President Bernie Sanders

[s0me0nesmind1]

This is absolutely not accurate. As late as May 2016 Lindsay Graham was proclaiming that Trump would destroy the Republican Party. He wasn't alone.

And since then he bent over and said "Please sir may I have another?"

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Democrats won House because they won affluent suburban districts that used to lean Republican. Those people are doing well, have decent insurance they might want to keep, and don't want a Socialist coming in and ruining their stock returns and forcing them into Medicare. If Bernie is the nominee, say good bye to gains of 2018 and then some.

While everywhere is different I live in a small city that meets your description.
Appears most are fired up about Buttigieg or Bernie, Warren is waning.
Zero excitement for Joe, zero excitement for Bloomberg.
Deplorable’s are still fired up about Trump.
Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong. I do think AT P&N hyper analyzes these things.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I'll vote for him over Trump, but he'll lose and lose the House because he's the one dividing Democrats.

What do you think people like the squad represent?

He's right there with AoC and the others - sounds like he is the change people want to see while the old establishments like Pelosi (that have done zero REAL notable things in the last 30+ years they have been involved in government) are dragging their feet.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

None of this addresses why business appear to prefer dealing with healthcare vs letting the State run with it.
Regarding new tax, why is that the business owners fault and what happened to the money the employee currently pays in healthcare?
Plus nobody is going to explain it they will just use the assumably new tax tables.
Last part you are right, dropping healthcare costs would need explaining but I’ve always assumed what’s being paid now would be more or less the new tax amount. Maybe a small business would save some money and start paying new hires more. That is always a tricky subject but it isn’t something that goes on for years.

I'm saying that the businesses don't want the politics of potentially pissing off a ton of their employees by forced change.

They are all about damage control.

 

[K1052]

And since then he bent over and said "Please sir may I have another?"

My point is the party eventually coalesced around him but later than you suggest and certainly not without a LOT of acrimony.

 

[K1052]

I'm saying that the businesses don't want the politics of potentially pissing off a ton of their employees by forced change.

They are all about damage control.

From personal experience those same employers won't hesitate to switch carriers and make people change their care providers because they no longer have access to a particular network.

Employers force change all the time.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

What do you think people like the squad represent?

He's right there with AoC and the others - sounds like he is the change people want to see while the old establishments like Pelosi (that have done zero REAL notable things in the last 30+ years they have been involved in government) are dragging their feet.

Other than talking about stuff I don’t think the “Squad” has accomplished anything.
I can’t think of one super big accomplishment of any Politician post ACA/Obama care.

 

[TheVrolok]

Other than talking about stuff I don’t think the “Squad” has accomplished anything.
I can’t think of one super big accomplishment of any Politician post ACA/Obama care.

I mean, Trump's tax cuts are a relatively big accomplishment. It was a horrible thing, but it's a thing.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Other than talking about stuff I don’t think the “Squad” has accomplished anything.
I can’t think of one super big accomplishment of any Politician post ACA/Obama care.

(I completely agree along with Bernie who has done nothing in his 30 years either)....

Regardless, I still stand by my point that those are the types that people seem to be voting for at this point.




.... B-B-b-b-b-but mah Green New Deal 2 pager! I WORK SO HARD!

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I mean, Trump's tax cuts are a relatively big accomplishment. It was a horrible thing, but it's a thing.

Were they? Beyond my deplorable friends who make unrealistic claims of tax savings I’ve yet to hear anyone mention them.

 

[TheVrolok]

Were they? Beyond my deplorable friends who make unrealistic claims of tax savings I’ve yet to hear anyone mention them.

Oh I'm not saying they helped the middle class for which they were reportedly meant to do, I similarly haven't heard anyone mention anything about them aside from the usual conservative bullshitters here who claim big savings.

However, I do consider ballooning the deficit and subsequently debt for no significant economic gain of significance.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Oh I'm not saying they helped the middle class for which they were reportedly meant to do, I similarly haven't heard anyone mention anything about them aside from the usual conservative bullshitters here who claim big savings.

However, I do consider ballooning the deficit and subsequently debt for no significant economic gain of significance.

yeah we are qualifying big differently. I’m saying big as in people talk about it good or bad or accomplished some large goal.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I would say Bloomberg fora Sanders VP, but Bloomberg has too much baggage.

