2020 US Elections | Biden certified as President | Dems control Congress

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niMic said:
So because it's not great or even good, it's fundamentally the same as something objectively worse? You also appeal to emotions in your first sentence, but that argument can be just as well made for the people who would have been better off without Trump actively drying to dismantle ACA.
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I didn't say is was the same. I said it's bad, and particularly bad for the people the democratic party should be courting in elections. Why should someone who will die because of the ACA and wider American healthcare system care enough to save it?

niMic said:
This is nonsense. Again, Clinton may not have been great for the environmental cause, but Trump is actively detrimental to it.
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The United States and it's political and economic system is actively detrimental to the environment. Any politician who would continue this is not going to save us. Obama still goes around boasting about his oil production. These people are not good, their empty gestures aren't worth oxygen used to utter them.
 
Silva said:
This would have made no difference to the people who are being left in the streets to die because EMT think they don't look like they can afford an ambulance. Anyone who opposes single payer healthcare has no place making moral appeals on healthcare.

This makes her worse. If you believe we're in the middle of a catastrophic climate change event and your solution is to tell people to recycle more you can feck off.
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I'm not defending the ACA, or arguing that it wasn't harmful to plenty of people, I'm arguing that it was clearly better than having literally nothing at all by stripping all provisions instead, which Trump proposed to do. I'm not sure how that's in any way disputable.

Similarly I didn't say she was particularly good on the environment - but someone who takes moderate action (even if we need more) is better than someone who literally doesn't believe in it and will do all he can to fight back against renewables and who's got a fetish for coal.
 
Cheesy said:
I'm not defending the ACA, or arguing that it wasn't harmful to plenty of people, I'm arguing that it was clearly better than having literally nothing at all by stripping all provisions instead, which Trump proposed to do. I'm not sure how that's in any way disputable.

Similarly I didn't say she was particularly good on the environment - but someone who takes moderate action (even if we need more) is better than someone who literally doesn't believe in it and will do all he can to fight back against renewables and who's got a fetish for coal.
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But it's not better for millions of Americans. Under the ACA people are still dying because of lack of healthcare. What difference does it make to these people if the ACA goes away? They'll still die. Great, the people who it works for might vote to save it, but there's millions of Americans who will hear "This is a good system, let's save it", look at their empty insulin packets and wonder why they should vote at all. Because all they're hearing is "die you poor cnut", but at least one side is being honest about wanting them to die.
 
Basically, if you don't get everything you want, you'd rather settle for nothing than some part of it? :confused:
 
Silva said:
But it's not better for millions of Americans. Under the ACA people are still dying because of lack of healthcare. What difference does it make to these people if the ACA goes away? They'll still die. Great, the people who it works for might vote to save it, but there's millions of Americans who will hear "This is a good system, let's save it", look at their empty insulin packets and wonder why they should vote at all. What they're hearing is, "die you poor cnut"
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And I'm not saying it is. But clearly it's better to have something in place which isn't great as opposed to something which is even more destructive than that. And taking away the ACA without any hint of a replacement would've fecked over millions more ordinary working people in addition to those who were already struggling with it, who would've still been fecked under Trump.
 
Cheesy said:
And I'm not saying it is. But clearly it's better to have something in place which isn't great as opposed to something which is even more destructive than that. And taking away the ACA without any hint of a replacement would've fecked over millions more ordinary working people in addition to those who were already struggling with it, who would've still been fecked under Trump.
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Let's say I'm one of the people who will die under the ACA because I can't afford to spend 20 grand a year on insulin. Are you honestly going to show up to my door and tell me I should vote to save the ACA? Why should I? I'm going to fecking die, all these "it could be systemically worse", despite being true, are meaningless to me. I'm going to die, and I'm not hearing "you'll die sooner" I'm hearing "I will not save you". I have zero incentive to vote at all, I don't have any incentive to vote for the lesser evil, I have no dog in this fight, my only fight is wondering which missed dose is the one that kills me.

"Well, why don't you vote to help the people who rely on the ACA?"

"Why don't they vote to save me? If they're unwilling, so am I"
 
"Both are worse"


If Bernie wins in 2020 then clearly the best option was Clinton not winning in 2016(People forget she would have been in office for a possible 8 years). There really isn't time to feck around with ''centrist'' politics. I mean christ even James Corden of all people know this




Silva said:
Let's say I'm one of the people who will die under the ACA because I can't afford to spend 20 grand a year on insulin. Are you honestly going to show up to my door and tell me I should vote to save the ACA? Why should I? I'm going to fecking die, all these "it could be systemically worse", despite being true, are meaningless to me. I'm going to die, and I'm not hearing "you'll die sooner" I'm hearing "I will not save you"
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:rolleyes:

Well Dear Sir..........intersectionality. Now don't you feel pretty bad.
 
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Red Dreams said:
You forgot GA and NC.
Not a given GOP win there.

You win elections by running on issues that matter.
Health Care, Minimum Wage and Education.
Not the same ol middle of the road nonsense.
Pelosi has to listen to the members and what they want.
The democratic party is moving left even if the Corporations want things their own way.
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Perdue is way up in the polls in Georgia. Tillis' seat may be in play, but its a long shot.
On the Democratic side, Virginia & Michigan can fall on the Republican side.
It's a very tough map. The chances of getting a majority are slim.
You win elections on emotions and perception. Issues do matter, but they are not the be all end all. Not everyone is as engaged in politics. Most people are trying to earn a living and enjoying time with their families and friends.
I was recently having a chat with a buddy who came down from the bay area. Someone you would categorize in the liberal category; a solid dem vote. His words, "I wish Joe Biden would run".
The gun-totting progressive push is more on the social media sphere with the extremely online community. Rest of the country, especially in the middle, is not so hot on it.
It's take times to change things. Impatience and petulance is not the way to change.
Democratic party is moving left, but not as far you seem to think.
Another 4 years of this nonsense because some imbeciles believe that a protest vote or no vote "will show them" is going to be disastrous.
The Repubs have given up on democracy as they know the demographics and the numbers do not favor them in the long term.
They'll do everything in their power to wrest control with a minority.
The courts and the institutions would be damaged beyond repair.
The country needs a democratic president to win in 2020.
 
