2020 Presidential Election

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TheInsider
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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by TheInsider » Wed Feb 26, 2020 12:17 pm

DEM wrote: Tue Feb 25, 2020 2:59 pm Insider, I'm not really sure what military budgets have to do with this discussion of healthcare costs, except that it probably does produce many more people with PTSD and other battlefield related ailments that drive up the financial expenditures, whatever the healthcare system is (that said, since you are concerned about government spending, I'll agree that yes we should cut military spending since ours is extremely wasteful). Other countries manage to put together a single payer system not because of anything to do with military budgets but because it is a relatively straightforward issue for them and they do not have to fight with powerful special interest groups to make it so.

With regard to medicare for all, I've seen estimates that it would cost somewhat less than our current healthcare system, others that it would cost marginally more. But in my opinion, even if it's the latter, as long as we are finding money to pay for tax cuts for the rich and endless wars, we should also be finding the money so people don't have to go bankrupt because they got cancer.
My point with the military spending is we spend the $$ so other countries don't have to. How do you think other NATO countries and allies would react if we said "hey we are cutting our military budget, and oh yeah, you know the money we send you every year to help pay for you military, yeah that's going away too" Do you think those countries would still have the $$ to spend on their healthcare programs? Imagine if Canada had to actually be prepared to defend themselves? What if they had to spend an extra 100 billion?? Look, I agree we could trim the fat on the military and maybe not keep sending money to other countries. But then you get called a nationalist. A few years ago we flew into Norway for a NATO exercise. Every NATO country is required to contribute a certain amount to it. They don't. Like always we pick up the slack and pick up the tab. The other issue I see with some of Bernie's proposals is what do you think the super rich and companies will do when the get hit with these tax's?? Do you think they are just going to take it in the shorts or will they say "I here Vancouver is a great city to live in". And when they do bail, who do you think makes up the shortfalls.. we do.. Oh and good luck telling the Umass professor making 250k a year they are taking a massive pay cut because public college is free.

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MJatUM
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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by MJatUM » Wed Feb 26, 2020 2:40 pm

e_parade wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2020 11:03 am
MJatUM wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2020 10:41 am I have choice. Either my companies plan (read: garbage) or my wife's companies plan (read: better).
Not trying to offend people here, but in my head here I just heard Trump (but insert any person you'd like if they've been married multiple times) say: "if you want better healthcare then get a better wife!"
No offense taken, it was meant as a zinger/sarcastic retort.

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DEM
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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by DEM » Wed Feb 26, 2020 3:17 pm

TheInsider wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2020 12:17 pm Look, I agree we could trim the fat on the military and maybe not keep sending money to other countries. But then you get called a nationalist.
Special interests will try to label and smear anybody who threatens their interest. But if it's the right thing to do, it's the right thing to do.
TheInsider wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2020 12:17 pm
My point with the military spending is we spend the $$ so other countries don't have to. How do you think other NATO countries and allies would react if we said "hey we are cutting our military budget, and oh yeah, you know the money we send you every year to help pay for you military, yeah that's going away too" Do you think those countries would still have the $$ to spend on their healthcare programs? Imagine if Canada had to actually be prepared to defend themselves? What if they had to spend an extra 100 billion??
I'll say again, I don't agree with this connection you are making with health care and military budgets. But even so, let's consider what you are arguing about this being a zero sum game between how much we spend on military versus healthcare. Basically, you are implying that, because we are spending for other countries' military "protection" and they don't have to, they can guarantee healthcare to all their citizens and we can't. How absurd does that sound? If that is true, it's time to rethink our priorities.

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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by McKinney » Thu Feb 27, 2020 1:30 am

TheInsider wrote: Tue Feb 25, 2020 7:02 am Here's my thing on healthcare. we are in an age of electronic billing, electronic records, and direct online portals to your doctors. Now take a look at a company like Aetna... In 2017 they had almost 50k employees. So you go to the doctor.. the doc electronically sends a bill to Aetna.. Aetna electronically pays said bill (if they don't fight you about it first). Aetna also electronically manages your profile and care. Outside of a robust IT department, what the fuck do they need 50k employees for??? You want to cut costs??? there you go
The insurance companies will tell you a large part of their services is pricing negotiation. That they earn their cut by providing pricing efficiencies with their supply chain and network management. As far as I'm aware, not only do they use medicare pricing as a low-end benchmark... it's a benchmark they regularly fall short of. For example, the Congressional Budget Office pointed out that "commercial rates for inpatient services were 89 percent higher than Medicare’s FFS rates". https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52819

Hospitals will tell you their costs are incurred on their highly educated payroll (payroll is about 54% of operating revenue). Doctors still make a lot of money all around the developed world, but the US is on another level. I'm sure there are many reasons for this. But not the least is an average physician's $200k medical school debt.