Ugh, Boomerberg being on the Democratic ticket is suicide. And the thought of having a Republican casting the deciding vote on a 50-50 senate reconciliation vote is nauseating.

 

[Dulanic]

You not being affected doesn't mean others weren't. Lucky for you your employer was kind enough to eat the increased costs. Either way lots of working American's got fucked. If you can't acknowledge the fact that many businesses had to drop healthcare or raise premiums significantly then you are not dealing in truths.

So I threw this together from https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statis...s-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData and exported data....



I'm having trouble showing where ACA caused the spike.... looks like it has slowed significantly in the 2010's? Obama had the lowest % YoY increase of ANY president since 1960. Again, show me how this is all the fault of the ACA? If anything, it looks like it slowed or stayed consistent since ACA.

 

[fskimospy]

This is personal experience. Not hearsay. Job I was at healthcare costs went up about 10% for me. I was young and cost was based on age. The older guys on the other hand were forced to pay about 4x or 5x the cost. Was job searching a year or so after and many places that I applied to either couldn't offer insurance (when they could in the past) or it was so high that it didn't make sense to even have it. In that case you were forced to pay a fine to the IRS because you weren't covered. It was around $150 to $200 a month if I remember correctly. A lot of guys would just pay the fine at the end of the year because it was significantly cheaper than the new premiums.

1) IRC125 health insurance deductions do not permit differential premium charges based on age so either your previous job had some really weird insurance thing going on or you’re full of shit.

2) Health care inflation was much lower after the ACA was passed than before it.

 

[fskimospy]

What do you think people like the squad represent?

He's right there with AoC and the others - sounds like he is the change people want to see while the old establishments like Pelosi (that have done zero REAL notable things in the last 30+ years they have been involved in government) are dragging their feet.

While Pelosi was speaker she passed the largest expansion of the social safety net in our lifetimes as well as the most sweeping financial regulations, both incredible accomplishments. Were you asleep for 2009 and 2010 or something?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

So I threw this together from https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statis...s-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData and exported data....

View attachment 17452

I'm having trouble showing where ACA caused the spike.... looks like it has slowed significantly in the 2010's? Obama had the lowest % YoY increase of ANY president since 1960. Again, show me how this is all the fault of the ACA? If anything, it looks like it slowed or stayed consistent since ACA.

See, all things being equal, I'd be the first to provide a caveat to my own argument that my sample of health-insured citizens is limited in size and at least possibly biased:

-- Seniors over 60 -- in my social circle
-- sample size of 10
-- all observations for people in the same state and city
-- private secondary insurance providers are for risk pools of people who have been public employees at one or another level of government

But, you see, my conclusions are similar to those from your time-series of large aggregates, collected and tallied with scientific rigor.

There's not much attention paid among pundits or politicians to efficiency among and incorporating various risk pools. The entire logic of any sort of insurance is based on pooled risk. In the pool, insured policy-holders subsidize each other, and there are cross-generational subsidies originating from a distribution in the likelihood of claims.

the American system requires a plurality of risk pools -- the very reason "pre-existing conditions" and other cohorts are left out or find themselves uninsured. The fewer the number of risk pools and therefore the larger their average size, the more efficient the insurance system. This logic is as irrefutable as the notion of economies of scale in a range of examples -- some involving choices of public versus private provision of anything from sewage disposal or electric power production.

So in the limit, a comprehensive single-payer or universal health insurance system is more efficient for everyone, because it has the largest and essentially a single risk pool. As for "organizational efficiency", you won't find any difference between the performance of actuaries and other administrative personnel in government versus private insurers. In fact, the system would save tons of money by eliminating duplication -- which is as much to say an example of scale economies.

 

[TheVrolok]

1) IRC125 health insurance deductions do not permit differential premium charges based on age so either your previous job had some really weird insurance thing going on or you’re full of shit.

2) Health care inflation was much lower after the ACA was passed than before it.

This is the guy who said "it isn't hearsay" and then proceeded to tell us what the "older guys" told him. So I'm going with "full of shit." Probably ignorantly, though, he doesn't actually know what he's talking about and never bothered to learn.

 

[zinfamous]

Seeing how badly Obamacare fucked up medical for the whole country....

It didn't, though.

or at least, define what you mean by "fucked up medical" and "the whole country."


