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4th Democrat Party debate 1/17/16

Absentglare said:
All major republican candidates favor amnesty.

Obamacare has slowed the pace of healthcare cost growth.

Opioids account for 55% of all overdoses in the US- obviously meth and cocaine combined are dwarfed by that clear majority.

The pharmaceutical industry has been found CRIMINALLY LIABLE for lying to doctors so as to inflate prescription of oxycontin. Hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties were levied as well as prison time. Raising taxes in order to unburden employers of healthcare costs is a fair trade and will end up lowering overall costs. Margaret Thatcher did not understand socialism.

Economic growth is slow when the poor people are priced out of the articles of production. As European countries have found, paying for college educations pays for itself in terms of future tax revenue.

Bernie's ideas on wall street reform are endorsed by major economists. Corrupt campaign financing is a serious problem and a threat to our sovereignty as a government by the people for the people. Political scientists consider that we have a "civil oligarchy" already and these campaign finance laws have compounded the problems since then.
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What about Trump and Cruz???

I believe Margaret Thatcher did understand socialism. Who's going to pay for ALL this 'Free' College? Someone does, e.g. the American taxpayer.


5% is barely the majority, the Street Drugs are still a big problem in our Cities, and so is Political Corruption.
 
Crusdr57 said:
What about Trump and Cruz???

I believe Margaret Thatcher did understand socialism. Who's going to pay for ALL this 'Free' College? Someone does, e.g. the American taxpayer.


5% is barely the majority, the Street Drugs are still a big problem in our Cities, and so is Political Corruption.
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Trump has definitely been pro-amnesty.

Cruz has tried to say he's the only one who isn't in favor of amnesty, but he's also flip flopped on that a bit.

Americans are already paying for all American healthcare and educational expenses. The only difference is that the government doing it guarantees access for all Americans in order to secure shared prosperity.

55%, not 5%.
 
SocialD said:
The problem is the government option isn't appealing to anyone who isn't already subsidized. For me the government option ( the rock bottom bronze plan )would be about 75% more expensive than insurance through my work. and it would have a significantly higher deductible making it virtually not worth using. The government option would also be about 15-20% higher than a private insurance plan I purchased on my own. and again would still have a higher deductible.
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There is no public option; it was never implemented.
 
Greenbeard said:
Pre-ACA, Medicaid was always a categorical eligibility program. If you didn't fit into one of the designated buckets (say, if you're a childless adult), in most states you couldn't enroll no matter how low your income. The ACA effectively made it a universal program, though since the SCOTUS noted--probably rightly--that this is a fundamentally different program than Medicaid has ever been, states have to choose to opt into it.

And even folks who fit into a designated category still faced stringent income and asset limits. E.g., in Louisiana, which will expand Medicaid this year, the income eligibility limit for an parent is 11% of the poverty level if she's not working, 24% of the poverty level if she is. An adult without children couldn't enroll period. Now everyone below 138% of the poverty level will be able to enroll. That's a big difference and a major expansion.



The public option had to be self-sustaining on premium revenue. Just like the co-ops must (or any insurer, for that matter). There's no reason to believe the start-up funding for local public options and risk corridor payments wouldn't have been undercut by a GOP Congress. In other words, the same that has actually happened. In which case the public option would've run into the same capital reserve problems that are hurting the co-ops and the right would be gleefully declaring that experiment a failure.

The value of the public option would've been to offer another competitor in counties where the number of insurers is still limited (it wouldn't be some massively different option, the benefit structures and premiums it offered would be comparable to what's already on the market). But that's what the co-ops were supposed to achieve, too. The reason they didn't is because Congress intervened. Which also would've happened if the law had included public options instead of co-ops. We'd be in the same boat we're in today.
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Thanks for the detailed reply.

You explain your position well, including the political realities.

All the above is why I'd prefer to just chuck the ACA, and go single-payer/private provider.
 
Chomsky said:
There is no public option; it was never implemented.
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I guess you didn't get what I said. YOu said a public option would flourish like the government option has. and I am saying the government option hasn't flourished.
 
SocialD said:
I guess you didn't get what I said. YOu said a public option would flourish like the government option has. and I am saying the government option hasn't flourished.
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There is no "government" option.

