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Comment count is 20
Anaxagoras - 2017-07-28

OMG! John McCain EVISCERATED the Republicans!!!!!


Nominal - 2017-07-28

Click here!


Maggot Brain - 2017-07-28

Casted in the name of God; GUILTY!


Nominal - 2017-07-28

Poor Mitch.


Hazelnut - 2017-07-29

And well done John! Senator McCain just redeemed his soul with that vote. Until now he talked big and voted weak; now, whether the surgery gave him some perspective or he just realised the country needed him, he fucking STOOD UP.

Feels good.


Raggamuffin - 2017-07-28

The thing I hate the most is how craven the republicans are on Obamacare, which is engineered to be as bipartisan as a universal healthcare plan can possibly be. If McCain had become president instead of Obama, and passed an identical law, they'd be touting it around for 100 years as the greatest republican accomplishment since Lincoln freed the slaves. Only instead of calling it McCainCare, they'd call it "Support our Troops FLAG Freedom Real America Care."


Old_Zircon - 2017-07-28

Obamacare is literally a watered down version of Romneycare.


Raggamuffin - 2017-07-28

right, that was the whole idea. Romney was a republican in a blue state. Romneycare achieved universal health care (ostensibly a Democrat ideal) using Republican means (markets and exchanges). That's why it was chosen as the model. The only place I disagree with you is on "watered down." I'd call Obamacare an "enhanced" version of Romneycare.


Bort - 2017-07-28

Romneycare was what a Democrat-heavy legislature in Massachusetts was able to pass, and Romney then signed into law.

Obamacare is far better than the Left acknowledges, and far better than they deserve.


Old_Zircon - 2017-07-28

Patient Protection half was definitely an improvement and is by far the best aspects of Obamacare, Affordable Care half is more debatable. I know plenty of people in the 25k-30k income range who could afford insurance under Romneycare but could no longer afford it when it went up to $300-$400 a month after Obamacare.


Old_Zircon - 2017-07-28

And I know more than one of those people ended up voting for Jill Stein out of frustration over Clinton's refusal to acknowledge that Obamacare was hurting them.

For me it was an improvement because my income is low enough I qualify for Medicaid now, and under Romneycare I was paying close to $100/month. But for people with lower-middle-class incomes it's more ambiguous. I also know people in that income range whose premiums almost doubled in RI under Obamacare relative to the private insurance they had before. Last summer a could friend of mine developed a pretty bad chest infection that took months to clear up because he couldn't afford to get it treated and generally can't afford routine preventative care anymore, because again his premiums would be over $300 a month with a $1000 copay under Obamacare and that is simply not possible on $24k a year.


But the patient protection stuff is huge and it was definitely better than nothing overall, as long as you're not in the forgotten class that neither party gives a shit about.


Bort - 2017-07-28

The next step is to do something about medical COSTS, which are 50% more than in Canada and 100% more than in most of Europe. The ACA fixed what it could, now it's time to take the fight to where it needs to be fought.

Doesn't matter how efficient your coverage is, if medical providers are turning in bloated bills, coverage is going to be expensive. That's why even single payer keeps coming up unaffordable, as it did in Vermont and Colorado, and it looks to in New York and California.


Old_Zircon - 2017-07-28

And the way to bring those bills down is a true single payer system. That said, the ACA didn't do even close to what it could have.


Bort - 2017-07-29

No, single payer isn't magic. Single payer can control how much the hospital gets paid, but single payer can't change the fact that the hospital has its own bills to pay.

Look, if single payer could bring our prices down to levels consistent with Europe or even Canada, why is it that all the single payer proposals to date are clocking in as unaffordably expensive?

You people bought into the myth of single payer so fervently -- and blindly -- it's nearly impossible now to redirect the focus where it needs to be: controlling medical costs directly. I'm sure I linked to this a million times last year, do you think you might finally get around to reading it?

https://www.vox.com/2014/12/22/7427117/single-payer-vermont-sh umlin

Medical COSTS. It's not Obamacare that made coverage expensive for some of the people in your world; it's our uncontrolled medical COSTS.


Old_Zircon - 2017-07-29

No it's not magic, it is basic economics. Like, the most basic economics. If you don't understand why a single buyer that is not operating for profit is an effective method for price control then there's no explaining it to you.


Bort - 2017-07-29

Okay genius, then once again, please explain to me why ever single payer proposal they're coming up with is still going to cost an arm and a leg. Do you think there's a real, secret, lower price to single payer that they're just not revealing?

You observe that single payer is good at price controls, and that is true. But there are two ways that doesn't help us:

1) Single payer may be able to help keep prices from creeping upward, but cutting them by a third or a half is a different and much more complicated process.

2) And no, you don't get there just by paying hospitals half of what they're asking for. Hospitals have bills to pay too, as they are part of a chain of for-profit entities on the provider side. If your Very Well Thought-Out Plan is just to pay hospitals significantly less, they're going to have to make drastic cuts that are very very likely to cut into the quality of patient care. I could have sworn patient care was the ultimate goal, remember that? Remember when single payer was intended as a means for better patient care and not a goal unto itself?

You are maybe only 60% as smart as you think you are on this topic: smart enough to feel informed, not really smart enough to address the complexities.


Old_Zircon - 2017-07-31

Simply impossible. Can't be done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_universal _health_care#/media/File:Universal_health_care.svg


Bort - 2017-09-05

I am saying there are issues we need to solve before single payer can be implemented in the US, and your rebuttal is a map of the world that shows places where single payer has been implemented. Good God, man, aren't you the tiniest bit disappointed in the quality of your response? Wouldn't you think of worse of someone who tried that line of "argument" on you?

Let me quote from that Vox article you've apparently never read:

"About half of countries who attempt to build single-payer systems fail. That’s Harvard health economist William Hsiao’s estimate after working with about 10 governments in the past two decades. Whether he is in Taiwan, Cyprus, or Vermont, the process is roughly the same: meet with legislators, draw up a plan, write legislation. Only half of those bills actually become law. The part where it collapses is, inevitably, when the country has to pay for it."

Well would you look at that: single payer often runs into trouble when you have to fund it. Which is what happened in Vermont, and looks ready to happen in any other state we try.

O_Z, I know you're not stupid, but you make the arguments of the median fucking retard I could find over at Salon. Step up your game.


Mr. Purple Cat Esq. - 2017-07-28

People Who Liked This Video Also Liked: How to POOP & SHOWER Living in a Van


blue vein steel - 2017-07-28

only 3300 views? Nice find!


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