Insurance companies will also tell you that their actuaries effectively pool risk. I just don't see how that can be the case when we have so many insured people who get kicked out of the pool and forced to declare bankruptcy.
SignMan wrote: Tue Feb 25, 2020 4:56 pm My bottom line has always been that the problem is specifically the cost of coverage (co-pays/deductibles/max benies, et al)
The delivery system in the U.S. is the best.
Those who would undermine the delivery by defeating it with government control are very sick puppies...
Best by what measure?

To humor the argument, why not supplemental insurance and/or private specialists for those who can afford such luxuries? Sure a Koenigsegg is perhaps the best car in the world, but most people can't bite the $2M bullet. A Toyota gets you from Point A to Point B just as well.
SignMan wrote: Tue Feb 25, 2020 4:56 pm Here's something else health care related to learn about...

Epic
https://www.epic.com/
incredible private company, located in the bedroom community of Verona WI, near Madison...
Last time I checked, roughly 11,000 employees, coincidentally the size of their largest auditorium, located in the customer center, a five story building which goes down below ground, with the third floor called Middle Earth.

I you are ever in the area, pay it a visit. Truly an amazing campus, with much of the design work led by a former Disney theme park design dude.

They primarily serve the U.S., but have gone overseas to at least the Scandinavian countries (3 of 4 to date) with their national health plans...do keep in mind that small countries like them can be managed much easier than our relative mega expanse.
Excuse my totally unrelated comment. I don't know much about Epic and not to talk shit on them, but they have a proprietary programming language that was a real pain to briefly learn and use in their coding interviews.
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SignMan
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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by SignMan » Thu Feb 27, 2020 1:33 pm

^Yup...

They give a coding quiz/test on the 1st interview...
Typical candidates are recent college grads who majored in Computer Science or Math.

They expect a good coding result from the CS majors; not as much expected from the Math majors.

When daughter #2 interviewed there, her only (1) job interview 6+ years ago, she told me parts of the interview were weird.
A math major with Honors, interviewed senior year during winter break, they were curious how she did so well on the coding...like where did she learn it...
Response was ... "on my own."

The Epic training program, to be completed before moving forward, is known to be the best out there.

RE: the Campus...
not just the Disney-like atmosphere...

Place is off the grid/self sustaining.
I assume solar, wind, etc.

Organic farming in season with output available in the cafes...

Campus acreage for grazing lands for local farmers...

Auto services there for employees...

Lots of work hours expected.

The young employees typically live in Madison, where there is a housing building boom due much to Epic.
The angle of incidence = the angle of reflection: REBOUND!

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Quann
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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by Quann » Thu Feb 27, 2020 6:56 pm

As a small business owner, the current healthcare system absolutely stinks. If we are talking a government takeover of guaranteed healthcare , the least wasteful way to do it is to let each state run its own system. Then have a small department in the federal government oversee the implementation of the system across the country. You’re asking for trouble if you guarantee healthcare and have it run at the national level. It won’t work, our country is too large to expect otherwise.

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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by TheInsider » Fri Mar 06, 2020 7:52 am

DEM wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2020 3:17 pm
TheInsider wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2020 12:17 pm Look, I agree we could trim the fat on the military and maybe not keep sending money to other countries. But then you get called a nationalist.
Special interests will try to label and smear anybody who threatens their interest. But if it's the right thing to do, it's the right thing to do.
TheInsider wrote: Wed Feb 26, 2020 12:17 pm
My point with the military spending is we spend the $$ so other countries don't have to. How do you think other NATO countries and allies would react if we said "hey we are cutting our military budget, and oh yeah, you know the money we send you every year to help pay for you military, yeah that's going away too" Do you think those countries would still have the $$ to spend on their healthcare programs? Imagine if Canada had to actually be prepared to defend themselves? What if they had to spend an extra 100 billion??
I'll say again, I don't agree with this connection you are making with health care and military budgets. But even so, let's consider what you are arguing about this being a zero sum game between how much we spend on military versus healthcare. Basically, you are implying that, because we are spending for other countries' military "protection" and they don't have to, they can guarantee healthcare to all their citizens and we can't. How absurd does that sound? If that is true, it's time to rethink our priorities.
Its what happens. Now I know there isn't a direct dollar for dollar spent comparison. Canada spends about $242B on healthcare while spending $21B on the military. Imagine if they had to spend another 20 or 30 billion on the Military. Where does some of that $$ come from? We also contribute over 22% of the NATO budget. Under NATO countries are required to spend 2% GDP on military. In 2017 only 5 of the 22 countries met the 2% requirement. Canada was at 1.02%. So essentially they would have to double their military spending just to live up to NATO. They don't, and other countries don't either because we just do it. People freaked out when Trump called out NATO for not paying their fair share. Well all the people that freaked really have no idea what's going on. In the end I guess my point is for most countries to live up to the NATO agreement they would have to take the money from somewhere. 100% agree we need to rethink

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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by McKinney » Fri Mar 06, 2020 11:04 am

TheInsider wrote: Fri Mar 06, 2020 7:52 am Its what happens. Now I know there isn't a direct dollar for dollar spent comparison. Canada spends about $242B on healthcare while spending $21B on the military.
Why would we need to take away money from the military in order to pay for healthcare? The US may not have universal healthcare, but we still pay $3.6 trillion for healthcare every year (2018). https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics ... Historical

The question is not how we fit healthcare into the existing budget. Rather it's, do we take what we would have spent in the private system and give that $3.6T to the government to manage.
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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by TheInsider » Fri Mar 06, 2020 12:35 pm

Not saying we have to. The original discussion was comparing us to countries that have healthcare. The point is they can funnel more money towards healthcare and away from their own militaries without asking their citizens for more $$ because we foot the bill.