They're all private plans.

The "public" option never made it to the light of day! :doh
 
Chomsky said:
There is no "government" option.

They're all private plans.

The "public" option never made it to the light of day! :doh
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So what exactly were you talking about when you said "I don't see the Public Option failing, but rather flourishing in relation to private insurance, similar to the way the vast majority of Medicare clients take the government option"

notice you said medicare clients take the government option.
 
SocialD said:
So what exactly were you talking about when you said "I don't see the Public Option failing, but rather flourishing in relation to private insurance, similar to the way the vast majority of Medicare clients take the government option"

notice you said medicare clients take the government option.
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Ah, I see where the confusion is.

I was comparing the ACA public option to the Medicare basic government plan (the non 'advantage' plan).

The only point I was making is most Medicare recipients (I recall ~80%) use the government program, whereas the remaining use the 'advantage' program option which is the private insurer route.

So I was using this 80/20 ratio to suppose the same would occur if the ACA had the public-option; that is: the vast majority would pick the public option rather than the for-profit insurer's plans.

Sorry for any confusion.
 
Chomsky said:
Ah, I see where the confusion is.

I was comparing the ACA public option to the Medicare basic government plan (the non 'advantage' plan).

The only point I was making is most Medicare recipients (I recall ~80%) use the government program, whereas the remaining use the 'advantage' program option which is the private insurer route.

So I was using this 80/20 ratio to suppose the same would occur if the ACA had the public-option; that is: the vast majority would pick the public option rather than the for-profit insurer's plans.

Sorry for any confusion.
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Ok well that makes that a lot clearer. Still drawing any conclusions from a subsidized plants are sketchy. Traditional Medicare ( what you mentioned by government option ) is about 2/3 of enrollees vs about 1/3 in medicare advantage.
The reason is advantage is an add on to medicare B. you still have to pay your traditional medicare premiums and the advantage adds on stuff like vision and dental etc.. Otherwise your option is to to add Medicare D if you want prescription coverage or not. and just out of pocket other things.
advantages are not subsidized, traditional medicare is, so its pretty hard to say what people would do. and it would be pretty hard to figure out what the funding would have to be to pay for a single payer plan. I'm open to the idea, but very skeptical it would work in this country.
 
Absentglare said:
Trump has definitely been pro-amnesty.

Cruz has tried to say he's the only one who isn't in favor of amnesty, but he's also flip flopped on that a bit.

Americans are already paying for all American healthcare and educational expenses. The only difference is that the government doing it guarantees access for all Americans in order to secure shared prosperity.

55%, not 5%.
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AFAIK, Trump is against Amnesty, but I've never heard him say for sure either way. He is for building a wall.

The Govt. says they guarantee access, but what about the 29 million uninsured in this country? What about the poor and unemployed ppl who can't afford to even get Med. Insurance?

Yes 55%, it was a typo.
 
Chomsky said:
All the above is why I'd prefer to just chuck the ACA, and go single-payer/private provider.
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I suspect that an American version of single-payer would not really look like what it sounds.

I suspect it would look like Medicare Advantage and/or Medicaid managed care. It would be administered by competing, risk-bearing private insurance companies with policy direction (and perhaps some sort of provider price setting--hard to say) provided by the federal government. The evolution of our existing single-payer programs has obviously been in that direction and the trend has only accelerated in recent years.

The merits of single-payer are debatable, but in practice I don't think ridding the world of private insurers would be one of them.
 
Greenbeard said:
I suspect that an American version of single-payer would not really look like what it sounds.

I suspect it would look like Medicare Advantage and/or Medicaid managed care. It would be administered by competing, risk-bearing private insurance companies with policy direction (and perhaps some sort of provider price setting--hard to say) provided by the federal government. The evolution of our existing single-payer programs has obviously been in that direction and the trend has only accelerated in recent years.

The merits of single-payer are debatable, but in practice I don't think ridding the world of private insurers would be one of them.
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I think you make a reasonable argument here, and you might be right.

But I really dislike the idea of having an additional profiteering layer between the provider and the care, and I'm not sold on the profiteering organization improving cost or efficiency.

I would definitely not want to disturb the private provider aspect of our current system though. A VA type system does not appeal to me.
 
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