance just because the government also provides certain benefits. If a ban on private insurance is struck down, there would be immediate appeals of those who wish to obtain private insurance that they not have to pay any of the costs associated with the public system, which the courts are also likely to grant. Because the relatively affluent are the most likely to take advantage of this "out", it would starve the entire public system of the additional revenue it needs to effectively fund a "Medicare for All" type system.

Which brings us to funding. Sanders' funding mechanism punishingly cruel to low-income workers, small businesses, and the self-employed. Sec. 811 imposes an additional 6.7% payroll tax on the employer side, which self-employed individuals also have to pay, and increases income taxes by an additional 2.2% on most everyone. This means that a self-employed income earner would pay 8.9-percentage point more in federal taxes (a self-employed individual making $50,000 a year would go from paying roughly 38% of their income in taxes, including payroll taxes, to paying almost 50% in federal taxes), the local bakery would have to pay 6.7% more in payroll taxes, and the mom working minimum wage at McDonald's would have to shell out an extra 2.2% of her income in taxes.

In effect, Sanders' bill makes health care more expensive for the most vulnerable. People who are eligible for Medicaid now at no cost and no premiums would have to pay money they cannot afford out of their paychecks. Struggling new small business owners that can now rely on the Affordable Care Act health insurance exchanges for insurance for themselves and their employees would have to find additional money to pay for the hightened payroll tax (any guesses to where they would find this)?

To add insult to injury, Sanders' plan imposes no additional burden on large corporations, and only nominal extra taxes on the incredibly wealthy.

We already knew that Sanders' world is one of fantasy. Now we know his fantasy includes financially torturing low and moderate income Americans.

Chelsea Clinton was right. Even residents of the Sanders fantasy world cannot discount that this dream law of theirs would not be allowed to stand without lawsuits and all it would take for the entire public health care system to unravel is one single part of one single lawsuit to be successful the way the Medicaid expansion was stifled. In the case of the ACA, the states that rejected the Medicaid expansion only stripped its potential beneficiaries of health care, but a similar lawsuit success for a hypothetical Sanders law, at a minimum, would dismantle all public funding of health care in a given state as the sections stripping funding from the current system is allowed to stand.
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http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/...-health-care-is-threatened-under-bernies-plan
 
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