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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by MJatUM » Fri Mar 06, 2020 12:40 pm

Why don't we let a state like California or New York do it, iron out the kinks and then present it nationally. I think "affordable" health care (and education and child care) are important issues but I have negative confidence in the government, especially on a national scale, effectively administering these policies.

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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by inthescoop » Fri Mar 06, 2020 1:12 pm

DEM wrote: Thu Feb 20, 2020 12:13 am 100 percent agree that, as it stands, Trump will be tough to beat. Like Quann said, it's not necessarily about Trump, it's about his being an incumbent presiding over a "good economy" - historically, that's a difficult match, regardless of who the challenger is. Trump was much more beatable in 2016, but the democrats went with the wrong candidate, both based on hypothetical polls and the anti-establishment sentiment that was apparent to anybody paying attention. In my opinion, just like in 2016, their best chance this time around will be with Bernie, if he can overcome the corporate "stop Bernie" democratic party insiders this time.
See this is absolutely BS. Because the 1 thing Trump had going for him was a steady economy, now recently, the economy has been tanking due to coronavirus and Trump supporters will still stand by Trump no matter what - It is a Trump thing.

Also, age is not an excuse to allow you to say whatever you want with no filter, gtfo outta here with that Quann.

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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by e_parade » Fri Mar 06, 2020 1:13 pm

MJatUM wrote: Fri Mar 06, 2020 12:40 pm Why don't we let a state like California or New York do it, iron out the kinks and then present it nationally. I think "affordable" health care (and education and child care) are important issues but I have negative confidence in the government, especially on a national scale, effectively administering these policies.
Having it run on a state by state basis would result in more administrative burden. Much more in fact. Additionally it would very likely require that local providers and doctors still opt in to accepting it as a form of accepted healthcare payment, meaning that outside of the state that implements it, it might not be accepted. That would result in the need to keep private insurance around simply so people could cross state lines, or potentially even go to specific hospitals and doctors in their own states.

Additional, a reason healthcare costs so much today is the lack of being able to negotiate prices easily. Because there are so many different providers with different number of people on them, they can't just give a blanket "you need to be at this cost point" since doing that could result in reduced services a healthcare plan could provide, meaning fewer people would sign up for it and they'd make less money. Other countries get the same medicines and services provided for a lower cost in part because a nationally run health service can negotiate as a block on behalf of entire countries rather than a much smaller potential customer base that fluctuates over time.

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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by Quann » Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:06 pm

Most of these European countries have populations comparable to states in the US. This is why they are able to have universal healthcare and have it be run relatively well. I don’t trust the federal government here to administer a program like that to 350 million people.

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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by TheInsider » Sat Mar 07, 2020 12:15 pm

^^^ yup somehow people think because a tiny country in Europe can do it so can we! Most of those countries policies would never survive if they had basically open immigration like us

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Re: 2020 Presidential Election

Post by DEM » Sat Mar 07, 2020 12:53 pm

inthescoop wrote: Fri Mar 06, 2020 1:12 pm
DEM wrote: Thu Feb 20, 2020 12:13 am 100 percent agree that, as it stands, Trump will be tough to beat. Like Quann said, it's not necessarily about Trump, it's about his being an incumbent presiding over a "good economy" - historically, that's a difficult match, regardless of who the challenger is. Trump was much more beatable in 2016, but the democrats went with the wrong candidate, both based on hypothetical polls and the anti-establishment sentiment that was apparent to anybody paying attention. In my opinion, just like in 2016, their best chance this time around will be with Bernie, if he can overcome the corporate "stop Bernie" democratic party insiders this time.
See this is absolutely BS. Because the 1 thing Trump had going for him was a steady economy, now recently, the economy has been tanking due to coronavirus and Trump supporters will still stand by Trump no matter what - It is a Trump thing.

Also, age is not an excuse to allow you to say whatever you want with no filter, gtfo outta here with that Quann.
What's BS? You're right that Trump has a fervent base, but that's a strength not a weakness. And yes, you are also correct that a lot of what happens will hinge on perceptions of how well the economy is doing - that's the one thing I can see weakening Trump going into reelection. Either way, incumbents are historically tough to beat, that's just a fact. I'm old enough to remember how beatable people thought GW was going into reelection in 2004. He still won. If there's anything to be taken from that election (and 2016 as well), it's that nominating a "safe" milquetoast centrist (especially one with a many issues as Biden has) is probably also a safe way for democrats to lose to Trump again.

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