Perdue is up in the polls against whom?
Wait for the Democratic primaries.
NC is moving left.
MI and VA will be safe. They are blue states.

2020. Trump has given the Dems a gift. wanting the gut the ACA and replace it with...what?
2020 will be about health care.. again and Climate change...Oh yes the Tax cuts that only helped the the Super Rich.
Hate is a dead end street. It goes only so far. In the end it is about the pocket book.

The so called Centrist candidates. They are really Corporate Candidates.
Biden is a hollow candidate. He has nothing to offer.

And this rising star Pete Butt...whatever.
yes. he has a personal story to tell. Good for him. he does nothing for people who need change...Now.

Beto is a wannabe Robert Kennedy, except he is unfit to clean the great man's shoes.

Harris ticks all the boxes.
Woman
Black
Asian.

Except she does nothing for any of those groups. She will be found out in the debates.

And the rest...wont waste my time.

You are sadly not seeing the forest for the trees. What you call the protest vote is really a rejection of the lies of the Democratic party.
They lied to blue color voters and pushed them into the arms of a racist like Trump.

To be pragmatic, The Democrats can win in the current atmosphere with a half decent candidate.
But it will not help ordinary Americans.
Biden is the worst of the lot I named above.
 
To follow onto the discussion from yesterday, Hillary Clinton isnt actually opposed to family separation.

18:55



"One of the worst things this administration has done is to separate those children and have no system that actually would tell you where they are."

If you think this is an uncharitable reading, she goes on to say

"I would go to the big tech companies and say 'okay you've got 15 days, give me a system so I can keep track of everybody'".

So the Democratic candidates plan was Still Separate Families, But Give Each Member A Facebook Page And A QR Code Tattoo.
 
Some of the talk about ACA here is very hyperbolic. It is true that Obama/Congress changed it about so that it would not harm insurance companies and it also led to increase in premium for some people. But it also increased the number of insured people in US and several states (Republicans ones as well such as Mass, Ohio) expanded Medicaid (zero dollar insurance plans for low income folks) under ACA.
 
crappycraperson said:
Some of the talk about ACA here is very hyperbolic. It is true that Obama/Congress changed it about so that it would not harm insurance companies and it also led to increase in premium for some people. But it also increased the number of insured people in US and several states (Republicans ones as well such as Mass, Ohio) expanded Medicaid (zero dollar insurance plans for low income folks) under ACA.
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Expanding Medicaid is good but it was trumpeted as something would stop the rising healthcare costs and it completely failed.







Eboue said:
Logged on to look at the health insurance options for 2019 on the marketplace. Here are the silver plans for 1 non smoker in their 20s in good health:

$358 premium, $4000 deductible
$428 premium, $5700 deductible
$444 premium, $3000 deductible
$447 premium, $7900 deductible
$448 premium, $3300 deductible
$495 premium, $650 deductible


here are the catastrophic plans which cover practically nothing

$251 premium, $7900 deductible
$314 premium, $7900 deductible




this is absolutely insane
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That's per month. Those plans are unusable and incredibly expensive.
 
Eboue said:
Expanding Medicaid is good but it was trumpeted as something would stop the rising healthcare costs and it completely failed.










That's per month. Those plans are unusable and incredibly expensive.
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It is debatable if it was a net bad or good law. Like I said it most definitely did lead to increase in premium of some people. But there is no way to know how much premium would have increased anyway in absence of any such law passed. The health costs and resultant premiums were spiralling even before ACA came into place, it just did not do anything to stop the same. Politically Dems/Obama did not have the spine to pass anything that insurance industry was against hence the cost of getting more people insured, expanding medicaid for poor people most definitely led to premium increase for some folks.

If Fed Govt wanted it could subsidise the same by changing brackets for APTC calculation for health plans. Some states like Massachusetts fix prices of certain health plan for people with slightly higher income than those who outright qualify for Medicaid plan, any difference is covered by state subsidy.

Anyway, my simple point is that the plan did help some people. You can could infact argue that it helped the poorest even if it did not help middle class/lower middle class. If you did a full repeal ACA and took away federal funds committed for Medicaid expansion under the same, a lot of people would suffer.

This does not mean that current or next Govt/President should enact new law to improve or completely replace ACA, be that may Medicare for all. I wrote that post because some of the content around ACA seemed to be similar to Fox new hysteria.
 
Eboue said:
That's per month. Those plans are unusable and incredibly expensive.
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Per month? Holy shit. I was wondering, but concluded that it couldn't possibly be monthly. I just checked, and the current deductible ceiling (meaning if you spend more than this you won't have to pay any more) for most medical services in Norway for 2019 is $279. That's for a year.

(It's a little bit more complicated, but not very).

I don't understand how Americans tolerate this situation. It's not that every system needs to be like the Norwegian one, or Britain's NHS, or whatever, but the US system is so blatantly broken. The most wealthy and powerful country in the world, and sometimes it's like a 3rd world country.
 
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"If we spend all of our time attacking Trump, Democrats are going to lose. Our job is to lay out a vision that makes sense to the working families of this country" - Bernie
 
I saw about half of it, he was very good especially on healthcare where they probed him a lot. I'll be confident if this Bernie ever has to confront Trump.
 
This should be interesting... a proud and openly gay man running for US President. What could go wrong?
 
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