....
...as for "Education being an investment in oneself"

what about the industries that absolutely require a highly educated workforce? You're basically saying that we should refuse to compete with countries that are sending well-educated workers that didn't have to pay for their educations, because we are somehow special in the US for some...social reasoning that you are unlikely to provide.

what you want is a fantasy labor model that doesn't really exist as much as it used to in the modern world, especially in the US, to pre-determine our education needs for the future workforce, and absolutely insure that such future workers will be unqualified for those jobs that the industry needs (so, logically, absolutely not only an "individual's need"), and be unemployable...because you determined that they remain wholly un-competitive to the international labor force. ...and restricting VISAs for highly educated workers (absolutely what the GOP is arguing for) doesn't work, either, because those industries just leave.

it's all conservative delusion, predicated by the unassailable fact that conservatives irrationally want to enforce social and political laws onto a world that absolutely does not exist, and never will exist again. That, in a nutshell, is the GOP condition: delude the people into believing that the world 100 years ago is still alive and well, and force them to adopt policies and laws that forever entrap them in a death spiral of irrelevance...all because a dozen or so wealthy industrialists need to insure that their temporary, useless wealth and power is all that matters for the future of a country.

the larger point--why can't Industry that requires such a workforce (probably more than the ignorant people that refuse to understand that truth) take (some/all) responsibility in funding the creation of that workforce?

 

[zinfamous]

You not being affected doesn't mean others weren't.

ah, there it is! So you have a weird understanding of "the whole country" and don't seem to care if, democracy being democracy, it's all a numbers game. ...did the demographics regarding better vs worse outcomes shift? (and is that actually informative of how different interest groups perceive these results)? or simple, is it actually better for more people than it was before, just that some that experienced worse outcomes are now more vocal? ....that's certainly understandable. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. There will always be unhappy people.

 

[hal2kilo]

It didn't, though.

or at least, define what you mean by "fucked up medical" and "the whole country."

Don't you remember. Until I retired, I had to hold on to a piece of paper at the end of the year that said I was covered under a qualified plan, it was horrible.

 

[brycejones]

This is the guy who said "it isn't hearsay" and then proceeded to tell us what the "older guys" told him. So I'm going with "full of shit." Probably ignorantly, though, he doesn't actually know what he's talking about and never bothered to learn.

I wouldn't be shocked if he worked at a company that used the "but Obama Care" excuse to shift more costs onto their employees and plow the difference into earnings.

 

[TheVrolok]

I wouldn't be shocked if he worked at a company that used the "but Obama Care" excuse to shift more costs onto their employees and plow the difference into earnings.

That's my guess, as I said most recently, he's probably just ignorant and never bothered to actually educate himself.

 

[Dulanic]

I wouldn't be shocked if he worked at a company that used the "but Obama Care" excuse to shift more costs onto their employees and plow the difference into earnings.

My wife's company did that, and when she called out how costs were rising slower than in the previous 5 years, they just mumbled and ignored it. She's on mine now, which I'm sure makes her company happy.

 

[compuwiz1]

Folks who vote for Sanders because they believe any of the things he's promising will ever come to pass, probably believe in rainbow colored Unicorns, Big Foot and Snipe hunting. He'll never get all that free stuff passed in congress. I would consider his presidency relatively benign. BUT...if I am wrong, this would be the angle of the dangle:

Bernie claims he's gonna make the rich and the corporations pay the biggest load. Well, guess what those rich and corporations will do? Leave the USA. Once they leave the USA,
where does the money come from? Yous is where. How much tax can you bear? 50% 60% 70% 80%, before your quality of life, as you knew it, goes to shit?

Some will argue that even if Bernie doesn't win, he will have started a movement and eventually we'll get there. Yeah, I have bowel movements too. It's alarming to me, that so many people have given up on themselves, that they expect the government to support them and vote for such policies. It's ridiculous. Grow up!

Fortunately, I was taught at a young age that if I don't GO, I don't GET. I have lived my life accordingly and when the chips are down, I blame only one person...me. Being a victim and pointing fingers isn't cool. Safety nets should exist, but only for people who temporarily, or permanently have no other options. Just because someone feels entitled to not have to produce for themselves, that does not constitute everyone else having to pay for it.

The government is not an endless stream of money, especially when the load of the takers outweighs the makers. The bottom line is you can't always get what you want. Sorry.